Books, Arts & Manners: Unconditional Surrender

Evelyn Waugh: The Later Years: 1939-1966, by Martin Stannard (Norton, 523 pp., $29.95)

ALL THE early reviews of this book that I have seen have made a point of distinguishing sharply between the biographical subject and his writings. The work remains (rather amazingly) praiseworthy in polite company, while Waugh himself earns obligatory condemnation as a reactionary, a snob, and a religious bigot. A number of reviewers have insisted that Evelyn Waugh was nobody you would want to entertain in your home. I disagree. I have the pleasure of knowing a few Wauvian characters, and wish I knew more. They are the only sort of people I take an interest in associating with, beyond a few game wardens, Western sheriffs, and a congenial barmaid or two.

CW

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Chilton Williamson Jr.

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Evelyn Waugh: The Later Years: 1939-1966, by Martin Stannard (Norton, 523 pp., $29.95)

ALL THE early reviews of this book that I have seen have made a point of distinguishing sharply between the biographical subject and his writings. The work remains (rather amazingly) praiseworthy in polite company, while Waugh himself earns obligatory condemnation as a reactionary, a snob, and a religious bigot. A number of reviewers have insisted that Evelyn Waugh was nobody you would want to entertain in your home. I disagree. I have the pleasure of knowing a few Wauvian characters, and wish I knew more. They are the only sort of people I take an interest in associating with, beyond a few game wardens, Western sheriffs, and a congenial barmaid or two.