The Ivy League no longer gives even half a shit if you know the name of a single novelist. It's all robotics team and student centers turned into startup incubators and social entrepreneurship these days. Only exception is that you might get asked to read some novel as part of an empathy-building exericse for your startup's progressive human resources policy, or maybe a memoir of someone who inspired your microfinanced-well-building-Ecuador-empowerment-charity. The elites have moved on.
That banana story, christ. But googling around reveals he died relatively young with his last years being full of misery and poor health so sometimes the universe rights itself.
The elites have moved on.
They're drinking our banana milkshake.
The early, funny ones are good. The WWII trilogy is OK. Brideshead Revisited is almost unreadable. Waugh was a horrible, horrible excuse for a human being.
I was aware that Evelyn Waugh was a dude but that is literally the only thing I knew about Evelyn Waugh. I didn't even know Evelyn Waugh was an author.
Hard to see how you could not think he was a dude if you had read any of his stuff, but I guess it's forgivable if you hadn't (and weren't an English major).
Scoop is fantastic.
Every time I say or even read Waugh's last name, I imagine Graham Chapman saying "Wauuugh . . . good woody word."
The early, funny ones are good.
The Woody Allen of his era.
The primary function of humanities education in elite schools was to inculcate both a sense of noblesse and oblige in elite (or potentially meritocratic-elite) youth. But no one seriously thinks that literature is even marginally important for that these days. Whether you're a 22 year old who inherits your money, or a 22 year old who thinks they can use the entreprenurial lottery to escape the grinding machinery that has eaten away the prospects of your less meritorious peers, the lesson is the same: literature offers you nothing, not even acculturation, and your time is better spent mastering technical/entrpreneurial/TED talk skills of various kinds while making sure to agree with social liberalism in principle.
I like Vile Bodies a lot.
That banana story, christ.
There's something similar in an Angela Thirkell novel, definitely about milk, but I think also about bananas. Characters complaining about WWII rationing (and postwar rationing), specifically on the ground that some food was reserved for, or preferentially directed to, children, who wouldn't appreciate whatever it was anyway.
The Angela Thirkell novels are kind of fascinating that way -- light social upperclass comedy, with these weird flashes of insane hostility toward the lower classes. I read, I think, all of them in a couple of years in my twenties, and came out of them thinking that if they were a portrait of anything recognizable, the UK upper classes were really, really horrifying people.
The primary function of humanities education in elite schools was to inculcate both a sense of noblesse and oblige in elite (or potentially meritocratic-elite) youth. But no one seriously thinks that literature is even marginally important for that these days. Whether you're a 22 year old who inherits your money, or a 22 year old who thinks they can use the entreprenurial lottery to escape the grinding machinery that has eaten away the prospects of your less meritorious peers, the lesson is the same: literature offers you nothing, not even acculturation, and your time is better spent mastering technical/entrpreneurial/TED talk skills of various kinds while making sure to agree with social liberalism in principle.
Also, reading novels is for girls.
14: Now Cryptic Ned is trolling Matt's dad.
Read Brideshead
Seen some movies, Brideshead movie and tv series. Loved One is of its time. Handful of Dust is about the only one I really cared for. Dropped BYT even though I love Emily Mortimer.
I don't understand Yggles at all. Seems to me you should just pick up a certain minimum of cultural knowledge by browsing and surfing, glancing at article titles, skimming credits. At least enough not to embarrass yourself.
The primary function of humanities education in elite schools was to inculcate both a sense of noblesse and oblige in elite (or potentially meritocratic-elite) youth.
These days I guess the message is that getting into Harvard itself proves that you are one of the elect, and that the truly authentic way to live is to enjoy your fuck-you-I-got-mine awesomeness without worrying about the riff raff.
Was noblesse oblige ever really a thing among the elite in the US (or anywhere, really)?
Interesting story, no not really: Evelyn Waugh's first marriage was to a woman named Evelyn; their friends referred to them as "he-Evelyn" and "she-Evelyn."
Oh hell that's in the banana story link. Good thing none of you check.
There's always money in the banana story.
