Litnet

Die term "familiebiografie" is die sleutel tot Paula Byrne se Mad World: Evelyn Waugh and the secrets of Brideshead (New York: HarperCollins, 2010, 368p), wat nie nog ’n "heavily footnoted biographical doorstopper" (p ix) wil wees nie. Dit is eerder ’n "partial life" (p ix) in die sin dat Waugh se bekendste roman, Brideshead Revisted: The sacred and profane memories of Captain Charles Ryder (1945), verduidelik word met verwysing na werklike persone en gebeure in Waugh se lewe. In hierdie proses hoop Byrne om wanvoorstellings oor Waugh op te klaar.

Die hooftitel, Mad World, kan met die eerste oogopslag ’n sensasionele indruk wek, maar dit verwys na Madresfield Court (oftewel Brideshead) in die Malvern-heuwels, Worcestershire, wat die tuiste van die Lygon-familie was. Byrne beskryf die deurslaggewende rol wat hierdie woning en familie in die totstandkoming van die roman gespeel het, dus dat bv baie outobiografiese inligting oor Waugh, asook biografiese inligting oor die Lygons, betrek word. Dit is die skerpsinnige Mitford wat nadat sy pas die boek gelees het, in haar brief aan Waugh gedateer 22 Desember 1944 (dus voor die amptelike publikasiedatum), tereg opgemerk het dat Waugh "in love with a whole family" was (p xiii).

Dit was nie die eerste keer dat aangetrokkenheid tot ’n groep by Waugh, wat emosioneel baie onafhanklik van sy eie familie (ouers, broer, vrou en ses kinders, plus een wat vroeg oorlede is) gefunksioneer het, voorgekom het nie. Byrne skryf dat Waugh "lonely within his own family" was en daarom "so susceptible to falling in love with entire families: first the Fleming family, then the brotherhood of the Hypocrites [’n studentegroep in Oxford], then the Punket Greenes, and at last the enchantingly glamorous Lygons" (p 317).

Tydens sy studentejare op Oxford het Waugh geskryf: "I have enough friends to keep me from being lonely and not enough to bother me" (p 46). Byrne: "Both Evelyn and Hugh [Lygon] had distant relationships with their own older brother, so they became brothers to each other" (p 234). Selfs sy eie kinders was skynbaar nie na aan Waugh se hart nie. Gedurende sy dienstyd in die Britse weermag in die Tweede Wêreldoorlog Waugh "famously asked for his wife to save his books before his children, since books can never be replaced, whereas children can" (p 242): "A child is easily replaced while a book destroyed is utterly lost" (p 291).

Die briewe genoem in die eerste paragraaf hierbo bevat nog interessante inligting. Op 25 Desember 1944 skryf Waugh aan Mitford: "One thing about your letter saddens me. It does not say ’Thank you for your beautiful Xmas present of Brideshead Revisted. It is a beautiful work’." Hy het toe nog nie Mitford se brief gedateer 22 Desember ontvang nie, waarin sy skryf: "Brideshead has come, beautiful in orig boards, a triumph of book production. And a great English classic in my humble opinion ... I am literally dazzled with admiration." Wat ek interessant vind, is dat Mitford op 17 Januarie 1945 aan Waugh geskryf het dat sy besig was om die roman, The pursuit of love (1945), te skryf, waarmee sy in dieselfde jaar as Waugh bekendheid verwerf het: "It’s about my family, a very different cup of tea, not grand & far madder." Waugh se reaksie hierop, op 4 Februarie, was: "How delighted I am to hear you are writing a Great English Classic too." Nog iets oor "mad": Een van Waugh se mede-studente op Oxford onthou hom as "slightly mad" (p 51).

Die teks wat die fiksieskrywer lewer, verskil van die kopie van die joernalis, al is daar dikwels heelwat fiksie wat as feite in koerante aangebied word. In sy roman verdoesel Waugh opsetlik sekere aspekte van Madresfield Court en die Lygons (p 324-325), asook die uitbeelding van ander mense wat hy ken. Soms het hy die kenmerke van twee persone saamgevoeg in een karakter (p 297, 303, 306). Byrne noem dit "composite character creation" (p 238). "All Waugh’s fictional people and places are subtle transformations, not direct portrayals, of ’reality’" (p 222). Dorothy Lygon was van mening "that Waugh’s characters were composites, ’transmuted by his imagination and his considerable powers of invention’" (p 305). Maar Byrne merk tereg op: "Instead of having children themselves, the Lygon girls were serving as midwives to Evelyn’s books" (p 213).

