A Little Learning

by Evelyn Waugh

A Little Learning The author's childhood was warm, bright and serene. The Hampstead and Lancing schooldays which followed were sometimes agreeable, but often not. His life at Oxford - which he evokes in Brideshead Revisited - was essentially a catalogue of friendship. This title presents a portrait of his recollection of those hedonistic days. Full description

Genres: Biography, Memoir, Nonfiction, Autobiography, 20th Century, British Literature, Literature

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1964

About the author

Evelyn Waugh's father Arthur was a noted editor and publisher. His only sibling Alec also became a writer of note. In fact, his book “The Loom of Youth” (1917) a novel about his old boarding school Sherborne caused Evelyn to be expelled from there and placed at Lancing College. He said of his time there, “…the whole of English education when I was brought up was to produce prose writers; it was all we were taught, really.” He went on to Hertford College, Oxford, where he read History. When asked if he took up any sports there he quipped, “I drank for Hertford.”

In 1924 Waugh left Oxford without taking his degree. After inglorious stints as a school teacher (he was dismissed for trying to seduce a school matron and/or inebriation), an apprentice cabinet maker and journalist, he wrote and had published his first novel, “Decline and Fall” in 1928.

In 1928 he married Evelyn Gardiner. She proved unfaithful, and the marriage ended in divorce in 1930. Waugh would derive parts of “A Handful of Dust” from this unhappy time. His second marriage to Audrey Herbert lasted the rest of his life and begat seven children. It was during this time that he converted to Catholicism.

During the thirties Waugh produced one gem after another. From this decade come: “Vile Bodies” (1930), “Black Mischief” (1932), the incomparable “A Handful of Dust” (1934) and “Scoop” (1938). After the Second World War he published what is for many his masterpiece, “Brideshead Revisited,” in which his Catholicism took centre stage. “The Loved One” a scathing satire of the American death industry followed in 1947. After publishing his “Sword of Honour Trilogy” about his experiences in World War II - “Men at Arms” (1952), “Officers and Gentlemen” (1955), “Unconditional Surrender" (1961) - his career was seen to be on the wane. In fact, “Basil Seal Rides Again” (1963) - his last published novel - received little critical or commercial attention.

Evelyn Waugh, considered by many to be the greatest satirical novelist of his day, died on 10 April 1966 at the age of 62.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evelyn_W...

Reviews

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Evelyn Waugh never completed his autobiography, unfortunately. This volume takes us through his first job after college, where on the last page, his attempt at suicide is thwarted by discovering jellyfish in the seawater, so of course he can't stay in. This dark humor and self-deprecation runs through his fond and wry narrative of his early years.

We meet many of the archetypes in his books, naturally, from his youth and education; much of his college experience is repeated with little change in Brideshead Revisited, and it is very easy to pick out many of his literary characters from the living people.

But the chronicle isn't the treat here-- it's his writing. Waugh's command of the language is unparalleled. If you want to be a better reader and a better writer, read all of Waugh you can find. My only regret at finishing this book is that there is no more; I would love to have read the rest of his own story, but suspect he left it to his biographers instead, since much of it was painful. This reads as well as his fiction and is well worth exploring.

[Persephone Abbott · Rating 3 out of 5]

In my apartment I display books here and there scattered in nooks and crannies, about a hundred or so at a time. Anyone who wanders in will assume that these are my cherished possessions, but, in fact, most are not. The books on view are for the greater part volumes I have not yet read. Waugh’s autobiography winked at me from a shelf for about a year, and looking at it from time to time my appetite grew so that I launched myself into the battered almost shredded (had a moth gotten at it or a rainy day at on a platform waiting for a computer train?) second hand copy expecting to encounter much mirth and delight. Delight was not immediately present. How incredibly dull for such a brilliant author, I thought, turning the pages. No, yes, no yes, yes….I suspect that Waugh did not know quite what he was willing to reveal and what to present, but at the end I must admit he executed the exercise quite well. Ah, I thought closing the book, therein lies the wincing autopsy, edited obituary and gentle burial of youth.

[Mark Nenadov · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first and only volume of an unfinished autobiography. It masterfully covers Waugh's youth, including his genealogy, parent's life, early upbringing, school boy days, days at Oxford, and his working life as a young adult. While it isn't a book I'd re-read, it was a pleasure to read and I'm glad I read it. On rare occasions, it got slightly tedious, but there were quite a few excellent nuggets to make up for that.

[Martin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh. Once is enough indeed! What was I expecting? Something in the same vein as his novels? At first I was like, 'Oh, too bad he never finished his autobiobraphy', but in the end, well, I'm glad this is all there is to it. It was interesting to get an insight into the author's early life (and also to learn about English schooling back then), but absolutely none of this was essential reading. For Waugh completists only.

[David]

Interesting to see so many of Anthony Powell’s contemporaries from eyes other than Powell’s. Waugh retains his bitter, ironic humour. Not, on the whole, a personality I would embrace. Still, no doubting his intelligence.

