OPINIONSrnWomen and Biographers First!rnby F.W. Brownlowrn”One would suffer a great deal to he happy.”rn—Marly Wortley MontagurnEvelyn Waugh: The LaterrnYears 1939-1966rnby Martin StannardrnNew York: W.W. Norton & Company;rn512 pp., $25.95rnTo be really successful a modernrnwriter must reach and hold a hugernaudience, and there seems to be essentiallyrntwo ways of doing it: the journeymanrn(or tradesmanlike) and the heroichistrionic.rnScott, Trollope, AgatharnChristie, and P.G. Wodehouse representrnthe first way, which demands a lifetimernof hard work and patient marketing, andrnleaves little time for the kind of experiencernof which exciting biographies arernmade. Byron, Dickens, and Hemingwayrnrepresent the second, which requiresrnstrong nerves and a knack for self-promotion.rnEvelyn Waugh’s career places himrnfirmly in the Byronic line, even thoughrnhe thought of himself as a craftsmanrnand revered P.G. Wodehouse as “thernmaster.” Nonetheless, he had almostrnnothing in common with Wodehouse, arnmodest, private, intensely shy man.rnWaugh was a very different type. Hernshared Byron’s gift for dramatics andrnpublicity, and he was similarly brave,rnpugnacious, and ambitious. Like Byronrnhe hankered for success in action ratherrnthan in literature, a desire which tookrnhim traveling and soldiering. And asrnwith Byron, he had a violent streak. Thernrole of antagonist came naturally to him.rnAlthough Evelyn Waugh had a sign onrnhis gate reading “No admittance on business,”rnhe led much of his life in public, inrna character largely of his own devising, onrna series of platforms provided by newspapers,rnmagazines, gossip columns, correspondence,rnand social intrigue. HernF.W. Brownlow is a professor of Englishrnat Mt. Holyoke College.rnwas even prepared to use radio and television,rnthough always on terms of guardedrnhostility. The resulting performancernwas a distinguished one. It explains whyrnpeople became so curious about him,rnand why his death on Easter Day, 1966,rnreleased a flood of anecdote and memoirrnthat continues today.rnReaders wanting to know about EvelynrnWaugh are not short of material. Inrn1975 Christopher Sykes, who knew himrnwell, published a biography. There arernseveral books of reminiscence by peoplernwho knew him, and he appears frequentlyrnin the memoirs of his contemporaries.rnSelections from his diaries,rncorrespondence, and journalism arernavailable. Now there is a thousand-pagernacademic biography, of which the presentrnbook is the second volume.rnWhen Frances Donaldson, who hadrnwritten a delightful memoir of EvelynrnWaugh, came to write a life of P.G.rnWodehouse, she had a hard time showingrnthat Wodehouse had any life at allrnaway from his typewriter. Martin Stannardrnfaced the entirely different problemrnof making a coherent narrative outrnof an enormous mass of material, mostrnof it emanating from the subject himself,rnmuch of it already known, and neady allrnof it bearing upon Waugh’s activities as arnfamiliar, pungently characterized publicrnfigure. In the circumstances, it is understandablernthat Stannard should haverndecided to go looking for the unknown,rnprivate Evelyn Waugh.rnTo do this he drew upon much unpublishedrnmaterial, especially letters, andrnupon interviews with Waugh’s survivingrnacquaintances. So much is already available,rnhowever, that a reader familiar withrnthe subject will probably not learn arngreat deal about Waugh from Stannard’srnbook, and in fact will often want to turnrnfrom the biography to the originals. Thernmost interesting new material, enough ofrnit to be significant, reveals a little of thernWaugh known to his family and reallyrnclose friends, a very funny man, capablernof great kindness, constantly and heroicallyrngenerous. And while he could bernextremely difhcult, it will occur to somernof Stannard’s readers that in his laterrnyears Waugh often found himself amongrnpeople who deserved all the difficultyrnhe could inflict.rnOf course, the important thing aboutrna book like this is its narrative interpretationrnof the author’s life and work.rnStannard’s later Waugh is an increasinglyrnwithdrawn and embittered man atrnodds with himself and his times, dislikedrnand dislikeable. Although enormouslyrnsuccessful as a writer, he is haunted byrnfeelings of guilt, inadequacy, and failure.rnHence, despite the bluster of hisrnpublic persona, he is deeply dividedrnagainst himself. At the period of ThernOrdeal of Gilbert Pinfold this divisionrndrives him mad. Finally, issuing in thernform of depression and incapacity, it killsrnhim. His writings are a kind of allegoricalrnor symbolic descant on this story,rnwhich some of Stannard’s first reviewersrndescribed as harrowing and tragic.rnIt is certainly an interesting story, andrna profoundly moral one, a stern warningrnto any writer who might be tempted torngo against the grain of his age. It is alsorn30/CHRONICLESrnrnrn