"... arguably the most compelling short biography of a saint to date..."

The Clarion Review has posted a review, "The Hook of Truth," written by Gerard Kreijen, of Evelyn Waugh's masterful Edmund Campion: A Life (Ignatius Press, 2005 [orig. Longmans, 1935]):

That the undisputed master of dark humor and satire should have produced what is arguably the most compelling short biography of a saint to date is perhaps even more extraordinary than the claim that, today, both the biography and its author deserve close attention. Indeed, few means serve better to confront the hollow relativism of our age than turning to the conversion of Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966) and the life of Edmund Campion (1540-1581), the saintly subject of his 1935 book.

When Waugh was received into the Roman Catholic Church on September 29, 1930 his latest book had just been dubbed “the ultramodern novel”, so that his conversion caused sensation and bewilderment. In an article entitled, “Converted to Rome: Why It Has Happened to Me”, Waugh made it perfectly clear that his decision was not about ritual nor about submission to the view of others. The essential issue was the choice between Christianity and chaos.

Waugh had come to see Modernity as “the active negation of all that Western culture has stood for”. Civilization, he understood, “has not in itself the power of survival”. Christianity was the foundation of the West and without it the moral and aesthetic fabric of Europe would unravel. For Waugh this was a fact and the acknowledgment of this fact set him against modern society; it was his casus belli:

“The loss of faith in Christianity and the consequential lack of confidence in moral and social standards have become embodied in the ideal of a materialistic, mechanized state […] It is no longer possible […] to accept the benefits of civilization and at the same time deny the supernatural basis upon which it rests. “[1]

Read the entire review.

Comments

[Kindred Spirit]

Excellent post, and an excellent book! Saint Edmund Campion, pray for us.

[Ed Peters]

Yes, it's on my 100 Books Every Catholic Should Have Read list. I came across it in law school. Probably time to re-read it.

[Decimus Pius]

For a glimpse into what Evelyn Waugh thought about the liturgical changes that took place in the 1960's see a concise collection of personal correspondence in a book called A Bitter Trial.