I was underwhelmed by Decline and Fall. Felt sort of like what Wodehouse would have written if he had also had a deep contempt for the world around him.
21: Pretty sure that is one of the Waugh novels I read. Obviously, I too was underwhelmed.
Was noblesse oblige ever really a thing among the elite in the US (or anywhere, really)?
Maybe around the world wars and depression and great compression a certain degree of empathy was generated. There has been I suppose in all times and places a few decent nobles, and an awareness of the fragility of social position. Francis of Assisi was a noble.
And I guess I liked Brideshead more than I admitted. I have a certain attraction toward that Catholic weltschmerz:Greene, Joyce
Waugh was a horrible, horrible excuse for a human being.
This has come up before, and I remember, ajay's comment.
I ran into Matt at a mall. It was in a kind of tunnel with nobody around so I shouted "Matt!" really loud and he said "what?" like he was kind of annoyed. It was funny.
While I recognize it's completely retrograde, I sort of love Brideshead. Scoop is great. The Loved One is great (as is the bonkers movie). I also like Vulgar Bodies -- which is full-on OTT retrograde.
I have discovered a truly marvelous story about Evelyn Waugh bananas, which this website is too narrow to contain.
I remember liking Brideshead a bunch but read it young and can hardly remember it now except that it was (a) gay and (b) Catholic and (c) there was some post WWII scene at the end where someone said something like "those meatheads turned out to be right about the war in the end" (meaning Churchill and Beaverbrook? Maybe I've totally misremembered this).
I picked it up because as a pretty little kid I remember watching the TV version with my Mom and liking it, though who the hell knows what I got out of it as a 7 year old. It was a big deal for some reason.
I mean I was fairly little. I was a tough, grizzled little kid, not a pretty one.
31: You had to be tough carrying around your Evelyn Waugh novels in the playground.
How do you think Evelyn got so tough? His father named him that because he knew he'd have to get tough or die, and the name is to thank for the gravel in his guts and the spit in his eye.
Or, as I guess, more precisely, the spit in his kids' bananas.
Presumably why he then went on to name his own first son "Auberon".
||
Okay this is funny -- an odd mashup of media criticism and random funny pictures that make me feel like I'm missing at least part of the jokes, but am okay with that. The author's bio at the bottom feels like an old wired magazine style joke.
Prof. Jeff Jarvis is the world's leading hyperglocal thinkfluencer and Journalism 3.0 advocate. He is cofounder of the Mogadishu:Reinvent unconference and CEO of Mogadishu Capital Partners LLC. He is not Jeff Jarvis.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera America's editorial policy.
|>
I was underwhelmed by Decline and Fall. Felt sort of like what Wodehouse would have written if he had also had a deep contempt for the world around him.
Yeah, exactly. He managed to write almost as funny as Wodehouse, but still deeply, horribly, depressing.
I only found it mildly funny myself.
36: I had a similar reaction to that. It was hilarious, but I feel like it would be funnier if I knew more about the stuff he was mocking and I have no intention of doing that. I did love (about the New Republic): It has since innovated so quickly that it is about to be re-rebooting under even newer ownership
I had a college professor who had a vaguely obscene yet effete sounding last name that sounded like the villain in a Mike Meyers-esque James Bond spoof. He named his sons things like Lindley and Leslie. Those kids were doomed.
Yglesias particularly annoys me because his job is to sit around and pontificate on things he knows nothing about, and he's still not very good at it. The Unfoggedariat does the same thing for free, and we do it with far more knowledge, panache, and fewer spelling errors. By the logic of Harvardian* "meritocracy," there has to be room for demotion when it turns out you suck at being a professional know-it-all.
*There is a brand of Chinese car whose English name is "haval," but the Chinese name is one character off the Chinese name for Harvard, so it is actually more like if the car were called "Harvurd" in English. It cracks me up when I think of it.
The Unfoggedariat does the same thing for free, and we do it with far more knowledge, panache, and fewer spelling errors.
And cock jokes. Don't forget about the cock jokes.
It's not fair to compare Matt to us. Compare him to Richard Cohen, and you'll realize he's not that bad.
Who the fuck puts cream and sugar on bananas?
