内容简介
One climbed to the very top of the social ladder, the otherchose to live among tramps. One was a celebrity at twenty-three,the other virtually unknown until his dying days. One wasright-wing and religious, the other a socialist and an atheist.Yet, as this ingenious and important new book reveals, at the heartof their lives and writing, Evelyn Waugh and George Orwell wereessentially the same man. Orwell is best known for "Animal Farm"and "1984," Waugh for "Brideshead Revisited" and comic novels like"Scoop" and "Vile Bodies." How ever different they may seem, thesetwo towering figures of twentieth-century literature are linked forthe first time in this engaging and unconventional biography, whichgoes beyond the story of their amazing lives to reach the core oftheir beliefs-a shared vision that was startlingly prescient aboutour own troubled times. Both Waugh and Orwell were born in 1903,into the same comfortable stratum of England's class-obsessedsociety. But at first glance they seem to have lived oppositelives. Waugh married into the high aristocracy, writing hilariousnovels that captured the amoral time between the wars. He convertedto Catholicism after his wife's infidelity and their divorce.Orwell married a moneyless student of Tolkien's who followed him toBarcelona, where he fought in the Spanish Civil War. She saved hislife there-twice-but her own fate was tragic. Waugh and Orwellwould meet only once, as the latter lay dying of tuberculosis, yetas "The Same Man" brilliantly shows, in their life and work bothwriters rebelled against a modern world run by a privileged,sometimes brutal, few. Orwell and Waugh were almost alone amongtheir peers in seeing what the future-our time-would bring, andthey dedicated their lives to warning us against what was coming: aworld of material wealth but few values, an existence withouttradition or community or common purpose, where lives are measuredin dollars, not sense. They explained why, despite prosperity, somany people feel that our society is headed in the wrong direction.David Lebedoff believes that we need both Orwell and Waugh now morethan ever. Unique in its insights and filled with vivid scenes ofthese two fascinating men and their tumultuous times, "The SameMan" is an amazing story and an original work of literarybiography.