‘Evelyn Waugh: A Biography’, by Selina Hastings – review
When it comes to literature, there are two types of Prius-driving, hummus-eating, Green-party voting, lefty reactionary readers. Those who loathe Evelyn Waugh and find him to represent elitism, condescension and selfishness; and those who love him for those very reasons — who find him a bite of literary chili in their lentils, a fascinating voice of the Other, a canopy of language and class, to be lain under and lost within. Russell Kane? That spikey-haired comedian irritant writing about Evelyn Waugh? Do not panic: I’m supposed to be here. This middlebrow, eye-linered, greasy oik has a literary fetish so removed from his demographic DNA that it is precisely the reason it’s such a fetish. The Other. The Them. And guess what?
