Morning:
10°c
There have been plenty of arts events this week, as every week. The Orange Prize for Women's Fiction unleashed its shortlist. Harrison Birtwistle's opera about the poor old Minotaur was premiered. A bit of an exhibition about James Bond opened. The RSC put on the History Plays at the Roundhouse.
But for me, there was only one that mattered. Quite unexpectedly, the British Library released a new CD in its series The Spoken Word, dedicated to the surviving BBC recordings made by Evelyn Waugh.
Waugh was the first adult writer to matter to me. When I was in the fourth form, I scrawled a booklength study of him, for the most part keenly retelling the stories. His cadences did much more to shape my mind, if I can still call it that, than, say, the best efforts of most of my teachers.
So suddenly to be presented with this document of his actual voice was a great thrill. All of the disc is interesting but there's one outstanding track - a half-hour interview with Waugh, recorded in 1953. Three indistinguishable interviewers goad Waugh with strangely offensive questions - "have you ever really wanted to obliterate anybody, to kill somebody, for example?" - without ever quite succeeding in bringing him down.
It was this hostile interview which, on top of bromide poisoning, helped provoke the attack of insanity and paranoia that Waugh described in his autobiographical novel, The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold. Hearing it now reveals a man who is clever, funny and resolute - but also, as his interviewers seem to suspect, more than a little deranged in the pitch of his misanthropy.
They keep trying to get him to say he doesn't like anybody - and he obliges every time. Does he play with his children? "When they get to the age of clear speech and the appearance of reason, I associate with them, I wouldn't say play with them." Does he generally speaking, like the human race? "Liking the human race is a prerogative of God, not of a human being."
What irritates him about other people? "Bad manners, disagreeable appearance, stupidity." What does he mean by a person's disagreeable appearance? "Face. Hair. Fingernails. Teeth. Clothes. Everything about him."
On it goes. Is he in favour of capital punishment? For an enormous number of offences. "I think it's one of the very kindest things you can do for the wicked, to give them time to repent." He'd be happy to hang them himself, once trained.
In its way, it's a scintillating performance: certainly a great listen. But goodness, it's discomfiting to think that I once took Waugh - by this point quite clearly a borderline loony - for my beau ideal. I'd have done better with Marc Bolan or David Bowie, like everyone else. Maybe even Ozzy Osbourne.
