Comments on: Misreading Waugh (As Usual)

By: Helian

Helian — Thu, 01 Jul 2004 14:58:22 +0000

I wouldn’t worry too much about people buying into the thesis of the “Guardian” article. Anyone who actually reads Waugh knows he was anything but an apologist for the British blue bloods. On the other hand, the article might actually encourage a few people to pick up one of Waugh’s novels, and that would be all to the good. He deserves to be read. I suspect that anyone who makes it halfway through “Vile Bodies” will be laughing so loud they’ll forget all about Waugh’s supposed complicity in “England’s 20th-century decline.”

By: Fred Schoeneman

Fred Schoeneman — Sun, 27 Jun 2004 21:39:04 +0000

Good post about a truly stupid interpretation of Waugh. I liked it so much I thought it deserved an entry on my blog. hehe.

By: Jacabus

Jacabus — Sat, 26 Jun 2004 20:25:21 +0000

Your take on Waugh is spot on.

Waugh lambastes the upper classes (�Vile Bodies� � the title alone gives away Waugh�s take on the subject), mocks the archetypical upper crust bumbling clueless nabob (�Scoop�) and recreates an atmosphere redolent with the death throes of The Empire (�Handful of Dust�).

To read Waugh as nostalgia for the good life of the upper classes is not to have read Waugh at all.

By: Sylvain Galineau

Sylvain Galineau — Sat, 26 Jun 2004 12:15:31 +0000

Why would one want a “truly classless society” is a baffling puzzle. Especially given the outcome of all the previous attempts at creating such an alleged paradise. It is all the more confusing when the same people who desire this most boring and ultimate uniformity are the same who promote “diversity”.

Got to be the weed. Must get a sample.

By: Ginny

Ginny — Thu, 24 Jun 2004 20:27:47 +0000

Neither the proletarian aesthetic nor modern post-colonial believes in sin, unless it is classism.

A couple of years ago a friend explained his beliefs with the very moving sections in which Waugh discusses sin.