My ex-SIL's stepfather was an Englishman named Evelyn.
AFAIK I've never read any Waugh, but I learned his secret shame in my early 20s.
Have you heard the (apocryphal?) story about Waugh and the British Army unit that bought flowers for his visit?
No, and can't find it on some searching; what is it?
An Army division (or whatever) was going to be visited by the noted novelist Evelyn Waugh, and so got one or several bouquets, which had to be swiftly hidden behind the back when Mr. Waugh showed up.
I think that's actually the story that revealed to me that Evelyn was a he.
I can't be the only one here who was forced to read The Loved One at an early age (I think 11 or 12).
Hello? Is this thing on?
Some of us did it because we liked it.
47: Similar things have happened to Hilary Benn.
I read a lot of Waugh in my 20s. Vile Bodies and Brideshead are the only ones that really stayed with me, though I re-read Scoop recently and loved it. I'm sure I must have read The Loved One but can't remember anything about it at all.
Forget book reading, that Evelyn Waugh was a man was the punch line to a joke in Lost in Translation, an okay movie that was so over-hyped a decade ago that I'd assumed everyone with pretensions to being "with it" had seen it.
Bob is right, you're supposed to pick this stuff up and never forget it. I don't think I've ever read a yggles article, and I only really know of him from what better writers and internet commenters share, but: he's not a broadly intelligent person, is he? Probably he's clever and clearly he's "smart" in some narrow domain, but is he intellectually well-rounded?
RT may be correct regarding a humanities education's function, but the best reason to read books, inter alia, is that doing so is pleasurable. Also: if you don't enjoy reading you should be a little ashamed of yourself, and then you should use that shame to cultivate a habit of reading in hopes that it becomes pleasurable. Like with exercising or pursuing a hobby.
I absorbed somehow both that Evelyn Waugh was a he, and that his name is pronounced "Eevlin." What's puzzling is that I don't think the latter would have come up on unfogged, and where else would I have heard anyone talking about Mr. Waugh??
I have the Yglesias' problem in reverse. For the longest time I thought that the Anglo-catholic writer Evelyn Underhill was a man.
For one short year or two
I suckled you
with potent milk
of truth and learning.
You know my strength
you know my weakness.
They are in you
for I am Harvard
And I am yours.
-- the post made me think, irresistibly, of this poem. It was written by a former leader of the opposition of New Zealand, one David Cunliffe, although not when he was actually leader.
Late to the party but Scoop and The Loved One are awesome. His other works not so much. Being forced to read The Loved One at 12 is kind of bizarre.
I encountered TLO first, and something, maybe the jacket copy, made it clear Eeeeevlin was a male. Maybe Yggles never watches movies or reads books from before he was born? (Which is too bad because there are some truly strange George Axelrod-written/directed movies out there that are a lot like TLO or Scoop: "Lord Love a Duck" comes to mind: Roddy McDowell and Tuesday Weld; what could possibly go wrong?*)
*Everything.
Best college professor name ever: Theo/haris C. Theo/haris.
Also: if you don't enjoy reading you should be a little ashamed of yourself, and then you should use that shame to cultivate a habit of reading in hopes that it becomes pleasurable. Like with exercising or pursuing a hobby.
If I read enough, do I get to skip the exercise part? I promise to stick with my hobbies, especially my reading hobby.
From the banana story:
"Of children as of procreation - the pleasure momentary, the posture ridiculous, the expense damnable."The excellence of this easily compensates for inflicting the odd childhood trauma.
I liked Brideshead Revisited. I thought of Scoop a lot during the Iraq War. Especially, the part about the place they were taking all of the reporters with the name which meant "There is no such place."
Decline and Fall is better than Brideshead.
What's puzzling is that I don't think the latter would have come up on unfogged
Everything has always already come up on unfogged.
That thread is fascinating in several ways when viewed from the perspective of today.
I think I discovered Evelyn Waugh was a bloke around the time Stephen Fry did his Vile Bodies movie, there was an interview where being Stephen Fry he was relating amusingly and a little snobbishly how various Hollywood types thought it was written by a woman.
