Mad World - Couverture souple

Byrne, Paula

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0007243774 ISBN 13 : 9780007243778

Editeur : HarperPress, 2010

Synopsis

Mad World A terrifically engaging and original biography about one of England's greatest novelists, and the glamorous, eccentric, debauched and ultimately tragic family that provided him with the most significant friendships of his life and inspired his masterpiece, 'Brideshead Revisited'. Full description

A propos du livre

Revue de presse :

“An utterly captivating and generous book with all the intimacy of a diary and the scholarly soundness of a fine biography...A singular accomplishment.” (Chicago Tribune)

“An engaging book...remarkably thorough...Deftly interweaving biographical details and textual analysis, Byrne makes the connections between Waugh’s art, Roman Catholic faith, and life dance.” (Heller McAlpin, Christian Science Monitor)

“Altogether excellent and wickedly entertaining...Scandalous detail enlivens every page of this delicious biography...Over the years I’ve read all the major biographies of Evelyn Waugh, and Byrne’s is...the fastest moving and the most fun.” (Michael Dirda, Washington Post)

“Well-researched and absorbing.” (Booklist)

“Remarkable...not only a meticulously researched biography but also an enjoyable read.” (Library Journal)

“A considerable contribution to literary history...includes enough gossipy asides to intrigue readers.” (Publishers Weekly)

“A splendid new book...While displaying the research values of a scholar Byrne also manages to write with the panache and timing of a popular novelist.” (Alexander Waugh, Daily Beast)

“A sharp, entertaining literary biography...A perceptive study of how Evelyn Waugh emerged from middle-class beginnings to inhabit the tony corridors described in BRIDESHEAD REVISITED.” (Kirkus Reviews)

“’Mad World’ is the perfect title for this sparkling book, a hybrid of family romance, incisive literary criticism, and deliciously hot gossip.” (Martin Rubin, Washington Times)

Quatrième de couverture :

Evelyn Waugh was already famous when Brideshead Revisited was published in 1945. Written at the height of the war, the novel was, he admitted, of no "immediate propaganda value." Instead, it was the story of a household, a family and a journey of religious faith—an elegy for a vanishing world and a testimony to a family he had fallen in love with a decade earlier.

The Lygons of Madresfield were every bit as glamourous, eccentric and compelling as their counterparts in Brideshead Revisited. William Lygon, Earl Beauchamp, was a warmhearted, generous and unconventional father whose seven children adored him. When he was forced to flee the country by his scheming brother-in-law, his traumatised children stood firmly by him, defying not only the mores of the day but also their deeply religious mother.

In this engrossing biography, Paula Byrne takes an innovative approach to her subject, setting out to capture Waugh through the friendships that mattered most to him. She uncovers a man who, far from the snobbish misanthrope of popular caricature, was as loving and as complex as the family that inspired him. This brilliantly original biography unlocks for the first time the extent to which Waugh's great novel encoded and transformed his own experiences. In so doing, it illuminates the loves and obsessions that shaped his life, and brings us inevitably to the secret that dared not speak its name.

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: HarperPress
• Date d'édition: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0007243774
• ISBN 13: 9780007243778
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 416