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booksandbacteria's review against another edition
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
2.75
hawthorne's review against another edition
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
3.0
bronwynmb's review against another edition
3.0
I'm not sure what to make of this. It was beautifully written as is everything by Waugh, and even the story wasn't too bad, but the ending was heavy handed. I liked it better than I thought I would, but I'm still not sure I really *liked* it.
johannalm's review against another edition
3.0
Interesting. Was sticking with the Rome theme and this is a novel about Saint Helena, who was the wife of Emperor Constantius and mother of Emperor Constantine (the first to become a Christian). Helena supposedly found the "True Cross" and brought bits and pieces of it back from Jerusalem to Europe. Not a lot is really known about her but Waugh tries to give you some sense of who she might have been. It works to a degree but he lets you know several times that little is known about her life - should have just gone with telling the story and not interrupting with this aside. The conversations are too modern for the time they take place in but she's an interesting character, you learn that life was pretty miserable for women back then, even for the wife and mother of great leaders.
blackoxford's review against another edition
2.0
I Want My World Back
I doubt that a recognised talent like Waugh would spend time on an historical fantasy like Helena without a purpose. So reading the book one is constantly searching for his intention. Piety? Whimsey? Correction of historical perceptions? Who knows for sure. But there are some clues worth nothing.
The Roman Empire had its founding myths; but it had no ideology, no coherent theory of itself, and therefore no real culture except what it borrowed from Greece. Instead it had an economics which functioned practically as such an ideology. Its economics depended crucially on expansion. As long as the Empire grew, the excess and ‘idle’ wealth accumulated by those it conquered could be confiscated and put to work, mainly in building the city of Rome itself, but also in creating a physical and governmental infrastructure. This booty, like that of black slavery in the 18th century British Empire built on sugar, ‘capitalised’ non-earning assets. It was a self-sustaining system; but only so long as hoards of potential capital - precious metals, agricultural land, enslavable people - were available. Once the Empire accepted borders, it’s very being was threatened.
Helena hints at this recently occurring condition when she questions her new husband Constantius about his political manoeuvring to become Caesar. ‘Why not think bigger,’ she essentially says to him, ‘and expand more broadly rather than merely defending what you have? He calls her a silly girl. And rightly so. She doesn’t understand the situation. There are no more plums to be picked at hand. The Empire now needs walls to protect itself from those who have no assets worth seizing but rather see Rome as itself the great plum tree ready to be picked at leisure. Helena has intuited two things: the limits of economics, and the lack of any other conceptual reasons for continued imperial rule.
I think Helena’s intuition is the key to Waugh’s intention for the book. It is obviously not an historical novel. He admits in his preface that Helena’s life is legendary at best. Neither is it romantic fiction - the characters are cardboard cutouts from a Boy’s Own adventure with lots of commentary on the strange local customs of the day. Nor is it strictly speaking an apologia for the Christianisation of Europe in the manner of someone like Tom Holland in his book Dominion which conceives the official adoption of Christianity as the civil religion of the Empire as something of existential import, a sort of spiritual breakthrough for humanity. What Waugh craves is order not religious faith.
Waugh wrote Helena in 1950 during the political transformation of Britain into an aspiring socialist state, which he despised; and at a period of the apparent loss of the chivalrous ideals of the war years, which he mourned. The Empire that had brought English values to half the world was wobbling. His traditionalist sensitivities were deeply offended, as they would continue to be until his death in the Britain of the Swinging 60’s. As in Helena, the world appeared to have substituted economics for culture. And for Waugh culture literally meant tradition, just as he portrays in his description Helena’s inner state. Even his conversion to Catholicism (and his intense opposition to the changes brought about by the Second Vatican Council) seem motivated by the rigidity rather than the content of Catholic doctrine.
Long before Waugh became a religious enthusiast, he was an aesthete, and a member of English country house society. The ‘normal’ progression from Sherborne School to Oxford to the Guards was sabotaged only by his elder brother’s homosexual affair at Sherborne, which forced him into an ‘inferior’ public school. Otherwise Waugh fit snugly into the machinery of the English establishment. After a somewhat dissolute university career (due mainly to aesthetic adventuring) and a rather unsuccessful early teaching career (he seduced one of the school matrons and was sacked), he found his feet as a novelist and correspondent. Whatever else he was, Waugh was a snob. He refused a CBE in 1960, believing that he should have been awarded a knighthood.
