Waugh summarizes his own weaknesses well in this interview: Firstly his 'common sense' view of what the English person will read in prose, versus experiment, therefore he delivered ordinary dull prose without much interest. How he was ever called a good stylist shows how lacking English letter has been. He has few good metaphors, no similes, his time transitions are poor and clumsy and his dialogue is faulty, or nearly deaf.
Wake is for highly educated lovers of crossword puzzles and anagrams and conundrums... (That rules me out.) All my life I have been discovering the meanings of those coded words and notions inflating every page of Wake, Shem! Phall !! Oh what a thing it is to be older and wiser. BTW : People who don't like Ulysses haven't had the privilege of being Irish with a basic knowledge of Irish History, and the Classics ... Without that, well, it's a Mystery. Too bad and a pity for them too.
Ulysses is readable, Finnegan's Wake is not. Ulysses is an interesting experiment but Wake shows that Ulysses was ultimately a blind alley and literature had to reverse out of it and go another way.
It is easy to shock and achieve notoriety in literature and in art, but to be a master craftsman as Waugh was, is much much harder. Waugh's personality and right wingery have made him target for the talentless, but his novels are and will remain some of the finest works in English literature
i agree with him on finnegans wake, but not on ulysses. perhaps it is overrated but its not gibberish. as jl borges put it: it is a novel that is impossible to read continuously from beginning to end.
@GeorgesBarras Nonsense. Joyce is the most overrated writer ever. Those swayed by fashionable opinion feel obligated, of course, to applaud him. The force of fashionable opinion is powerful indeed. For example, you no doubt feel obligated to approve of Quentin Tarantino's rot, correct?
@Oswulf1 hmmm... I'll have to disagree with you there. I'd say that Melville is, if anything, underrated. His brilliant Bartleby the Scrivener is alone far better than anything Joyce wrote.
@Jitpring I read Ulysses because I had not read it. I'm not sure in what sense a rarely read, much denounced, experimental novel conforms to the the dictates of fashionable opinion, much less one which was banned. Waugh conforms far more to these modish preferences, so your denoucement is somewhat double-edged, even if we ignore the spuriousness, acrimony and irrelevance of your argument. I don't care for Tarantino's work, however, 'rot' is a painfully Dalymailish adjective to ascribe.
I share Nabokov's view of Joyce. Ulysses was difficult and long, but brilliant. Finnigan's Wake was pure jibberish. I actually offered to pay one of my classmates $20 if they could figure what the first page of Finnigan's Wake was trying to tell its reader.
Let's just say I was not made $20 poorer by my wager.
@krane121 you're quite right. I checked at Notre Dame and they must have thrown away the recording of his address there after the war. Hard to imagine, first since he usually spoke for free or very little to Catholic audiences, and second because he was then at the height of his fame.
The thing I like about Evelyn Waugh is, despite the crusty old curmudgeon image he gave in the latter stages of his life the stuff he says, especially when you read his novels, doesn't seem to age. The situations presented do but the actual substance is still relevant and you can hear it still in this interview. Also the timing, which is always the key, is flawless. Definitely one of the most acute and funniest novelists in the language.
I second that emotion! Well said & well put. I haven't read a lot of Waugh but have GREATLY enjoyed his "Brideshead Revisited", "Men at Arms" & "The Loved Ones". His characters & style are never boring.
Waugh summarizes his own weaknesses well in this interview: Firstly his 'common sense' view of what the English person will read in prose, versus experiment, therefore he delivered ordinary dull prose without much interest. How he was ever called a good stylist shows how lacking English letter has been. He has few good metaphors, no similes, his time transitions are poor and clumsy and his dialogue is faulty, or nearly deaf.
CMI2017 1 month ago
Waugh's pullling her leg! (about Ulysses). He was quite a 'provocateur' in his way.
IrishandJazz 1 month ago
Wake is for highly educated lovers of crossword puzzles and anagrams and conundrums... (That rules me out.) All my life I have been discovering the meanings of those coded words and notions inflating every page of Wake, Shem! Phall !! Oh what a thing it is to be older and wiser. BTW : People who don't like Ulysses haven't had the privilege of being Irish with a basic knowledge of Irish History, and the Classics ... Without that, well, it's a Mystery. Too bad and a pity for them too.