Byrne verduidelik die doel van haar boek soos volg: "This biography sets out to find the hidden key to Waugh’s great novel, to unlock for the first time the full extent to which Brideshead encodes and subtly transforms the author’s own experiences. In so doing, it illuminates the obsessions that shaped his life: the search for an ideal family and the quest for a secure faith" (p 3). Religieuse geloof het Waugh sedert 1930 in die Rooms-KatoliekeKerk gevind. Sy Anglikaanse pa het dit sy "perversion to Rome" genoem (p 127). Vir Waugh was die wêreld hierna "unintelligible and unendurable without God" (p 128).

Op 7 Januarie 1945 skryf Waugh aan Mitford oor Brideshead: "The book is about God." Op 17 Januarie antwoord Mitford: "What is a red rag to a bull to several people about the book is the subtle clever Catholic propaganda." In 1947 het Waugh geskryf: "The novel deals with what is theologically termed ’the operation of grace’, that is to say, the unmerited and unilateral act of love by which God continually calls souls to himself" (p 300). In Frank Magill se Duisend beste boeke (Kaapstad: Rubicon, 1983) word Brideshead soos volg opgesom: "Die lede van die gesin Marchmain [Lygon] probeer elkeen op ’n verskillende wyse aan die roepstem van hul godsdiens ontsnap, maar elkeen word uiteindelik na die waardes van die [Rooms-] Katolieke Kerk teruggedwing. Selfs die spottende verteller raak bekeer" (boekdeel 4, p 1990).

Byrne verwys na Waugh se "characteric honesty and self-deprecation" (p 29). Die volgende aanhaling is ’n sprekende voorbeeld hiervan en belig ’n belangrike aspek van Waugh se persoonlikheid, wat ongetwyfeld tot sy gewildheid as skrywer bygedra het: "During this time, spring 1936, he sent a quietly honest letter to Laura [sy toekomstige vrou en moeder van sy kinders] asking her to marry him: ’I can’t advise you in my favour because it would be beastly for you, but think about how nice it would be for me.’ He went on to give a typically accurate self-portrait: ’I am restless and moody and misanthropic and lazy and have no money except what I can earn and if I got ill you would starve ... Also there is always a fair chance that there will be another bigger economic crash in which case if you had married a nobleman with a great house you might find yourself starving, while I am very clever and could probably earn a living of some sort somewhere.’ He also told her that he had a small family: ’You would not find yourself involved in a large family and all their rows ... All of these are very small advantages compared with the awfulness of my character" (p 248).

Aan Mary Lygon het Waugh sy toekomstige bruid, Laura, soos volg beskryf: "She is lazy with a long nose but otherwise jolly decent" (p 251). Aan sy broer het Waugh oor Laura geskryf: "She is thin and silent, long nose, no literary ambitions, temperate but not very industrious" (p 260). Die lewensblye Mitford was beïndruk met Laura se mooi, delikate voorkoms en het haar beskryf as "an exquisite piece of Dresden china, so fragile that one felt she must snap in two." Byrne: "When asked what they wanted for a wedding present, he suggested a bed" (p 259). In 1937 het Waugh met Laura getrou. "He had found a home but lost his freedom" (p 264).

Kort voor die geboorte van hulle tweede kind het Waugh, toe besig met militêre diens in die Tweede Wêreldoorlog, aan Laura geskryf "that he was not ’drinking up all your children’s money’" (p 277). Aan Dorothy Lygon het hy egter geskryf: "I never draw a sober breath" (p 285), wat nader aan die waarheid was. Aan sy offisier het Waugh gesê: "I could not change the habits of a lifetime for a whim of his" (p 289). Waugh: "I was beginning to lose my memory which for a man who lives entirely in the past, is to lose life itself" (p 290). In hierdie omstandighede het Waugh sy magnum opus geskryf en is sy vyfde kind gebore. In die roman sê Sebastian, die karakter gebaseer op Hugh Lygon: "I should like to bury something precious in every place where I’ve been happy and then, when I was old and ugly and miserable, I could come back and dig it up and remember" (p 305). Waugh het Brideshead Revisited aan sy vrou opgedra, maar sy was "too lazy to read it" (p 297).

Byrne: "Evelyn’s problem after the war was that his life went right, so his fiction went wrong. His comedy depended on the misadventures and the sense of being an outsider" (p 347). "His health was ruined prematurely by heavy drinking, smoking and addiction to the sleeping drugs that had blighted his life" (p 348). Na sy dood het Mitford van Waugh gesê: "Probably the greatest friend I ever had" (p 348). Waugh se seun, Auberon, het in die Spectator geskryf: "His house and life revolved around jokes. It was his wit - coupled, of course, with supreme accuracy of expression, kindness, loyalty, bravery and intelligence - which endeared him to everybody who knew him or read his books" (p 349).

Johannes Comestor