As You Like (Or Don’t) Like It
We are planing to film a series of book discussions on the theme, The Uses of Diversity, that is, on how people and societies respond to adversity. Quit properly, we shall begin with the work that is the source of the title, Shakespeare's As You Like It.
The second program will be devoted to the late Sam Francis' favorite novel, Evelyn Waugh's A Handful of Dust. We shall probably also take up the first four books of Xenophon's Anabasis, which Edward Gibbon regarded as the liveliest of historical narratives, the Old Testament books of Job and Tobit and the corresponding Greek play Aeschylus' Prometheus' Bound, and Walker Percy's The Last Gentleman.
The first episode will be broadcast before the end of March. We shall probably have a surprise guest and we invite our readers to post questions as comments to this announcement.
Sounds most exciting to me; some fine choices here.
That Percy has gone so swiftly into relative obscurity in the years since his death says much more about the pathetic literary scene in America than it does his brilliance.
A good lineup, one that will have me taking another crack at both Percy and Waugh, first acquaintances with whom did not make me eager for next encounters.
I didn’t like Walker’s last novel much but his first three are a delicate balance between Sort of French Catholic existentialism and Southern story-telling. It took me a while to enjoy Waugh. His misanthropy and over the top comedy can be off putting. And Brideshead is my least favorite. HOD though is a jewel of cynicism.
I liked Waugh’s book on Edmund Campion but never acquired a huge taste for him otherwise. Peace to my friends who loved Brideshead but evidently I am too much of a troglodyte because while I enjoyed the television series, I could never sustain the desire to keep reading the book. A friend I trust said Waugh was all wit and Belloc, who was amiably acquainted with him, said he had a devil. If Ray says round one of an author was uneventful, I would normally save myself the effort but in this instance, will look forward to trying a Handful of Dust.
Our friend, Bob Wyer, who has probably read everything by Walker Percy, will often offer some of those gems in our conversations so I look forward to that one too.
As for the classics and the sacred texts mentioned, I don’t think one can or should stop reading them —-until the very end of THE END.
I think Walker Percy was America’s greatest novelist for the second half of the 20th Century. For anyone who lived in the US between 1960-1990, he was the most trenchant and observant—read, hip— commenter on the passing scene. His first novel, The Moviegoer, is the great New Orleans novel. His pseudo-negro in The Last Gentleman is perhaps the greatest character in late-US literary satire. In his Third Novel Love in the Ruins, his depiction of politics in America as a contest between Right Knotheads and Left Papasans was brilliant and prescient. Those who get him know, those who don’t don’t. For many Catholic converts, Percy was possibly the first clue that the Church wasn’t crazy, might indeed be a possibility. The great existential exemplar of indirect communication.
I am really looking forward to these, Tom. I think I agree with you, Mr. Rosenberger. Certainly greatest American Catholic novelist–and I am a huge fan of the much under-appreciated Paul Horgan. I picked up Love in the Ruins about the time I arrived at TRI (in late ’93?) and have recommended it countless times. When I needed a new radio host for Catholic Answers Live eight years ago, Cy Kellett sat in my office and told me he had written his master’s thesis on Percy. I said, “you’re hired!” I like Waugh a good deal, too (Campion, yes, Robert, and also Helena–a favorite of Bob Hickson’s, God rest his soul) and went a Waugh jag when I was in the Persian Gulf in late ’90’s: Sword of Honour, Brideshead, and Handful of Dust. Later I read (recommended by Tom) his diaries in preparation for a talk I was supposed to give in Serbia, but never did because of the Trade Tower attacks. He is cranky, for sure. I need to pick all these books up again. (At the risk of hijacking: Handful of Dust, of course, reminds me of Alec Guinness. I am with my parents this week in Texas and last night we watched an Alec Guinness picture from 1955 I’d never seen: The Prisoner. Guinness plays an Eastern Bloc Cardinal arrested for treason. The antagonist interrogator is played by Jack Hawkins. A compelling and morally complex film with two great performances.)
Will there be any specific translations used of Anabasis or Promethius? I have the Loebs of both.
The Loeb Xenophon is fine. Do you have the old Weir Smyth Aeschylus or the newer version. Smyth was a good scholar and better writer than most of th more recent translators
Perhaps it reveals the latent misanthrope in my own self, but I’ve really enjoyed a number of Waugh’s books, although some I have found either uneven or even too cynical for my own cynical tastes (I recently finished “Put Out More Flags” – and it reminded me of how I describe squalid Tarantino movies – horrible people doing horrible things to other horrible people). But Black Mischief, Scoop, Sword of Honour, and the Loved One are all well loved by me. It often seems to me that his stories are like the Star Trek dark Mirror Universe to the Wodehouse Jeeves & Wooster world.
I enjoyed Percy’s “The Moviegoer” but the only other thing I’ve read of his so far is “Lost in the Cosmos” – which was more of an essay collection with stories mixed in. I can’t argue against him being the great modern Catholic American Novelist only because Flannery O’Connor mostly wrote short stories. I just started her “The Violent Bear it Away” and am enjoying it more than I have anything in a long while.
I second Mr. Check’s recommendation on “The Prisoner” – I also found it very powerful and humbling.
I bought the Weir Smyth secondhand because by instinct I do not trust new translations and knew nothing about the new translator.
You might check out the BBC production of Ad you Like It” with Helen Mirren
Get your questions in for Prof Brownlow by noon Saturay.