Knowing that Evelyn Waugh is a man is expected knowledge over here to the point that it was used a a joke by the horrible Sue Townsend in "The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole" (which has a lot in common with Waugh now i think about it, except the joke isnt 'look, black people pretending to be civilised, how inherently ludicrous' but 'look, working class boys, how yucky').
Note to Americans: Sue Townsend is also a man
(Although you probably already knew that from the Johnny Cash song, I suppose)
Noblesse oblige: I recently was prompted to look up (former Tory PM) Harold Macmillan's maiden speech in the Lords, in 1984.
This, if you like, is noblesse oblige:
It breaks my heart to see (I can't interfere or do anything at my age) what is happening in our country today - this terrible strike of the best men in the world, who beat the Kaiser's army and beat Hitler's army, and never gave in. Pointless, endless. We can't afford that kind of thing. And then this growing division which the noble Lord who has just spoken mentioned, of a comparatively prosperous south, and an ailing north and midlands. That can't go on.
65 was also me, although I'm already slightly ashamed of it
I admit I only learned that "Andrea" is a man's name in Italy after being politely corrected by email by an Italian man whom I had addressed as "Ms." throughout our previous email conversation. And I should have known, because Andrea Doria.
I would like to think that the tweet is going to trigger a game of Pundit Humiliation among the DC elite, culminating in Thomas Friedman blurting out that he doesn't know the difference between al-Abadi and al-Baghdadi, and slinking off into obscurity.
I admit I only learned that "Andrea" is a man's name in Italy after being politely corrected by email by an Italian man whom I had addressed as "Ms." throughout our previous email conversation.
Not the head of the European Banking Authority, I hope.
69: But boats are all "she!" Funny that you didn't come up with Andrea Bocelli first.
69: That's not so bad - I consistently addressed a prospective former boss as "Laura" during a long chain of emails, despite the fact that she was signing each email with "Lisa" (her actual name). Still somehow got the job.
Carol Reed. Stacy Keach.
African cow-orker consistently addresses fellow French cow orker with American feminine form of his name. I thought my French cow orker hadn't noticed or that if he had he wouldn't know that form of his name is a woman's name in English but he knows and is amused by it.
76 If it were Jean then my African cow-orker pronounces it as Jeanie.
72: fortunately, no. This was quite a while ago, well before the EBA existed.
I consistently addressed a prospective former boss as "Laura" during a long chain of emails
That does sound like a good way to make your boss into your prospective former boss.
Hahaha. I'd only just realised how clumsy that phrasing was
It definitely sounds like talking about your girlfriend as your 'future ex-wife'.
"When I was wooing my prospective former future ex-wife..."
It definitely sounds like talking about your girlfriend as your 'future ex-wife'.
Scott Aukermann went through a phase of calling his wife his "ex-girlfriend" on Comedy Bang Bang!, mainly to wind her up. Now he calls her "the widow Howl app", for reasons I won't go into.
Rather more sadly, Iain Banks proposed to his long-time partner after being diagnosed with cancer, and, as he put it, "she did me the honour of consenting to become my widow."
My better half (English) has a name typically feminine in the US. Before we were hitched this often caused hilarious (to me) confusion when I would refer to him by name as my partner before someone had met him. Particularly in law school, when instantly the person would become clearly distracted and distressed as the rapidly cycled through oh my god I had no idea she is gay not that there is anything wrong with that oh no have I ever said anything to offend ... etc. People would be so wrapped up that it didn't seem to matter how many male pronouns i chucked in. This all became even more amusingly baroque once I got pregnant and then spent the second half of law school toting about a baby from pillar to post. The best part though was when someone would eventually meet the dude in person - 6'2", shaved head, former rugby player.
71. Shirley Povich, long-time sportswriter for the WaPo, was invited to join an organization of women journalists.
I've often fantasized about my imaginary girlfriends.
Nobody ever answered neb's question about whether He-Evelyn and She-Evelyn's names were pronounced identically.
I know two Italian Micheles, one homophone to the American girl name, the other Mi-KAY-lay. I don't know if it's a regional thing or just one of them couldn't deal with the American responses any more.
