''The Loved One: An Anglo-American Tragedy'' (1948) is a short satirical novel by British novelist
Evelyn Waugh about the funeral business in Los Angeles, the British expatriate community in Hollywood, and the film industry.
Conception
''The Loved One'' was written as a result of Evelyn Waugh's trip to Hollywood in February and March 1947.
MGM
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded on April 17, 1924 a ...
was interested in adapting Waugh's novel ''
Brideshead Revisited'' (1945). Waugh had written that, "I should not think six Americans will understand it" and was baffled and even angered by its popularity in America,
referring to it as "my humiliating success in
heU.S.A."
Waugh had no intention of allowing MGM to adapt ''Brideshead Revisited'', but allowed the film studio to bring him and his wife to California and pay him $2000 a week during negotiations. MGM was offering $140,000 if he granted them the film rights, but Waugh was careful to ensure that the weekly stipend was paid regardless of the results of the negotiation.
Waugh was negotiating with MGM producer
Leon Gordon
Judah Leib (Ben Asher) Gordon, also known as Leon Gordon, (December 7, 1830, Vilnius, Lithuania – September 16, 1892, St. Petersburg, Russia) (Hebrew: יהודה לייב גורדון) was among the most important Hebrew poets of the Jewish E ...
, a British playwright and screenwriter, and British screenwriter
Keith Winter
Keith may refer to:
People and fictional characters
* Keith (given name), includes a list of people and fictional characters
* Keith (surname)
* Keith (singer), American singer James Keefer (born 1949)
* Baron Keith, a line of Scottish barons ...
, whom Waugh had previously known in Europe, who was to write the adaptation. Waugh complained that Winter "sees ''Brideshead'' purely as a love story", and that no one at MGM was able to grasp the "theological implication" of the novel. MGM abandoned its pursuit of the novel after Waugh explained to Gordon "what ''Brideshead'' was about", and he seemed to "lose heart", citing aspects highlighted by the
censor.
In Hollywood, Waugh enjoyed meeting
Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin Jr. (16 April 188925 December 1977) was an English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer who rose to fame in the era of silent film. He became a worldwide icon through his screen persona, the Tramp, and is consider ...
and
Walt Disney
Walter Elias Disney (; December 5, 1901December 15, 1966) was an American animator, film producer and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the American animation industry, he introduced several developments in the production of cartoons. As a film p ...
("the two artists of the place") but complained about the accommodations, the quality of food and the lack of wine at meals, the relaxed dress and informal manners, and the small talk of service workers – "the exact opposite of the English custom by which the upper classes are expected to ask personal questions of the lower".
His trip to Hollywood was successful, however, in a literary way. He wrote "I found a deep mine of literary gold in the cemetery of
Forest Lawn and the work of the morticians and intend to get to work immediately on a novelette staged there."
Forest Lawn's founder,
Dr. Hubert Eaton, and his staff gave Waugh tours of the facility and introduced him to their field. Waugh also had a copy of Eaton's book, ''Embalming Techniques'', which Waugh annotated with
marginalia
Marginalia (or apostils) are marks made in the margins of a book or other document. They may be scribbles, comments, glosses (annotations), critiques, doodles, drolleries, or illuminations.
Biblical manuscripts
Biblical manuscripts have ...
. As Waugh felt that the
eschatological or
apocalyptic implications he had intended in ''Brideshead Revisited'' had escaped many American readers, he was determined to highlight eschatological aspects of American society in ''The Loved One''.
Plot
Sir Ambrose Abercrombie visits housemates Dennis Barlow and Sir Francis Hinsley to express his concern about Barlow's new job and how it reflects on the British enclave in Hollywood, which is also taken as an announcement of Barlow's impending exclusion from British society. Barlow reports to his job at the Happier Hunting Ground, a
pet cemetery
A pet cemetery is a cemetery for pets.
History
Many human cultures buried animal remains. For example, the Ancient Egyptians mummified and buried cats, which they considered deities, and the largest known dog cemetery in the ancient wo ...
and funeral service, and picks up a couple's dead
Sealyham Terrier
The Sealyham Terrier ( cy, Daeargi Sealyham) is a rare Welsh breed of small to medium-sized terrier that originated in Wales as a working dog. It is principally a white-bodied, rough-coated breed, developed in the mid-to-late-19th century by ...
.
Because of the difficulty he is having rebranding actress Juanita del Pablo as an Irish starlet (having previously rebranded Baby Aaronson as del Pablo), Hinsley is sent to work from home. After his secretary stops showing up, he ventures to Megalopolitan Studios and finds a man named Lorenzo Medici in his office. After working his way through the bureaucracy he finds he has been unceremoniously fired. In the next scene, Abercrombie and other British expatriates are discussing Hinsley's suicide and the funeral arrangements.
Barlow, given the task of making Hinsley's funeral arrangements, visits Whispering Glades. There he is transfixed by the cosmetician Aimée Thanatogenos, though he has yet to learn her name.
Barlow continues with the funeral arrangements while Hinsley's body arrives at Whispering Glades and is tended to by Thanatogenos and the senior mortician Mr. Joyboy.
Barlow visits Whispering Glades seeking inspiration for Hinsley's funeral ode. While touring a British-themed section of the cemetery, he meets Thanatogenos and begins his courtship of her when she learns he is a poet.
