Evelyn Waugh vs. Modern Therapy Culture

In which Dostoevsky catches strays

Fyodor Dostoyevsky is having a cultural moment. Gen Z seems to love him across the political spectrum, rightists and lefties, BookTokers and Substackers.

I’m fine with that, but I don’t get the hype. I won’t write my Dostoevsky hit piece just yet - I’ve only read Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, and The Brothers Karamazov, and I’d like to read the whole oeuvre and experiment with different translations before I go after one of the legendary writers of the canon.

That said, I’m very comfortable positing a theory as to why Dostoevsky is so much more popular than other deserving writers. Hemingway got close to the truth when he complained, “I’ve been wondering about Dostoyevsky. How can a man write so badly, so unbelievably badly, and make you feel so deeply?”

Let me refine that thesis a bit. Dostoevsky is popular because he wallows in emotion. His characters feel things deeply. They go pale, then green, then red with rage. They faint. They agonize. They become delirious with fear or loathing or passionate infatuation. For a generation facing a mental health crisis, Dostoevsky’s models of mental torture are relatable.

That’s all fine - but it does make me wonder if the most mentally unhealthy generation in history should try to go a different way and perhaps dabble with writers who keep a stuff upper lip - like Evelyn Waugh for instance.

Waugh knew all the misery of the misfit, but unlike most great perceivers of human suffering, he didn’t wallow. 

Instead, his heroes do the only thing there is to do in real life - get on with it. 

I was introduced to Waugh through Men at Arms, the first book in his mildly autobiographical WWII Sword of Honour trilogy. Waugh was a literary genius with a strong intuition for the English language and a deep understanding of human nature.

All the more delightful then, that, unlike Dostoevsky, he shields us from this knowledge behind an impenetrable wall of understated British humor.

The “stiff upper lip” 

As we meet the divorced main character, Guy Crouchback, we learn that Guy is not “an interesting case…No cosmic struggle raged in his sad soul. It was as though eight years back he had suffered a tiny stroke of paralysis; all of his spiritual facilities were just perceptibly impaired…There was nothing to say about it.” 

Guy is crippled by his wife’s betrayal of him, but he is sustained by his British stiff upper lip.

In any trite (read modern) novel, this would be a setup for either redemption or damnation, as the main character realizes he can’t bottle up misery forever and snaps from the pressure. (Looking at you, Dmitri Karamazov)

In Waugh’s much more realistic world, Guy does find redemption, but not through the release of feeling. Instead, he continues to repress his inner self and turns outward to the great struggle of his time, the Second World War. 

Redemption through suppression 

Joining the British army as an “old man” in his thirties “in a mood of acute shyness born of conflicting apprehension and exultation,” Guy finds to his surprise that he is leaving behind his lifelong failure to “fit in.” 

In subsuming his ego to the rhythms of military life, Guy finds peace and belonging, if not meaning. His journey in the army goes from “honeymoon” to “domestic routine, much loyalty and affection, many good things shared.” 

The absurdities of British army life in the crisis of the early years of the war is a strong theme in Men at Arms, with galactic disasters such as the fall of Poland and France barely penetrating the consciousness of the Royal Corps of Halberdiers that Guy is assigned to.

Instead, the minutiae of traditional army life dominate. Guy comfortably nests in barracks, drinks with his fellow officers, and is occasionally ensnared in camp drama, such as the incident of the “thunder closet.” (if you must know, it’s another name for a chemical toilet) 

Guy remains aloof through it all, known as “uncle” by the younger men, but accepted, perhaps for the first time in his life. 

Drama begone!

A lesser writer would have manufactured more surface drama for their character, but Waugh holds onto the crucial insight that sometimes, life is not about resolution through the release of dramatic tension, but rather a slow, sometimes inconsequential, series of days and events. 

Guy Crouchback survives one day at a time, and through it all, we see him heal, perhaps even become happy. At no time does he let go of his understated British stiff upper lip. 

Yet despite, or perhaps because of) his failure to experience a transformational moment, by the end of Men at Arms Guy is transformed. A deeply hurt misfit has become a strong, happy man, able to bear the twists and turns of fate with aplomb. 

Literature learns from life

This is real writing reflecting a real truth. Men at Arms is based on Waugh’s life experiences in WWII, so perhaps he formulated the character of Guy Crouchback in real life before writing it down, or perhaps his insight roved beyond his own experiences to the universal. 

Either way, it’s good literature, as well as a good roadmap for real life. 

Waugh himself wasn’t so sure of this. He was critical of Men at Arms during the writing process, complaining: “Nothing but tippling in officers’ messes and drilling on barrack squares. No demon sex. No blood or thunder.’ ‘A great bore.” 

But he was wrong - along the way, real things of consequence do indeed begin to happen. There’s adventure on the open sea, amphibious landings, and battle wounds, although one has to penetrate a veneer of understatement and preternatural cool to comprehend the flesh and blood reality of it all.

I’d be amiss to omit that Men at Arms is one of the most quietly hilarious books I’ve ever read. Waugh mixes the passionate Catholicism of Graham Greene with a light touch and sense of the incongruous reminiscent of P.G. Wodehouse. I can’t understand how on earth it works, but it does, and that’s probably why Waugh is in the Pantheon of great writers of the English language. 

I’ve already read Officers and Gentlemen, the second book of the trilogy, which ups the ante, but doesn’t change the moral of the story. I’ll be reading the final book of the trilogy with high anticipation, and I hope Waugh doesn’t ruin it at the end.