"Helena" by Evelyn Waugh... and a possible dig at Gibbon

[p.falk]

It's pretty good so far.
Follows the life of Helena (as should be expected) and her passively accepting the pains of various losses she suffers (nonchalant attitude of the emperor when he divorces her, or takes her son (Constantine) away from her for years).

Later in life she has her grandson (Crispus) and his tutor, Lactantius (a philosopher, historian, and writer), living with her. Lactantius is a Christian and he make a comment about form (style) and the right thing (truth) need to be paired up.

Then he goes on to say something that has simply got to be a diss at Edward Gibbon. Now, at the house of Helena there is a monkey (never specifies what type of monkey this is.. until...)

Lactantius states:

"Suppose that in years to come, when the Church's troubles seem to be over, there should come an apostate of my own trade, a false historian, with the mind of Cicero or Tacitus and the soul of an animal," and he nodded towards the gibbon who fretted his golden chain and chattered for fruit. "A man like that might make it his business to write down the martyrs and excuse the persecutors He might be refuted again and again but what he wrote would remain in people's minds when the refutations were quite forgotten. That is what style does - it has the Egyptian secret of the embalmers It is not to be despised"

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

I agree, it's aimed at Gibbon, who could indeed write well but poisonously.

[p.falk]

I like Brideshead Revisited... I remember on the previous forum there was some dispute about the book's merits.

But as an exemplar of Waugh's faith, so far I would say "Helena" is the more enjoyable read. There's a frugalness with words in "Helena" that makes the story a bit more crisp. And Helena is a more understandable character than Charles Ryder.

[p.falk]

All her life Helena wanted to go to Rome. Her husband, Constantius promised, only to rescind and then eventually divorce her.

Much later in life, for Constantine's jubilee, she was invited to Rome (as mere formality that none thought she would accept)... and she accepted. She was living at Treves at the time.

I like this description that Waugh gives of Rome:

It was spring and everywhere fountains were playing among the falling smuts. But Rome was not beautiful. Compared with Treves it seemed gross and haphazard. Beauty would come later. For centuries the spoils of the world had flowed into the City, piled up and lost themselves there. For centuries to come they would be dispersed and disfigured. The City would be burned and pillaged and deserted, and the marble stripped for the kiln. The streets would silt up, gypsies would bivouac under her broken arches, and goats pick their path between torn and fallen statuary. Then Beauty would come. She was on her way, far distant still, saddling under the paling stars for the huge journey of more than a thousand years. Beauty would come in her own time, capricious, adorable wanderer, and briefly make Her home on the seven hills.