It is this deeply held but unconscious snobbery, a perhaps inevitable consequence of his background, that is the real motive force behind Helena. As in the 4th century, the world was once again being destroyed by lack of vision and taste. This contributed to his insomniac depression and made him increasingly dependent not only on drugs and alcohol, but also on the institutional certainties provided by the Catholic Church. Without the Church as a symbol of the reality of Tradition as it was defined, Waugh had no foundation for his aesthetics, his social position, or, ultimately, his life’s work.
Waugh considered Helena his most important novel. That no one else did suggests strongly that it was entirely personal rather than a religious or political work. It is, for me, his statement of what the world should look like if it were to accommodate Evelyn Waugh adequately - more or less the one that existed in 1935, of chaos coming down from Oxford for long weekends of meaningful discussion about art, and travel, and how things must surely remain the same for the benefit of humanity.
I doubt that a recognised talent like Waugh would spend time on an historical fantasy like Helena without a purpose. So reading the book one is constantly searching for his intention. Piety? Whimsey? Correction of historical perceptions? Who knows for sure. But there are some clues worth nothing.
The Roman Empire had its founding myths; but it had no ideology, no coherent theory of itself, and therefore no real culture except what it borrowed from Greece. Instead it had an economics which functioned practically as such an ideology. Its economics depended crucially on expansion. As long as the Empire grew, the excess and ‘idle’ wealth accumulated by those it conquered could be confiscated and put to work, mainly in building the city of Rome itself, but also in creating a physical and governmental infrastructure. This booty, like that of black slavery in the 18th century British Empire built on sugar, ‘capitalised’ non-earning assets. It was a self-sustaining system; but only so long as hoards of potential capital - precious metals, agricultural land, enslavable people - were available. Once the Empire accepted borders, it’s very being was threatened.
Helena hints at this recently occurring condition when she questions her new husband Constantius about his political manoeuvring to become Caesar. ‘Why not think bigger,’ she essentially says to him, ‘and expand more broadly rather than merely defending what you have? He calls her a silly girl. And rightly so. She doesn’t understand the situation. There are no more plums to be picked at hand. The Empire now needs walls to protect itself from those who have no assets worth seizing but rather see Rome as itself the great plum tree ready to be picked at leisure. Helena has intuited two things: the limits of economics, and the lack of any other conceptual reasons for continued imperial rule.
I think Helena’s intuition is the key to Waugh’s intention for the book. It is obviously not an historical novel. He admits in his preface that Helena’s life is legendary at best. Neither is it romantic fiction - the characters are cardboard cutouts from a Boy’s Own adventure with lots of commentary on the strange local customs of the day. Nor is it strictly speaking an apologia for the Christianisation of Europe in the manner of someone like Tom Holland in his book Dominion which conceives the official adoption of Christianity as the civil religion of the Empire as something of existential import, a sort of spiritual breakthrough for humanity. What Waugh craves is order not religious faith.
Waugh wrote Helena in 1950 during the political transformation of Britain into an aspiring socialist state, which he despised; and at a period of the apparent loss of the chivalrous ideals of the war years, which he mourned. The Empire that had brought English values to half the world was wobbling. His traditionalist sensitivities were deeply offended, as they would continue to be until his death in the Britain of the Swinging 60’s. As in Helena, the world appeared to have substituted economics for culture. And for Waugh culture literally meant tradition, just as he portrays in his description Helena’s inner state. Even his conversion to Catholicism (and his intense opposition to the changes brought about by the Second Vatican Council) seem motivated by the rigidity rather than the content of Catholic doctrine.
Long before Waugh became a religious enthusiast, he was an aesthete, and a member of English country house society. The ‘normal’ progression from Sherborne School to Oxford to the Guards was sabotaged only by his elder brother’s homosexual affair at Sherborne, which forced him into an ‘inferior’ public school. Otherwise Waugh fit snugly into the machinery of the English establishment. After a somewhat dissolute university career (due mainly to aesthetic adventuring) and a rather unsuccessful early teaching career (he seduced one of the school matrons and was sacked), he found his feet as a novelist and correspondent. Whatever else he was, Waugh was a snob. He refused a CBE in 1960, believing that he should have been awarded a knighthood.
