Volume LIV Number 4
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Books
Two English Masters
The Same Man: George Orwell and Evelyn Waugh in Love and War, by David Lebedoff; Scribe, 2008, 264 pages, $29.95.
This intriguing and insightful book has captured much attention and appreciation from readers internationally. Its author is a practising lawyer in Minnesota, who graduated from the Harvard Law School and whose other books include one on the Exxon-Valdez oil spillage litigation. Lebedoff’s present work is a parallel study of aspects of the lives and work of two leading English writers, the atheist George Orwell and the Catholic convert Evelyn Waugh, who at first might seem poles apart in nature, background and outlook—but who prove, on closer analysis, to have shared a deep regard for objective truths and an almost visceral dislike of all “political correctness”. The author’s prologue sets the scene by contrasting a ducal dinner party attended by Waugh in June 1930 “at the height of a brilliant London season”, whilst Eric Blair (later known as George Orwell) was “working alone in a small, shabby room in the working-class section of Leeds” writing Down and Out in Paris and London.
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