Fathers and Sons: The Autobiography of a Family
by Alexander Waugh
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Book Summary Information
Author: Alexander WaughEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-05-13
ISBN: 0767927486
Number of pages: 480
Publisher: Anchor
Book Reviews of Fathers and Sons: The Autobiography of a Family
Book Review: Fathers and Sons
Summary: 5 Stars
You will find very few books that can match Fathers and Sons as a revealing family biography. The Waughs have been one of England's most literary families for four generations. This effort by Alexander is a fascinating study of their filial relations. Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966) is the best known of the family, though his father, brother, son and grandsons have all turned out well-crafted prose. What was not well-crafted was their relationships. Evelyn was an irritable being and he could suffer no foolishness. Since all the principals kept diaries and corresponded frequently, we have a shocking record of their foibles and failures as well as their obvious talents. (All the Waughs wrote entertainingly, even in casual notes.)
Is this biography by a family member to be judged unbiased? An adversarial opinion draws strength from the author's comment to his mother-in-law who had inquired what sex he hoped his in utero child would be. 'I don't particularly mind so long as it's a liar' he replied. And then, "a child is no good unless it is charged with fantasy and confidant enough to foist it upon others."
In many ways, this gives insight into what propelled the whole clan. While they thought they were acting justifiably in embroilments, they were primarily responding to what their circle expected of them. And that was to produce well-written and entertaining prose. Much of this book consists of long quotations from the authors' works, including diary entries and correspondence. The relationship between Evelyn and his father is the best developed and the old man's preference for Evelyn's less renoun brother Alec is deeply elaborated. Be assured that the author spares nothing for relations sake. At one point, he criticizes another contemporary biographer for describing a family member's genitals and concedes that this is beyond the pale. However, thanks to decades of journal-keeping and inter-generational speculation, the Waughs are presented more nakedly than any camera could reveal. I blushed for them repeatedly.
I don't know if this is a true picture of how things were, but I do know that I've read a thoroughly engrossing family tale that gives superb insight into the social and literary events of twentieth century England. Fathers and Sons is required reading for all future explorations of Waviana.
Summary of Fathers and Sons: The Autobiography of a Family
If there is a literary gene, then the Waugh family most certainly has it?and it clearly seems to be passed down from father to son. The first of the literary Waughs was Arthur, who, when he won the Newdigate Prize for poetry at Oxford in 1888, broke with the family tradition of medicine. He went on to become a distinguished publisher and an immensely influential book columnist. He fathered two sons, Alec and Evelyn, both of whom were to become novelists of note (and whom Arthur, somewhat uneasily, would himself publish); both of whom were to rebel in their own ways against his bedrock Victorianism; and one of whom, Evelyn, was to write a series of immortal novels that will be prized as long as elegance and lethal wit are admired. Evelyn begat, among seven others, Auberon Waugh, who would carry on in the family tradition of literary skill and eccentricity, becoming one of England?s most incorrigibly cantankerous and provocative newspaper columnists, loved and loathed in equal measure. And Auberon begat Alexander, yet another writer in the family, to whom it has fallen to tell this extraordinary tale of four generations of scribbling male Waughs.The result of his labors is Fathers and Sons, one of the most unusual works of biographical memoir ever written. In this remarkable history of father-son relationships in his family, Alexander Waugh exposes the fraught dynamics of love and strife that has produced a succession of successful authors. Based on the recollections of his father and on a mine of hitherto unseen documents relating to his grandfather, Evelyn, the book skillfully traces the threads that have linked father to son across a century of war, conflict, turmoil and change. It is at once very, very funny, fearlessly candid and exceptionally moving?a supremely entertaining book that will speak to all fathers and sons, as well as the women who love them.
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