"Love Among the Ruins" - Evelyn Waugh

[p.falk]

I have Waugh's complete short stories collection.... some are eh, but some are incredible.
In "Love Among the Ruins" he describes a fictional court proceeding involving the main character, Miles. It's pretty funny...


Miles is a youth at this point in the story and has apparently "lashed out" at society.

Courts Martial had been abolished some years before this. The Forces handed their defaulters over to the civil arm for treatment. Miles came up at quarter sessions. It was plain from the start, when Arson, Willful Damage, Manslaughter, Prejudicial Conduct, and Treason were struck out of the Indictment and the whole reduced to a simple charge of Antisocial Activity, that the sympathies of the Court were with the prisoner.

The Station Psychologist gave his opinion that an element of incendiarism was inseparable from adolescence. Indeed, if checked, it might produce morbid neuroses. For his part he thought the prisoner had performed a perfectly normal act and, moreover, had shown more than normal intelligence in its execution.

At this point some widows, mothers, and orphans of the incinerated airmen set up an outcry from the public gallery and were sharply reminded from the Bench that this was a Court of Welfare and not a meeting of the Housewives' Union.

The case developed into a concerted eulogy of the accused. An attempt by the prosecution to emphasize the extent of the damage was rebuked from the Bench.

"The jury," he said, "will expunge from their memories these sentimental details which have been most improperly introduced."

"May be a detail to you," said a voice from the gallery. "He was a good husband to me."

"Arrest that woman!", said the Judge.

Order was restored and the panegyrics continuted.

Sound familiar?

[Highlander]

Not familiar. After reading, I'd probably not want to read more.

[p.falk]

His short stories are different. I don't mind this one though. A satire on progressives that hits pretty close to home in our day.

[p.falk]

Something quite interesting with this book... it's a notion of disaster that dovetails with something that Walker Percy had commented on. Waugh has his short story "Love Among the Ruins" while Percy has a novel "Love in the Ruins"...


In this short story Miles lives in a socialistic utopia (Satellite City - truly dystopian from all of the descriptions of what live is life) after being released from prison at the very beginning of the story. He works in the State run Euthanasia department. He's a relatively calm (on the surface), few-word spoken man, but given to incendiarism - at least one instance from his youth. Miles meets a lady he starts to have feelings for, named Clara. Clara is an accomplished dancer who, after undergoing a botched medical procedure to be sterilized, grew a golden beard. Notwithstanding the beard, Mile and Clara hit it off. But, she's embarrassed by the beard and stops dancing. It's during her absence from dancing that she meets Miles. She seems to be accepting of the beard, but still wishes it gone. Miles, for whatever reason, likes the beard. In truth, I think he likes it because it makes her not want to dance and therefore spend more time with Miles. Attempts of doctors to correct the issue and remove the beard have not been successful.

She eventually finds a doctor who thinks he can remove the beard. He does, but at the cost of removing the skin on her face where the beard grows and replacing it with "Something quite inhuman, a tight, slippery mask, salmon pink." which is rubbery to the touch.

Miles falls into despair over this and goes back to the prison from the beginning of the story and burns it down (much as he burnt down the Air Force building in his youth). He walks back to Satellite City, with none knowing that he started the fire. The next day news of the burnt down prison (and most of the inhabitants) reaches Satellite City and it's noted that the typically bustling Euthanasia department has no one queued up for their "procedure".

The head of the Euthanasia department comments...

"It's a significant phenomenon," said Dr. Beamish, "that any bad news has an immediate effect on our service. You see it whenever there is an international crisis. Sometimes I think people only come to us when they have nothing to talk about. Have you looked at our queue today?"

A similar theme has come up in the work of Walker Percy. It's addressed in the Moviegoer when Binx Bolling finds that his melancholia lifts when there's very bad weather about to come, as well as touched up on The Last Gentleman. There is his "Theory of Hurricanes".