16 May 2011

More Gin

"My life is roughly speaking over. I sleep badly except occasionally in the morning. I get up late. I try to read my letters. I try to read the paper. I have some gin. I try to read the paper again. I have some more gin. I try to think about my autobiography, then I have some more gin and it's lunchtime. That's my life. It's ghastly."

Evelyn Waugh, Selina Hastings (1994)

8 comments:

  1. "It's ghastly"

    He was obviously buying the wrong gin..

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  2. He sounds quite resigned in this paragraph, doesn't he? Writing is a solitary activity. A lot writers lead a lonely life. It's a courageous thing to deal with your life that comes with no context. It's a blank page. Gavin Lyall, the English author, once said, "Life is so comfortable at the bottom of that gin bottle".

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  3. Very sobering. And I also just opened a new bottle of Bombay Sapphire.

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  4. I was invited to celebrate Vesak with Buddhists at a local monastery on Sunday, but of course I stopped by a pub on the way home for a gin & tonic. An aversion is as bad as an attachment, eh?

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  5. I told him several times to go for Tanqueray. But he won't listen...

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  6. Admiral, it's not clear whether it's the gin or thinking about his autobiography that makes his life ghastly. May be he was watering one or the other down too much?

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  7. Admiral,s a Navy man I suppose that you drink Plymouth but I prefer Gordons export strength or Tanqueray

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  8. Styles Bitchley18 May, 2011 17:11

    Despite his turbulent personal life, I consider Evelyn Waugh to be the greatest comic writer of all time, and VILE BODIES to be his best work. I howl every time I read it.

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