Fathers and Sons (English)

Arthur Waugh, an overbearing and frequently cruel Victorian publisher, was fond of shooting off shotguns near the heads of his sons as a means to instill character. His son Evelyn became an inebriated malcontent with a knifelike wit who is considered one of the great satirical writers of the 20th century. He, in his turn, considered his own children to be "a bore" and skewered them with his caustic disdain. However, in spite of this abuse (or perhaps because of it), his son Auberon grew up to become a critic with a stinging prose style of his own. It falls now to the fourth generation, in the person of Alexander Waugh, Auberon's son, to exhume the devilishly delightful details of his notorious literary family. His book reads like both a rich literary history and an incisive and occasionally painful view into the effect strong fathers can have on their stubborn sons. minimize