BOOKS
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Sykes then adds gravely: " After tha t day it did seem to me that Evelyn
had no t long to live." Perhaps so, but it does seem to the reader that,
even a iling in body and mind , Evelyn Waugh was a lways a clown .
But thi s is onl y o ne, and fa r from the bes t, of the many anecdotes
for whi ch , if fo r no o ther reason , Sykes's boo k is go ing
to
be read, or at
least dipped into, fo r many yea rs to come. He modes tl y makes no claim
to have written a definitive bi ography. But hi s book is likely to remain
a standard wo rk . He was g iven access to the Evelyn Waugh archive in
the possession of th e Uni versity o f T exas a t Austin , and he has made
extensive use o f Waug h 's copious correspondence with , among others,
Alfred Duggan , Lady Di an a Duff Cooper, Nan cy Mitford, and Mrs. Ian
Fleming. (Hi s quo ta ti ons from Waugh 's lelLers whet our appetite for a
Co llected L ett ers.)
Very properl y he compli ed with the request of the
autho r's widow tha t he should make spa ring use of her husband's
letters to her, mos t o f whi ch were love letters: the onl y one he quotes
full y is Waugh 's proposa l of marri age, a rema rkable and ra ther
endearin g sou venir. He has made intelli gent and di scrimina ting use of
everything impo rtant, wheth er biographical o r criti cal, that has been
published on Waugh . Altogether he has successfull y combined a labor
of love with a very p ro fess iona l jo b.
The chi ef pro bl em fo r the biographer of a writer is whether
to
include litera ry criti cism o r no t (criticism by th e biug rapher himself,
that is; reports of wh at o ther criti cs sa id are ano ther ma lLer. ) From what
Sykes says about Waugh 's own decision
to
exclude criti cism from hi s
life of Rona ld Knox, it appea rs tha t Sykes thinks the biographer should
also be a criti c. But hi s own pract ice is somewh a t va ri a bl e. He tends to
pass ra ther rapidl y ove r Waugh 's ea rli er nove ls, fo r the sensibl e reason
that he supposes them to be so well known tha t summary and
paraphrase would be tedi ou s. He confin es himself to a pa t on the back
here or a frown th ere. Criti cal judgment, if passed a t a ll , takes the form
of brief genera l sta tements. There is lillie or no ana lys is, and no
attempt
to
recreate th e atmos phere and qua lity of any pa rti cul ar work.
To some extent thi s method o f criti cism comes as a relief to a reader
famili ar with the hea vy rehas hing and clumsy jargon o f much aca–
demi c prose - especia ll y o ut of p lace as thi s would be when clamped on
to so sparkling a writer. The drawback o f Sykes's cas ua l method is that
hi s remarks come
to
seem ra ther a rbitrary, as do hi s passing references
to
other autho rs, even when one agrees with th em. Thus I happen to
agree with Sykes tha t W. W. Jacobs was a g rea t humo ri st (see Waugh 's
unfo rgetta bl e sketch o f him in
A L ittle L earning),
and agree with Sykes
(and Waugh ) th at Ca bell 's
J urgen
is " prepos terously spuri ous"; whil e
