"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)
"It's ghastly"
ReplyDeleteHe was obviously buying the wrong gin..
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".
ReplyDeleteVery sobering. And I also just opened a new bottle of Bombay Sapphire.
ReplyDeleteI 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?
ReplyDeleteI told him several times to go for Tanqueray. But he won't listen...
ReplyDeleteAdmiral, 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?
ReplyDeleteAdmiral,s a Navy man I suppose that you drink Plymouth but I prefer Gordons export strength or Tanqueray
ReplyDeleteDespite 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.
ReplyDelete