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评论 (4)
出版社周刊评论
Waugh's Oxford set did not have the cohesion of the Bloomsbury set, but nonetheless included such writers as Graham Greene, Anthony Powell and Nancy Mitford. ``Carpenter provides new and interesting detail about this talented and crusty writer,'' said PW. ``This book is not so much a group portrait as a half-biography of Waugh.'' Photos. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus评论
Group biography is a tricky genre to pull off, as Carpenter's last entry in the form (Geniuses Together, a falling-off from his magisterial studies of J.R.R. Tolkien, W.H. Auden, and Ezra Pound) attests; and this latest volume is most successful when it concentrates on its leading figure. Fortunately, Waugh takes over Carpenter's story from the moment he bursts onto the scene, sidelining his ""friends"" (not always the most precise word) from Oxford--Harold Acton, Brian Howard, Cyril Connolly, John Betjeman, Graham Greene, Nancy Mitford, Anthony Powell, Henry Yorke (Henry Green) et al.--not because they're less interesting or distinguished, but because ""be displayed the characteristics and conflicts of the group more intensely and dramatically, and more entertainingly, than any other member."" More entertainingly, certainly: the irrepressible adolescent cutup who bought a stuffed dog for a tutor he was convinced harbored bestial desires and who sent up a generation of Bright Young Things in Decline and Fall and Vile Bodies is wickedly amusing--even as the prematurely aged Catholic convert who humiliates the TV interviewers sent out to score easy points off Colonel Blimp. But since Carpenter offers a largely psychological rationale for Waugh's behavior and authorial stance--he persuasively ascribes Waugh's combativeness to his lifelong rivalry with his father and older brother Alec and makes much of Waugh's disillusionment when his bride of one year ran off with another man--he's not always convincing in presenting Waugh as historically typical of an Oxonian counterpart--fiercely Tory, largely satirical, awkwardly religious--to the Cambridge Bloomsbury group. Instead, the subsidiary figures here flit teasingly in and out of Waugh's life (Powell virtually disappears for 12 years between novels) without consistently illuminating it or justifying Carpenter's stated emphasis on ""the transition from industrialism to democracy"" as ""a theme that would come to obsess them all."" Not a great biography, but a great read--Carpenter can't write a dull paragraph--about a writer as scintillating as any of his fiction. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Choice 评论
This is a commentary on those writers who attended Oxford in the early 1920s and formed a pseudo-clique of literary and aesthetic attitudes. Among these figures are Anthony Powell, John Betjeman, Cyril Connolly, and Henry Green. There is indeed room for a perceptive study since the only other book on this group, Martin Burgess Green's Children of the Sun (1977), is often blemished by Green's procrustean obsession to support a dandyism thesis. Unfortunately, Carpenter's work, which focuses mainly on Waugh as the group's alleged most typical representative, is primarily a rehash of Waugh's career taken from the rather recently published letters, diaries, and collected essays as well as the biographies (Christopher Sykes's Evelyn Waugh, CH, Apr'76; Martin Stannard's Evelyn Waugh: The Early Years, 1903-1939, CH, Jan'88). Carpenter ignores the vast amount of academic criticism and, as a consequence, gives us farfetched theories-e.g., Anthony Blanche in Brideshead Revisited represents Waugh; The Loved One is not a satire; Apthorpe in Men at Arms is really Alec Waugh, Evelyn's brother. Since the primary materials Carpenter uses are, or should be, readily available in most college libraries, this book would in most instances be a superfluous acquisition. -P. A. Doyle, Nassau Community College
《图书馆杂志》(Library Journal )书评
Waugh is the focus of a study that examines Anthony Powell, John Betjeman, Cyril Connolly, Graham Greene, and several lesser figures. Eton and Oxford, experimental homosexuality, snobbery, and self-conscious eccentricity link this group, although Greene stands somewhat apart. Carpenter tracks the effect Waugh's disastrous first marriage had on his subsequent career and his retreat into alcoholic uppercrustedness. Perhaps purposely he does not push his analysis of these damaged personalities back to their nanny-dominated childhoods, nor ask whether their very character malformations are essential to their art. Building on Martin Green's Children of the Sun ( LJ 4/1/76), Carpenter captures the ethos of an important group in English literary culture. For collections with substantial holdings in modern British literature.--Barbara J. Dunlap, City Coll., CUNY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.