IrishandJazz 1 month ago
What documentary is this from?
324wilson 2 months ago
I'm surprised there's so much agreement with Waugh in these comments! The works of James Joyce are very difficult pleasures. But such is genius
poetryiscool 2 months ago 5
Ulysses is readable, Finnegan's Wake is not. Ulysses is an interesting experiment but Wake shows that Ulysses was ultimately a blind alley and literature had to reverse out of it and go another way.
It is easy to shock and achieve notoriety in literature and in art, but to be a master craftsman as Waugh was, is much much harder. Waugh's personality and right wingery have made him target for the talentless, but his novels are and will remain some of the finest works in English literature
sunbeam11 2 months ago
i agree with him on finnegans wake, but not on ulysses. perhaps it is overrated but its not gibberish. as jl borges put it: it is a novel that is impossible to read continuously from beginning to end.
beradification 4 months ago
If you can't appreciate Ulysses, you can't appreciate literature.
GeorgesBarras 5 months ago
@GeorgesBarras Nonsense. Joyce is the most overrated writer ever. Those swayed by fashionable opinion feel obligated, of course, to applaud him. The force of fashionable opinion is powerful indeed. For example, you no doubt feel obligated to approve of Quentin Tarantino's rot, correct?
Jitpring 5 months ago
@Jitpring Joyce is not more overrated than Herman Melville is, at least in America.
Oswulf1 3 months ago
@Oswulf1 hmmm... I'll have to disagree with you there. I'd say that Melville is, if anything, underrated. His brilliant Bartleby the Scrivener is alone far better than anything Joyce wrote.
Jitpring 3 months ago
@Jitpring I think Bartleby is better than 'Moby Dick', which I find a sprawling book. But Americans seen to think it's their answer to the Iliad.
Oswulf1 3 months ago
@Jitpring I read Ulysses because I had not read it. I'm not sure in what sense a rarely read, much denounced, experimental novel conforms to the the dictates of fashionable opinion, much less one which was banned. Waugh conforms far more to these modish preferences, so your denoucement is somewhat double-edged, even if we ignore the spuriousness, acrimony and irrelevance of your argument. I don't care for Tarantino's work, however, 'rot' is a painfully Dalymailish adjective to ascribe.
craigpsimpson 2 months ago 9
@GeorgesBarras Ulysses IS, or does, English literature.
ashburnhouse 4 months ago
@ashburnhouse No, Irish literature.
Oswulf1 3 months ago
Best writer ever! By the way, I hate Joyce, too.
mkaysato1 6 months ago
I share Nabokov's view of Joyce. Ulysses was difficult and long, but brilliant. Finnigan's Wake was pure jibberish. I actually offered to pay one of my classmates $20 if they could figure what the first page of Finnigan's Wake was trying to tell its reader.
Let's just say I was not made $20 poorer by my wager.
BloggerMusicMan 6 months ago
I would like to see the rest of the interview.
uberhandle 10 months ago
@krane121 you're quite right. I checked at Notre Dame and they must have thrown away the recording of his address there after the war. Hard to imagine, first since he usually spoke for free or very little to Catholic audiences, and second because he was then at the height of his fame.
ciroalb3 1 year ago
The thing I like about Evelyn Waugh is, despite the crusty old curmudgeon image he gave in the latter stages of his life the stuff he says, especially when you read his novels, doesn't seem to age. The situations presented do but the actual substance is still relevant and you can hear it still in this interview. Also the timing, which is always the key, is flawless. Definitely one of the most acute and funniest novelists in the language.
BelatedCommiseration 1 year ago
@BelatedCommiseration
I second that emotion! Well said & well put. I haven't read a lot of Waugh but have GREATLY enjoyed his "Brideshead Revisited", "Men at Arms" & "The Loved Ones". His characters & style are never boring.
JubalCalif 5 months ago