A Little Learning: The First Volume of an Autobiography

Literary autobiographies can be a problematic genre. I for one find Nabokov's evasiveness in "Speak, Memory" to be aggravatingly coy. Though an avid reader of Waugh's fiction, I was concerned that "A Little Learning" might prove similarly opaque in tone. I was pleased to see that it is a remarkably straightforward text. Though it will not provide any revelations to readers of any biography of the author, "A Little Learning" impressed me with its apparent honesty, frequent self-deprecation, and, perhaps most surprising, its occasional warmth. The last is not an emotion one typically associates with Waugh. The opening line establishes the bemused tone of the book: "Only when one has lost all curiosity about the future has one reached the age to write an autobiography." It is of course unfortunate that Waugh died at the absurdly young age of 63 before producing any further books in what was intended to be a multi-volume autobiography. As it is, "A Little Learning" takes us through Waugh's early youth and education, concluding during his ignominious experience as a teacher in an obscure boarding school. There, despite his displeasure with the job and seeming bleak prospects in life, Waugh showed the early stirrings of the literary efforts which would eventually make his name. The concluding episode is the well-known incident in which Waugh attempted to commit suicide (or so he says) by swimming out to sea, only to change his mind after being stung by a jellyfish. This incident was, by the way, also used as a plot element in Anthony Powell's "Afternoon Men."