Karl’s Reviews > The Life of Evelyn Waugh > Status Update

Helena and after.

This just draws me on and on; fascinating for its illumination of Waugh's life, of his social context (this is the fullest depiction I've read yet of life in England through the first half of the 20th century), as well as the insightful and sympathetic reading of the novels.

Brideshead Revisited … astonished at how richly Patey illuminates this book, which I've read so many times & love so well.

WWII . . . this book just waxes better and better.

Newly wed, and going on (wonderfully) about architecture: "The Philistine Age of English Decoration."

Fascinating run-in with a certain English Catholic periodical; toothsome discussion of Handful of Dust; and now, Edmund Campion.

Waugh in Abyssinia (and beyond). I've known of this sojourn of his, a long time. Nice actually to learn something of it.

Just finished a chapter pregnantly reviewing Decline and Fall & Vile Bodies. I'm glad that I chanced to have read Fathers and Sons first, as this bio now serves to.m depict more richly a life already presented to me in broad outline.

Journey's just begun, but even these first few pages have been crackling for me.