90
That is my boyfriend's middle name, and he pronounces it as Mi-KAY-lay, which he says is how it's supposed to be pronounced. He's from NE Italy and speaks standard Italian.
Evelyn Waugh's first wife was also named Evelyn, so, just because you didn't know that Evelyn Waugh was a man doesn't mean you were wrong in thinking Evelyn Waugh was a woman. Provided your thinking kept your vowels straight.
I learned just recently that Andre Norton was a woman. I did not know that! I imagine, though, that Andre Norton and Evelyn Waugh aren't really comparable where the canon is concerned.
The nature of the canon (of knowledge) is changing, doncha know. I recently had a mildly distressing discussion with a friend whose nephew is taking a course of instruction -- at Dartmouth -- which seems to involve all math, all computer science. The nephew is lauded as a savant in these matters, and has not been bothered to learn much of anything in other realms. In some quarters, then, a so-called liberal arts education is a thing of the past, and that's viewed as perfectly fine. Hm.
I could only conclude that I'm behind the times.
64: ajay, would it be embarassing not to know that Evelyn Underhill was a woman. In my defense, she was giving lectures in universities at a time when few women had a university education.
93: It's been that way in the UK (particularly England - less so in Scotland) for some time. It took me a long time to understand why Americans kept referring to their "major", since English students typically go from 10 or so subjects at 16, to five at 17, three at 18 and then study only a single subject at university.
The liberal arts notion of a university is a peculiarly American notion, I think.
Though an undergraduate degree in the UK is only three years, right? The total number of hours spent on your major in the US might be comparable.
93. Andre Norton wrote under masculine pseuds deliberately because it made it easier to get published in the SF culture of those days. Her real name was Alice.
re: 96
Four years, is pretty common. A standard Scottish Honours degree is 4 years.
It's also fairly common, contra some of the above, to study more than one subject. Most Scottish universities you'd study 3-5 subjects in year 1, a similar or slightly smaller number in year 2, and then specialise in one or two things in years three and four. Within each subject you might be doing several courses, obviously. Your one or two Honour subjects you'd have studied for the full four years, the others you'd have dropped at the end of the first few years.
I have the impression that someone with a Single Honours (i.e. in one subject) degree will probably have spent quite a few more hours on their chosen subject than someone who 'majored' in it as part of a US style degree. Certainly when I was teaching philosophy, I had one student who was having to take a year or so of advanced undergraduate philosophy courses because the university didn't think that her study time, as a US philosophy major, equipped her for the B.Phil.*
* that wasn't a general rule. Some people did come straight into the B.Phil from US undergraduate degrees, so presumably they made that assessment on a course by course or institution by institution basis.
97: So I have now learned, and was somewhat astonished that I'd never known it, given that I read a hell of a lot of SF in my teens and twenties.
96: The liberal arts notion of a university is a peculiarly American notion, I think.
Didn't know this either. My alma mater had what was known as the Core Curriculum, a requirement that undergrads take what amounted to 1 out of their 4 courses each semester in a field other than their major. I just considered -- and apparently still do consider -- this to be normal and proper. Otherwise you wind up with allegedly educated people not knowing who Herodotus is, or never having read a single one of Plato's dialogues, or thinking that "Goethe" is pronounced "Go-ee-thee." Horrors!
98: I only know people currently studying at non-elite English universities (Reading, Oxford Brooks, Portsmouth), and they're all in three-year programs that are extremely focused with nothing besides the main subject. I also find their class time pretty paltry compared to mine, although they are expected to spend more time reading outside of class than I was.
It's really alien to my experience, and sounds a lot different than what you're describing as well. I admit to not really understanding the way British degrees are assigned etc, so I don't know if it's just an elite uni/Scottish honours versus everything else thing or what.
Norton is as far as I can tell the very first author I can remember reading, somewhere in the age 8-10 range. I also remember always thinking the author was a woman, maybe because of a kid's ignorance of the name Andre. Andree, Andrea.
Outsiders fighting guerrilla style for the oppressed, loneliness relieved by empathy towards and communication with animals and aliens, encounters with ancient forgotten wisdom. Perfect for prepubescent me, and made me what I am today.
As far as names go, I still refuse to believe Hilary Putnam is a guy, and think the pictures are a trick.
