[ book tip by Ann Morgan ] When someone has achieved a lot and made a name for themselves, it’s usually interesting to hear how they think they did it; even if their explanation of events bears little relation to the objective truth. Going through a bit of a Waugh obsession a couple of years ago, I worked my way through most of the novels and then decided I wanted to know a bit more about the man behind them. So I picked up a copy of A Little Learning, the first volume of Evelyn Waugh’s autobiography, and got stuck in. 

Beginning with a potted history of the lives of all four of his great grandfathers, Waugh purports to take the reader through the circumstances that made him the man he was. Indeed, the somewhat bombastic write-up on the cover of my ancient paperback edition promises ‘vivd, acid and hilarious’ tales of ‘barbaric school days’, ‘drink, debts and friends’, ‘unemployment, unrequited love, school mastering, and suicide foiled by jelly-fish’. And for the most part, this is what you get. 

Frustratingly, however, as you work your way through the glittering anecdotes, all of them expressed in the faintly sneering, arch tone which characterises much of Waugh’s fiction, it’s impossible to escape the feeling that you are being fobbed off with a cleverly constructed version of events which masks the fundamental truths. Some would argue that this is only what autobiography is after all – a life presented as the subject wants to tell it, a way of countering unauthorized versions of events – but there is a cynicism about A Little Learning which left me feeling distrustful and almost as though I had bought a pig in a poke. Enjoyable though the book is, at the end of it it’s hard to escape the feeling that a little is all you have learnt. 

[ book info ] Waugh, Evelyn: A Little Learning. (Book language: English) 1973 (1964). ISBN: 0283981067.