[Berit · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. I love Waugh's leisurely, dry-humored, very British (to me) way of writing. His earnest recollections of his youth and adolescence in a boarding school and at Oxford, respectively, are interspersed with comments such as these:

"My predecessor in the office, Loveday, had left the university suddenly to study black magic. He died in mysterious circumstances at Cefalu in Alistair Crowley's community and his widow, calling herself 'Tiger Woman' figured for some time in the popular Press, here she made 'disclosures' of the goings-on at Cefalu" (181).

What? He mentions anecdotes like these so casually that you can't help but laugh, whether he intended them to have that effect or not.

The first chapter was a little slow for my tastes, as was the second half of the Oxford chapter: in both cases, the narrative started to look more like an enumeration of family members and acquaintances than an actual account of his life during that time (hence the 3.5 stars instead of 4).

I did really, really love the childhood and boarding school chapters, though. The way he described his summer visits to his "maiden aunts" as a child, in this old, stuffed-to-the-brim house filled with Victoriana and surrounded by meadows was so evocative, I just wanted to go there. The same holds true for his early-childhood school experiences, first with his nanny at home, then at a day school, and finally at Lancing. I loved all of it.

What was surprising (to me, at least) was Waugh's matter-of-fact treatment of gay men in his circle (he never judges them, even though this part of his autobiography spans 1903-1926, which is pretty awesome) and the casual way he hints at (and at one time even explicitly addresses) sexual harassment and abuse my school masters. Really, really, really unbelievable. I wonder if, when this autobiography came out (in the 1960s), that was ever addressed - I hope it was.

Overall, I really enjoyed reading this. Anything set in Edwardian England I usually love, but I Waugh's writing really makes the era come to live.

[Franc · Rating 3 out of 5]

Waugh was among the most autobiographical of novelists, so any memoir is bound to feel redundant, even to him. In 1963 while working on this book Waugh wrote to a friend:

“The trouble is that I am (genuinely) not interested in myself & that while my friends are alive I can’t write candidly about them.”

This explains much of what feels lacking in the published work. To another friend he wrote that he’d been contacting:

“various men who were at school with me and asking whether they object to revelations of their delinquencies. I think it may have caused a seasonable chill in some reformed breasts. There is a pompous ass called Hot-lunch Molson who I don’t suppose you ever met. I have a full diary of his iniquities in 1921–2. Perhaps he will fly the country.”

This mischievous fun, “a dangerous thing,” is missing from “A Little Learning.” Waugh’s book is instead charming and self-deprecating and rich with architecturally beautiful sentences composed by a master at the top of his form. Readers wishing to improve the purity and euphony of their own sentences would do well to read slowly with pencil in hand.

Readers wishing to spend more time with Waugh, with his wit and flaws in full, would do better to read the private Waugh in his shaggier letters and diaries instead of this kempt memoir.

[Sherwood Smith]

I don't know why Waugh never finished this--I strongly suspect he came up against the reality of his intense gay romances, and couldn't slide over the surface, yet of course couldn't talk about them. Anyway, for sheer beauty, the prose when he describes the various places of learning and what they meant to him are some of his very best.

[William · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book passed with such pleasant tranquility through my mind that it left behind almost no residue of afterthought. Consequently, I have little to say in its favour. Anthony Powell called Waugh 'superlatively gifted,' Clive James said that 'nobody ever wrote a more unaffectedly elegant English.' He remains popular now. Twice have I received appreciative comments from booksellers upon presenting copies of his works for purchase. One was an elderly Australian man who nodded with approval at Black Mischief, telling me it was 'very funny.' The other was a young Swedish girl who had 'loved' Waugh in Abyssinia.

My favourite sections were his portrait of his father, one of a dying breed of 'men of letters' who despaired of the scientific and technical volumes his publishing house sold, as well as the description of his brief foray into teaching, familiar as the raw material later worked into Decline and Fall (still for my money the best and funniest of his early novels).

It is a pity he was unable to continue this series: unlike many writers Waugh lived a life of great interest, even divorced of its artistic achievements, and he comes across here, as in other people's writings, as a character in his own right.

[Charles Walton · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Little Learning, Evelyn Waugh. Penguin Modern Classics 2010.

This is the author’s unfinished autobiography, which I completed in one enjoyable sitting beside a hotel fire.

There isn’t really much gossip here, or anything to tease the curiosity of die-hard Waugh fans, but its biggest characteristic is the usual effortlessly elegant prose, a sort of combination of humour, melancholy, indignation and arrogance.

His childhood was an idyllic one in a rural Hampstead for which he mourns. He has a real, humane eye that is quite surprising towards the sevants and various helping hands alongside whom he grew up, and various now-forgotten but once prominent Edwardian figures feature prominently, not least his publisher father, whom he remembers as having a diction second only to John Gielgud in the enunciation of English literature, which thus became for the young Evelyn a pure joy rather than a mere school subject.

It finishes pretty abruptly, and one wonders what might have become of it had more of his life been covered, it finishing with his education.

The book is not Waugh at his best, but has a few interesting tidbits for those fascinated by what made him the way he was.

