Most Helpful Customer Reviews
|
|
33 of 40 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Extraordinary family, 13 Sep 2004
By A Customer
Evelyn Waugh is of course the hook that will draw readers into this exceptional 'Autobiography of a Family'. It would be a mistake, though, to assume that his overtowering genius dwarves the rest of the book. Beginning with Evelyn's grandfather 'The Brute' (who crushed a wasp on his wife's forehead with his whip, and made his son Arthur kiss a guncase in an effort to kindle a passion for shooting), and finishing with a letter from the author to his own son Bron, this book is totally engrossing. Alexander Waugh is the son of another Bron, the great and good, who will long be remembered for his journalism. Alexander shows in this book the same light touch, disguising deep research, that was displayed in his biography of God and 'Time'. He too is a talent to be reckoned with. This book is funny, erudite, and oddly moving - this may be an extraordinary family in terms of literary output (Arthur Waugh's descendants have published a staggering 180 books between them) but it is above all a family. Alexander Waugh shows a deep affection for his eccentric family, without ever appearing adulatory or incapable of observing faults as well as virtues.
|
|
|
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
School fee paying trot through somewhat familiar territory, 3 Jan 2008
Alexander Waugh seems to have spent much of his life wrestling with the legacy of his father and grandfather. In Fathers and Sons he seems keen - if not desperate - to emulate their individuality, whilst clutching dear to their mould and worldview. This is an unconvincing pose, and the television documentary accompanying the book reveals a studied eccentricity more in keeping with scorned great-grandfather Arthur Waugh than with either of the two intervening and original wits.
Fathers and Sons is nevertheless an engaging, entertaining and illuminating read. Waugh's greatest achievement is in charting Evelyn Waugh's evolution from a frequently awkward and precocious social climbing aesthete who became a "voice of youth" with his debut novel to the somewhat reactionary caricature of later years.
Waugh is less sure in his handling of father Auberon. What emerges is more of a spirited character defence than any attempt to really understand the man or chart his development. As others have noted, it is unlikely that Waugh's young son will thank his father in years to come for either the excruciating lectures in Waugh-lore captured on screen or the toe-curling father to son letter with which the book concludes. Indeed, if young Auberon has an ounce of sense or originality, he would be wise to eschew doctrinal family reverence, form his own opinion on C.R.M.F. Cruttwell, Shirley Williams and others and refrain from 'extensively editing' his own Wikipedia entry.
|
|
|
4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Unleash the dogs of Waugh!, 14 Sep 2007
Well, it's a bit of a laugh isn't it? This romp through five generations of Waughs: mad dog 'The Brute' Alexander, sad dog Arthur, young dogs Alex and Evelyn and the ever barking Auberon, till we come to the suspiciously sane present dog in the manger Alexander. Mind you, who am I to accuse a man who has named his son Auberon Augustus Ichabod Waugh of sanity?
The concept is a good one, there are precious few books on the relationships between fathers and sons, and I doubt it any others on those relationships over five generations of one family. And what material the dogs of Waugh provide. Almost half the book is devoted to the three way relationship between Arthur and his two sons Alex and Evelyn. This in itself is a worthy study, but Arthur and Alex seem to have been allotted their roles in order to prepare the stage for the main star Evelyn Waugh. The top dog is always good copy, but the time he is given centre stage does skew the book.
Our author Alexander is an amusing and illuminating writer, as long as he has some distance from his subject matter. Sadly, after making free with the many indiscretions of previous generations there is a sound of hatches being battened down and closet doors being doubly locked as the book reaches his father Auberon and his own place in the story. He only resumes embarrassing people with his letter to his own son at the end of the book.
This is clear, the Waughs are not a family for half measures, being equally generous with their loyalty and their hatred. Witness the hatred of the unfortunate C.R.M.F. Cruttwell, despised tutor to Evelyn at Oxford. This has been passed, baton-like down the generations to Auberon and Alexander. The author claims that it inspired his father to stand for the `Dog Lovers Party' in North Devon in the 1979 General Election. No mention is made of Auberon's real reason for standing, that it was part of his own ongoing chastisement of Jeremy Thorpe. Auberon's entertainment at the Liberal party's ex-leader's expense included publishing a gloating account of his trial `The Last Word'. Curiously this whole topic, which the author must have ample knowledge of, is absent from the book.
All in all this is a good read, much relating to Alex and Evelyn is an extended schoolboy smirk. It is most successful when most open, and most disappointing when the author finds some un-Waughlike discretion in his soul.
Perhaps we shall have to wait for a fuller telling of the story of Auberon and Alexander Waugh. I have a feeling that another pen will be quivering at the paper before too long., that of Auberon Augustus Ichabod Waugh.
|
|
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews
|
by Alexander Waugh
by Aravind Adiga
by Charlotte Mosley
by Rose Tremain
by Alan Bennett
See all Product Description
With an Amazon.co.uk Gift Certificate, you can get them what they want (even if you don't know what that is). 
Amazon Home