Dr. White opens Part One of his commentary on “Art and Architecture” with a description of a large private estate and the castle that dominates it, the castle we come to know as Brideshead. From there White delves into Waugh the young artist in the 20s who loved anything “modern,” even Picasso. White explores the art movements of the times, and broadens his commentary to include a comparison of art and photography and how those creative endeavors influenced Waugh the writer. White maintains that the decay of Brideshead was an architectural parallel to the apostasy of England.
In general remarks about T. S. Eliot and the factors that inspired him to write The Wasteland, Dr. White draws some comparisons to his (White’s) American education, which he considered his own “wasteland” in many regards, and likens it to the barren culture described in Eliot’s epic poem. Though White fondly recalls the teacher that he credits with being responsible for his becoming a Shakespearian scholar and authority, he laments that only an American –– in this case Eliot –– could have written The Wasteland, discarded elements of which Eliot later used to write The Hollow Men.
Dr. White concludes Part Two of his commentary on “Art and Architecture” by describing how Waugh’s love for baroque art as a young man was reflected in the character of Charles Ryder the painter. White also points up the impact art had on Ryder’s love affair with Julia, a liaison he characterizes as a long, adulterous, sinful relationship. And in spite of his distaste for television in general, White heaps effusive praise on the Masterpiece Theatre production of Waugh’s classic opus, Brideshead Revisited.
Dr. White’s concluding remarks about T. S. Eliot include a reading of a portion of Ash Wednesday, a poem that in White’s analysis concerns a soul struggling towards Christ’s truth. Also, it is a poem filled with references to Mary, Christ’s blessed mother. Dr. White describes The Fourth Quartet as well, a poem that Eliot wrote toward the end of his career, a time during which he also wrote a series of plays. One of these. Murder in the Cathedral, dealt with Thomas Becket and was once staged on the very altar where Becket’s death took place. White closes the series with a description of Eliot’s marriages and a Q and A session.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn was born in 1918, one year after the Communist revolution and one year after the apparitions at Fatima. He father was an artillery officer in WWI and died three months before he was born. He was sent off to state schools were he was indoctrinated into Communistic atheistic materialism: there is no god and humans are nothing more than producers and consumers. He became a good Party member and studied to become a mathematician. He longed to be a writer. During WWII he became an artillery officer and earned two decorations. In a letter to a friend he commented on the poor use of grammar by Lenin in a radio speech and it earned him an eight-year prison term. He possessed an excellent memory, so he set out to write an epic poem of ten to twenty lines a day, memorize them, adding them to the previous lines. He also began collecting stories from fellow prisoners and committed these stories to memory as well. When he was finally released, he wrote his epic poem, now thousands of lines long, and his books on the Russian gulag prison system. He abandoned his atheism and became an Orthodox Christian.
Solzhenitsyn spent 1945 – 1953 in the gulag prisons. Once released, he went to a tiny village to teach mathematics where no one paid attention to him. He began writing his manuscripts using a tiny handwriting to conserve paper that he could not afford and to better conceal his work. He hid his documents. He developed an inoperable cancer and was sent home to die. He prayed that if spared he would write about the camps. The cancer went away, never to return. He began wring the seven volume work Gulag Archipelago. In the early 1960’s Khrushchev began the “Russian Thaw” and allowed relaxation of controls on the press. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich was published in a Russian magazine and then outside of the country. It became an international hit. He was awarded the Noble Prize for literature in 1970, but could not accept the award for fear of exile. In 1974 he was finally exiled to the west. He settled in Vermont and spent the last 20 years of his life finishing his works. The Greeks had Homer, the Romans had Vigil, the middle ages had Dante, the renaissance had Shakespeare and our century has Solzhenitsyn.