[Colin · Rating 2 out of 5]

You really have to like Evelyn Waugh to like this book. Written partly from his diaries and published shortly before his death, this is Waugh's version of Churchill's My Early Life. There is a lot of interesting material about his childhood and especially his father. The author is frank about his childhood, school days and the rather dissolute life he appears to have led at Oxford before his early working career. Waugh captured much of this in his early novels such as Decline and Fall. I was interested to see how the elder Waugh reflected on his terrible treatment of his Oxford tutor, Charles Cruttwell. There is very little acceptance of the damage inflicted on this troubled man. Hence only two stars from me.

[Cat · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. I love the way Waugh writes. So comfortably English in the way that we English can at times be; uncomfortable. The ability Waugh has that allows the reader to understand where he is, how he feels and how everyone and every thing around him stands is truly remarkable. I enjoyed this autobiography. I also feel that much was left out, but a worthy read if you like to know of the worlds from which these great authors came.

[Colin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Notable mostly for the quality of writing he brings to all his work, this incomplete autobiography is inessential to anyone except devout Waugh readers, anyone with a fascination about upper-middle class English life in the early part of the 20th century, or those who fetishize public school and Oxbridge life. There are some wonderful anecdotes throughout, but don't bother unless you fit into one of the above categories.

[Godfrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oxford of the 1920s' proximity to the Oxford of the 1890s after World War One reversion enables concious re-enactment of decadence.

[Debbie Young · Rating 4 out of 5]

Evelyn Waugh is one of my favourite authors, so I am keen to read everything he has written, and only discovered this recently. particularly interesting to see the influence of his own formative years over his novels "Decline and Fall" and "Brideshead Revisited", and always a joy to read his measured prose.

[Susanne Clower · Rating 3 out of 5]

I probably would have liked this more if I understood more of his references, but it was engaging enough that now I want to read a full biography. It's too bad he never finished the autobiography. It's also astonishing (to my 2016 American brain) how casually child abuse and child sexual abuse was regarded in his time/culture.

[Sevim Tezel Aydın · Rating 3 out of 5]

Evelyn Waugh is one of my favourite authors. I eagerly started his autobiography, which covers his childhood and youth. But I found it a bit dull. Still, it was fair enough for providing an insight into the people and conditions that brought him up.

[Smiley · Rating 2 out of 5]

I fairly enjoyed reading this memoir since, of course, there were related characters and episodes he had to describe. I think his readers can learn and know a lot of figurative words, for instance, nagging debts, Asiatics abounded, frustrated pugnacity, etc.



My Former Review:
When I first saw the book title, it reminded me of a quote by Alexander Pope, "A little learning is a dangerous thing," and I still think this is a wise one worth reflecting and thus keeping in mind to be aware of our own learning. In other words, what should we do to avoid such complacent learning leading to vanity?

I think this memoir by Evelyn Waugh is as interesting as his short stories and his novels I read some years ago. In fact, I've longed to read it since I enjoyed reading them all. Moreover, I wondered how he could write so fantastic, hilarious that I couldn't help smiling & laughing. Therefore, I'm sure I should learn something from his memoir.

[Jan Frederik Solem · Rating 5 out of 5]

This delightful autobiographical account of his youth, ending with Evelyn Waugh walking off after not drowning himself after all - turning back after being stung by a jellyfish - should probably be read *before* Paula Byrne's biography "Mad World". Much background to "Brideshead revisited" of course, in his own - surprisingly candid as well as witty - words. Although only mentioned in passing, I didn't know that Waugh counted G. K. Chesterton and Graham Greene among his friends. Given recent highly publicized and litigated scandals involving some Catholic priests' unchaste involvement with young boys, the last chapter - with the story of 'Grimes' - is an eye-opener regarding serial predators being passed on silently (to avoid scandal) in British schools almost a hundred years ago. Published in 1964, it would be interesting to know whether these revelations were at all remarked on in the British press at the time.

[Tracy · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you're into Waugh enough to want to read about his life, you'll enjoy this. He brings his characteristic wit and irony to the narration, especially in his masterful depiction of the various characters in his life, but he seems only tepidly enthusiastic about the project (which went unfinished) and it's nowhere near as much fun as his novels.

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this autobiography without having read in Waugh fiction. I tremendously enjoyed it. Why this is not more highly recommended reading, I do not know. I went to Evelyn Waugh's house in Oxford, essentially only because I was there and knew his name from a joke in the movie "Lost in Translation". If that's all you know, read this book!

[Mk100 · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you're a Waugh fan, this is a real tgreat. His acerbic wit and close eye for foibles, including his own, are present throughout the book. And it is very apparent that Waugh did much more than a little learning during his youth.

[Gordon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would definately recommend this to all Waugh fans.
Don't be put off by chapter one, it goes through his family tree, and although some may have enjoyed it, I found it one of the most boring things I've ever read. The rest of the book is splendid though, so I forgive him.

[Gerard de Bruin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such a pity he never finished a real biography

[Jack · Rating 3 out of 5]

V. V. posh. Interesting in chunks but too many dated character references for moi. Funny how much carousing was had in Oxford. Very disturbing bit of pedophilia in the final pages left a sour taste.