The Life of Evelyn Waugh: A Critical Biography (Blackwell Critical Biographies) [Paperback]

Douglas Patey (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 4, 2001 | Series: Blackwell Critical Biographies

He has written a masterful biography, rich in enlivened critical detail, which more than any other study of Waugh to date, works to redress the bias against its subject that is so representative of Stannard's major two-volume account.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Patey mounts a spirited defence of Waugh, dismissing with some authority many of the familiar items on the charge-sheet. Patey seems to have read not only everything his subject wrote, but a great deal of background material. Such thoroughness, and an alertness to what may be going on in Waugh's apparently limpid prose makes it a valuable addition to a growing body of critical work on this twentieth-century master." Times Literary Supplement

"This calm, deliberate biography- which measures Waugh's life in the context of his work, rather than making the work serve as an excuse for discussing the life - should be included in every academic collection for use of undergraduates through faculty" Choice

"Patey's sympathetic and acute portrait of Waugh narrates Waugh's narration of his own life, combining thorough research with an exhaustive knowledge of Waugh's fiction and nonfiction and the insight of a highly skilled literary critic. The result is the finest biography by far of Evelyn Waugh to date, and a welcome corrective of the regnant record. It is impossible to pay sufficient tribute to the chapter Patey devotes to Brideshead Revisited. It is, simply, the very best interpretation of the novel of which I am aware." First Things

The Life of Evelyn Waugh is a biography with a difference. In addition to being the life story of the English writer who was so active from the late 1920s until his relatively early death in April 1966 at age 62, it is also a critical assessment of his novels and other literary works. Readers will be well repaid for their perseverance." Languages and Literature

"It is a tribute to the thoroughness of Patey's research and his ready invocation of so many perspectives that the subject of his biography should emerge as an even more fascinating and complex figure than one had imagined. It is Waugh the writer, though, who must remain of prime interest. In this regard, Patey is the perfect critical guide." The Month

"Patey is a crisp and detailed writer who pays Waugh and the reader the greatest tribute of all-he stays out of the way and gets on with the story" Arthur Jones

"A remarkably insightful and readable account of Evelyn Waugh, the writer and the man. While taking the full measure of Waugh's comic genius, Douglas Patey brilliantly analyzes Waugh's sacramental imagination about the world - the writer's conviction, explored through a variety of fictional and journalistic forms, that the extraordinary and transcendent lie just on the far side of the ordinary. Indispensable for anyone who wants to get inside the mind and soul of one of the great English authors of our time." George Weigel

"This is surely the finest biography of Evelyn Waugh yet written. It is unashamedly a literary biography and concentrates on the published work, though never forgetting the personal context in which these were written. Within its pages there is much valuable information, some of it of a kind that brings out the essential spirituality of Evelyn Waugh." Culture Wars

"Patey has provided the layman and the devotee alike with an indispensable guide to the writer and the vagaries of hs century. I suspect The Life of Evelyn Waugh will be a well-thumber reference tool for many years to come." Evelyn Waugh Newsletter and Studies

From the Back Cover

In this lively and just account, Douglas Patey follows Evelyn Waugh's career from the comfortable middle-class home he was anxious to flee, through his escapades at Oxford, his adventures in South America and Africa, his experience of war, to his last years as veiled autobiographer. In the process the author explores the nature of Waugh's Catholicism and examines how his religious beliefs began to guide his novelistic practice.

Arguing that Waugh's novels, like his travel writing and even his biographies, are consistently autobiographical, Patey draws out the connections between the life and work, through a series of compelling chapters. At the centre of his account is the view that Waugh's novels contain detailed spiritual and artistic self-analysis, usually in the form of rejection and atonement.

Patey has written a masterful biography, rich in enlivened critical detail. More than any other study of Waugh to date, his book works to redress the bias against its subject that is so representative of Stannards major two-volume study.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 456 pages
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell (December 4, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 063123134X
• ISBN-13: 978-0631231349
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,110,811 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Patey serves up Waugh as an intellectual treat., June 22, 1999

By 

Brian C. Holly "Brian" (Pittsburgh, PA United States) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Life of Evelyn Waugh: A Critical Biography (Blackwell Critical Biographies) (Hardcover)

Critics have tended to split Evelyn Waugh into two authors: the hysterically funny satirist who wrote books like "Vile Bodies" and "The Loved One," and the very conservative Catholic writer who gave us "Brideshead Revisited" and other works. Patey shatters this shallow understanding, demonstrating convincingly that Waugh's satire, like Swift's, is solidly based on a system of positive values -- in Waugh's case, pre-Vatican II Roman Catholic religion. Patey's treatment of this aspect of Waugh, so central to him as a writer and as a man, is simply masterful. I have always found this side of Waugh distasteful, but through Patey, I found myself pulled into an intense and exciting dialogue with Waugh and his beliefs. The treatment of Waugh's life is equally superb. Perhaps more than any other genre, satire requires a knowledge of its historical context to be appreciated. Patey seems to know everything about everyone Waugh ever met, and to have read and understood everything Waugh might ever have read. He has synthesized it all and delivered it in a prose style so clear and unobtrusive that you don't appreciate it until you reflect on what he's accomplished with it. And he lets Waugh make all the jokes. There's much about Waugh to dislike, but Patey provides an understanding of the man and his art that reconciles us to him. And besides, how can you hold a grudge against an author who names a character Aimee Thanatogenous?

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars May be the best "life" yet, May 26, 1998

By 

John H. Wilson ([e-mail]) (Mitchell, South Dakota) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Life of Evelyn Waugh: A Critical Biography (Blackwell Critical Biographies) (Hardcover)

Though half the length of the other standard biographies (Sykes, Stannard, and Hastings), Patey's book is more interesting and more insightful. He provides a context for Waugh's thoughts, so that some of EW's positions seem less strange. Patey also defends Waugh's books against the vicious criticism to which they have often been subjected. Another strength is Patey's explanation of what redeems even the non-Catholic characters. The surprising answer: the ability to love. Patey doesn't carry this point all the way through, and sometimes he seems too sympathetic to Waugh. Still, I'd rather re-read his biography than any of the others.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars we are nearer to perfection, April 27, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Life of Evelyn Waugh: A Critical Biography (Blackwell Critical Biographies) (Hardcover)

If anyone who wishes to learn more about the life and the works of Evelyn Waugh, this may not be the biography for him. Currently, there are three major biographies of Waugh-Stannard, Sykes, and Patey. Stannard's work is cumbersome, and often his prose is awkward, but it is certainly well worth reading for its inclusiveness. Sykes is more of a reminiscence of friendship, including anecdotes that he was privy to. Patey is the first author of apply high literary criticism to Waugh in the kind of form that a professor is apt to do. He responds specifically to continual problems raised in Waugh scholarship and provides far more coherent and concrete answers than Stannard or Sykes even attempt. He organizes the biography with an eye on chronology, but also addresses issues thematically which is brilliant, and simple, but what few literary biographies do. Bravo Mr. Patey! Thank you very much for your hard work on this matter. His biography is also meticulously footnoted.