temps perdu and all that

[rattleback]

A dropped allusion in a great conservative critique of the right-to life movement reminds me that I picked up Auberon Waugh's autobiography a few weeks ago at a used bookstore.  I'd read it when it first came out (aside from the starvation wages, I really miss working in academic libraries) but I'd forgotten the weird mix of jocularity and rage the

Comments

[nagsheadlocal]

The great thing about Waugh's autobio was the number of critics who completely missed the point. As I recall, most were confused as to why anyone would want insider summaries of feuds long past, not realizing that for Waugh (like Josey Wales) a feud was to the death.

Literary feuds, like rock feuds, are an insider's game. But half the fun is knowing just which Brit society figure was the character in one of his novels who buggered a dog.

[rattleback]

That was Evelyn Waugh wasn't it? Dog-buggering romans `a clef, that is, not vendettas - both had plenty of those.

He apparently actually succeeded in driving the guy mad. I ought to pick up his (Crutwell's) history of the Great War to look for evidence.

[selki]

Thanks for the link to that critique.

A great British opinion journalist once described his skill set as “the vituperative arts.”

Heh.

[rattleback]

That was the Auberon Waugh reference, in fact.