Book Group: Officers and Gentlemen
The first thing we noticed about the second book in Waugh’s trilogy was the ambivalence of its title. Playing on the traditional description of a man as ‘an officer and a gentleman’, the plural form ‘officers and gentlemen’ instead implies that a man can be rather one or the other: and there are very few […]
Book Group: Men at Arms
It felt particularly apt to be discussing Men at Arms, the first in Waugh’s World War II trilogy, on remembrance weekend. Our thoughts naturally flowed from discussing this conflict to other wars, both distant and uncomfortably close. In this trilogy, Waugh is more overtly autobiographical than he has ever been before. While many of his […]
Party like it’s 1929 – Photographs!
Firstly I must apologise for it taking a whole week to get this post up! It has been very busy at Waugh towers over the past few days. The Evelyn Waugh themed cocktail party was an event held in association with the Leicester Everybody’s Reading festival, the University of Leicester, and of course, the very […]
The Loved One
It has been a busy few weeks for the Evelyn Waugh book group, what with the 1920s party on Thursday 2nd October (photographs coming soon!). Our meeting on Saturday the 27th September saw us talking about Waugh’s 1948 novel The Loved One. Grim, funny and darkly satirical, it tells the story of Dennis Barlow’s experiences […]
Party Like it’s 1929
You can now book your free place at this event here. What: Party like it’s 1929! Come to the Old Hundreth and celebrate with the Evelyn Waugh Book Group as we read extracts from our favourite Waugh books, ranging from the black comedy of A Handful of Dust to bittersweet Brideshead Revisited. Sip […]
Book Group: Late Short Stories
A sigh of relief was breathed by the Evelyn Waugh Book Group last Saturday when the cooling weather, at last, declared itself in sympathy with our tea and cake habit. Many Bakewell slices were consumed while we digested the contents of Evelyn Waugh’s later short stories. What counts as a “late” short story? For once, […]
Book Group: Early Short Stories
The diversity of Waugh’s early short stories is such that the Book Group found themselves disappearing down many an illuminating tangent last Saturday. It’s taken me all day, for example, to remember why we ended up finding out that Amy’s grandmother was a hand model for Cutex (we got there via a discussion about Waugh’s stories […]
Book Group: A Handful of Dust
On Saturday morning, Manaus was the name on everybody’s lips. Not only was some football apparently going to be played there that evening, but this particular part of the Amazonian rainforest is also the last known whereabouts of Tony Last, hero of Waugh’s masterpiece A Handful of Dust. This 1934 novel marks a real shift in […]
Book Group: Vile Bodies
On Saturday the 17th, taking refuge from the glorious May sunshine, the Evelyn Waugh Book Group met at Leicester Central Library to discuss Vile Bodies, Waugh’s second novel, published in 1930, and significantly, the last novel he wrote before his conversion to Catholicism. Part way through writing Vile Bodies, Waugh’s first wife, Evelyn Gardner, […]
Book Group: Vile Bodies
Email Barbara to join us and discuss Evelyn Waugh’s second novel, which begins as surreal social comedy before making an abrupt descent into darker, more bitter territory. The novel is great preparation for A Handful of Dust, which we’ll be reading in June.Alternatively, comment below to kickstart the conversation online. When: Saturday 17th May, 11.00am-1.00pm […]
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