101.last made me laugh. Really, Bob, he's a guy.
The structure of courses at British universities varies hugely from one to another university and from course to course.
E.g. The notorious "PPE" at Oxford which half the cabinet have done is a 3 year course in which in the first year you study introductory philosophy, politics and economics, and then in thext two years you can either follow up all three or pick two of them.
E.g. Mrs y was accepted to study psychology at Sheffield. In her first year she had intros to psychology, sociology and human biology. She then started on the more advance psych stuff, decided she disliked both the content and the faculty and switched to social policy, which included modules on all sorts of stuff like IR and labour history.
I don't think the very broad course requirements you get in American universities have ever been widespread in the UK, the notable exception being the Open University.
101. SF and Fantasy writer Leigh Brackett was hired by mail correspondence to work in Hollywood, specifically on "The Big Sleep," and they were shocked to discover on arrival that she was a woman.
97. Widely true in "No Girls Allowed" playhouses generally. Beyond "Andre Norton," "C. L. Moore" was Catherine, "James Tiptree, Jr." was Alice Sheldon, and Ursula LeGuin's sale to Playboy was published as by "U. K. LeGuin" so as not to upset the boys. Those are just ones I recall offhand.
Ursula LeGuin's sale to Playboy was published as by "U. K. LeGuin" so as not to upset the boys.
Indeed, and I always thought that if I were ever to publish formally, I'd do so under my first initial, or initials, only. My impression is that writers in some fields -- mathematics, physics, psychology -- have always done so.
This reminds me that my calculus teacher in high school had the unusual habit of referring to us, his students, by our surnames only. It took some getting used to.
So now i'm going to assume that all the initial male authors (t.s. elliot, a.a. milne, e.m. forster, etc.) Were feminists trying to subvert male privilege.
103: Yeah, I figured it varied widely. I hope it didn't sound as though I was disparaging the courses, because to be honest they all sound awesome, just super different than what I'm used to from my experience in Scottish and American universities.
105: Nevil Shute did the opposite - he worried that his fellow aviation engineers would think he was weird for writing books, so used his given names as a novelist and kept being Mr N.S. Norway as an engineer.
As for Brideshead, he wrote it during WW2. The Sword of Honour trilogy, in a sense, is what happened later, after he realised all the people he hated for snobbish reasons in the service did...rather...well, really, and it had actually turned out OK, and he'd given it the typical 5-10 years gestation war memoirs usually have.
Compare the treatment of the guy he's whining about in the prologue of Brideshead to Sarum-Smith in Sword of Honour - Waugh's very clear that Smith is an annoying jazz-obsessed hipster and an oik to boot, but when the action starts, he kicks arses and takes names, and probably does more actual fighting than Crouchback manages throughout the three volumes. And Waugh even sort of admits he's only annoyed by him because he's young.
100: most courses at most English universities are three (sometimes four) years of just one subject. Some courses are two or three subjects: PPE at Oxford, as mentioned, and various other joint honours degrees such as, say, French and German, or Economics and History. Changing subject is pretty rare. Scottish universities are completely different, as ttaM said, but there is still no Common Core that every student has to study.
Nevil Shute did write some very weird books.
No Highway accidentally predicted the Comet disasters. Apparently nobody at De Haviland read it.
112: Though it should be noted that that one course can be defined fairly widely. For instance my English Literature course involved a term studying Horace and a couple of terms studying linguistics. Not to mention a year learning and reading Old English. Some of the people on my course did Old Norse.
114: No Highway was the one where the guy's real into numerology and British Isreal-ism, right?
Neville Shute's The Slide Rule is a great read. Easily one of my favorite books despite a fair amount of quasi-libertarian thumping on about free markets. It's non-fiction so not really on topic, but I can't pass up the chance to recommend it. Anybody into engineering porn should pick it up. There's a great scene where he describes walking along the top of an airship drifting over the Saint Lawrence Seaway that captures my imagination perfectly.
Well, if you'd been on the private sector consortium to build a huge airship, yours flew, and the government research establishment's rival project was the R101....I can see how you might end up being a bit conservative.
