Waugh

I have desisted from writing about the immense pleasure Evelyn Waugh’s writing has always provided me with for various reasons that need not be recounted here. However, a recent re-perusal of Brideshead Revisited seemed to agree with the prevailing mood of hesitant anticipation of the year I shall spend in Waugh’s alma mater. So much so that I think it’s only right I share my new found state of warm waiting with the four (?) people who read this blog. Infact it even brought about strong bouts of giddy whoops when I successfully pulled out it’s tableau. I have one for every book and it is with some amount of pride that I say I could recall quite a few minute details. For example the strange turn of fancy that made me model Sebastian in the image of a young man whose picture I’d found in a book; Delinquent Chacha, I think it was. I also remember how I’d decided to name an ugly neck-less stuffed toy “Adrienne” much in the same vein of Sebastian’s “Aloysius.” I suppose this will disappoint some but my reckless christening of all objects dear is to be credited to Waugh and not Murakami. Yes, myths do edify quickly, do they not? And Stephen Fry hovers in the horizon for some strange reason. Awful isn’t it?
Any which way I shall promise some other time a fuller account of my Waugh-picaresque when I am settled in a ground floor room in the front quad - happy coincidence permitting . At present a very short snippet from Brideshead ought to do:

It was not until I was within a fortnight of going up that he mentioned the subject at all; then he said, shyly and rather slyly: “I’ve been talking about you. I met your future Warden at the Athenaeum. I wanted to talk about Etruscan notions of immortality; he wanted to talk about extension lectures for the working-class; so we compromised and talked about you. I asked him what your allowance should be…”

A good friend tells me that I should leave out the last line. But I insisted that it be included.