Waugh exploita his speial taste for ironical turns of events and tells how something that looked full of promise turns out for the worst. The real creations of the book are those stories in which control and tells a delightful, Story of a girl whose tastes werei not so conventional as the small English circle at first thought. Waugh depicts the limited suburban, life of the country after it has passed under Anglo-French.
"Incident in Azania " too, is a kind of seqqc.j.to ," Black Mischief." In a Mr.
Tony -coniea back to Brenda, and life at Hetton is resumed, but the dream is shattered and the happy 'ending is squalid and depressing. Knox." By Special -Request " is an alternative ending to "A Handful of Dust." Those who are haunted by the thought of Tony endlessly reading Dickens aloud in the Brazilian forest may turn with hope to it. The stories are not dated, but they show different levels of skill, and a historical critic might deduce a chronology from the degree of independence shown in each, "Out of Depth," for instance, is a failure, an attempt on the macabre which suggests unfavourable comparisons. But his essential qualities are in them, as the words " Sad Stories" in the title show. Waugh's more sustained flights of fancy, because there is no room for pro- longed nightmares like Tony Last's journey through the jungle or for lyrical flights like Sir Samson Courtenay in his bath. It is impossible not to laugh at what he writes, and equally impossible not to feel that it is all extremely painful and tragic. They belong to that special kind of comedy, which he has invented, where failure, frustration, guilt, persecution-mania sorrow and death-becOrne ludierbus. Waugh's novels, are created out of his own bitter experience. Hp manages the short story with the confident touch of an accomplished master, and it is interesting to see how he impresses his own personality and literary triethod. do not all read magazines, and it is excellent to have these examples of his great talent collected.
Most of them have appeared in :magazines,' and though the Criminal lunatic in the first has had his name changed from Cruttwell to Loveday, they do not seem to-be much altered. Writing he attempts.Fresh from winning the.Havrthornden Prize with a biography of a persecuted priest, hg now pub.