It is this deeply held but unconscious snobbery, a perhaps inevitable consequence of his background, that is the real motive force behind Helena. As in the 4th century, the world was once again being destroyed by lack of vision and taste. This contributed to his insomniac depression and made him increasingly dependent not only on drugs and alcohol, but also on the institutional certainties provided by the Catholic Church. Without the Church as a symbol of the reality of Tradition as it was defined, Waugh had no foundation for his aesthetics, his social position, or, ultimately, his life’s work.
Waugh considered Helena his most important novel. That no one else did suggests strongly that it was entirely personal rather than a religious or political work. It is, for me, his statement of what the world should look like if it were to accommodate Evelyn Waugh adequately - more or less the one that existed in 1935, of chaos coming down from Oxford for long weekends of meaningful discussion about art, and travel, and how things must surely remain the same for the benefit of humanity.
marymarshall's review against another edition
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Beautifully written. If you like Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis, I think you'll like this.
idonthavebroadband's review against another edition
hopeful
informative
relaxing
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.25
marysee's review against another edition
Odd little book. I didn’t expect 20th century English slang in the 3rd and 4th century. Character development wasn’t great. Helena changing Jerusalem’s holy sites according to her own aesthetics was smacking my head sad.
chaydgc's review
2.0
Very odd book, some nice flashes of Waughvian comedy particularly in the contemporary, colloquial dialogue, but they're set pieces within a plodding exposition that is ultimately not only humourless but sanctimonious. Not quite a novel, not quite a hagiography; its inconsistencies suggest less postmodernism avant la lettre than they betray a native satirist (and quintessential Briton of his class and moment) struggling awkwardly to justify and also to subordinate his own sensibilities and talents to a Greater Purpose. Which is, I suppose, the point of his Helena.
I must say that the editorial context is just as astonishing and to be fair may contribute to my perception. The introduction by George Weigl (who??) asserts that the book is a critique of gnosticism, calling it 'every bit as much a temptation in the twenty-first century as it was in Helena's day....Audiences still find it amazing, even unbelievable, when I tell them that, in the overwhelming majority of American universities today, very, very few members of the philosophy department will defend the claim that the reality we perceive discloses the truth of things'. Scandalous! Nor have I ever read a book that concludes with 'Questions for Reflection and Discussion', such as:
'1. What is your general impression of the character of Helena? What did you like about her?' and
'15. "Her work was finished. She had done what only the saints succeed in doing; what indeed constitutes their patent of sanctity. She had completely conformed to the will of God". How did Helena's unique personality and her questions open her to fulfilling God's will?'
I must say that the editorial context is just as astonishing and to be fair may contribute to my perception. The introduction by George Weigl (who??) asserts that the book is a critique of gnosticism, calling it 'every bit as much a temptation in the twenty-first century as it was in Helena's day....Audiences still find it amazing, even unbelievable, when I tell them that, in the overwhelming majority of American universities today, very, very few members of the philosophy department will defend the claim that the reality we perceive discloses the truth of things'. Scandalous! Nor have I ever read a book that concludes with 'Questions for Reflection and Discussion', such as:
'1. What is your general impression of the character of Helena? What did you like about her?' and
'15. "Her work was finished. She had done what only the saints succeed in doing; what indeed constitutes their patent of sanctity. She had completely conformed to the will of God". How did Helena's unique personality and her questions open her to fulfilling God's will?'
bruceolivernewsome's review
3.0
Waugh said this was his best book, but Waugh said this of several books close to the time of completion, before souring on them later, for parochial reasons. He said "best" of Helena probably because it was the purest advocacy of Catholicism through fiction, after Brideshead Revisited had failed in this ambition. He had said, in 1945, that Brideshead was his best novel, the pinnacle of a serious, nostalgic, romantic, and backwards-looking style that he had not perfected in his earlier novels of the Second World War. However, since Brideshead worked as a novel but not as an advocacy of Catholic conversion, he soured on Brideshead and sought a novel that would more directly sell Catholicism - this was Helena. I found it a difficult read, a forced style that was not natural to him: historical, mythical, even fantastical. It doesn't help his mission when he chooses to sell Catholicism through ancient Briton, through a pre-Christian time, and through fantasy. Its spiritual success is mostly to sell the importance of spiritualism in times of invasion and ideological conflict and foreign influence, but then its success is more conservative than religious, let alone Catholic in particular.
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