Six weeks later, Thanatogenos is torn between her very different affections for Barlow and Joyboy. She writes to the advice columnist "The Guru Brahmin" for advice. Joyboy invites her over for dinner and she meets his mother.
The office of the Guru Brahmin consists of "two gloomy men and a bright young secretary". Tasked with responding to Thanatogenos' letters is Mr. Slump, a grim drunk who advises that she marry Joyboy. She instead decides to marry Barlow.
Joyboy learns that the poems which Barlow has been using to woo Thanatogenos are not his own, and arranges that Thanatogenos, who still does not know Barlow works for a pet cemetery, attend the funeral of his mother's parrot at the Happier Hunting Ground.
Sometime after Thanatogenos' discovery of Barlow's deceptions, Barlow reads the announcement of her engagement to Joyboy. Barlow meets her and she is again torn between the two men. She tracks down Mr. Slump to seek the advice of the Guru Brahmin and finds him, via telephone, in a bar after he has been fired. Slump tells her to jump off a building. She commits suicide by injecting herself with embalming fluid in Joyboy's workroom at Whispering Glades.
Joyboy discovers Thanatogenos' body and seeks assistance from Barlow. Then Barlow meets Abercrombie, who, fearing Barlow's plans to become a non-sectarian funeral pastor will further damage the image of the British enclave, pays his return passage to England. Joyboy returns, unaware of Barlow's impending departure, and in exchange for all his savings, Barlow says he will leave town so it will appear that he ran away with Thanatogenos. After cremating the body, Barlow registers Joyboy for the Happier Hunting Ground annual postcard service so every year Joyboy will receive a card reading "Your little Aimée is wagging her tail in heaven tonight, thinking of you."
Characters
Dennis Barlow, a celebrated 28-year-old British poet who is brought to Hollywood to write a script for a film biography of
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley ( ; 4 August 17928 July 1822) was one of the major English Romantic poets. A radical in his poetry as well as in his political and social views, Shelley did not achieve fame during his lifetime, but recognition of his achie ...
. He is fired from his job and, as the novel opens, he is working for the Happier Hunting Ground, a funeral service for pets. He frequently quotes lines of poetry in his speech and writing, especially when he is wooing Aimée Thanatogenos, whom he allows to believe he is the author of those lines. The sources include
Alfred Lord Tennyson
Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) was an English poet. He was the Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria's reign. In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellor's Gold Medal at Cambridge for one of his ...
,
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe (; Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is wide ...
, and others. One quotation, from the poet
Richard Middleton, was not publicly identified until 1981, 33 years after the publication of ''The Loved One''.
Aimée Thanatogenos, a cosmetician at Whispering Glades. She was named after evangelist
Aimee Semple McPherson
Aimee Elizabeth Semple McPherson (née Kennedy; October 9, 1890 – September 27, 1944), also known as Sister Aimee or Sister, was a Canadian Pentecostalism, Pentecostal Evangelism, evangelist and media celebrity in the 1920s and 1930s,Ob ...
. Her first name is French for "loved one" while her last name is Greek for "born of death".
Waugh describes her eyes as "greenish and remote, with a rich glint of lunacy."
Mr. Joyboy, senior mortician at Whispering Glades. His trademark is a beaming smile he leaves on the faces of embalmed bodies. He lives with his mother, Mrs. Joyboy, and is dominated by her.
Sir Francis Hinsley, Barlow's Hollywood housemate. In his youth, Hinsley authored the widely acclaimed novel ''A Free Man Greets the Dawn'', but has long since abandoned writing. Former chief scriptwriter for Megalopolitan Pictures, as the novel opens he works for their publicity department and is struggling with rebranding an actress named Juanita del Pablo into an Irish starlet. He is fired from Megalopolitan and hangs himself.
Sir Ambrose Abercrombie, a distinguished British actor and leader of the British enclave in Hollywood, is primarily concerned to maintain the image of his country in the eyes of Hollywood. It is believed that he is based on actor Sir
C. Aubrey Smith.
Publication and reception
Waugh began writing ''The Loved One'' in May 1947.
After initial "very slow" going,
he finished the first draft in early July
and completed the novel in September.
It was published in its entirety by
Cyril Connolly
Cyril Vernon Connolly CBE (10 September 1903 – 26 November 1974) was an English literary critic and writer. He was the editor of the influential literary magazine ''Horizon'' (1940–49) and wrote '' Enemies of Promise'' (1938), which combin ...
in the February 1948 issue of ''
Horizon
The horizon is the apparent line that separates the surface of a celestial body from its sky when viewed from the perspective of an observer on or near the surface of the relevant body. This line divides all viewing directions based on whether i ...
''.
(Hinsley is seen reading a copy of ''Horizon'' in the opening chapter of ''The Loved One''.) It was enthusiastically greeted by readers who thought Waugh had returned to early form with this short comic novel.
The novel was successfully published in America as well, though Waugh had feared lawsuits so much that he employed his friend
Lord Stanley of Alderley
Henry Edward John Stanley, 3rd Baron Stanley of Alderley and 2nd Baron Eddisbury or Abdul Rahman Stanley, (11 July 1827 – 11 December 1903), was a British historian who translated ''The first voyage round the world by Magellan'' and other works ...
to add a
codicil
Codicil may refer to:
* Codicil (will), subsequent change or modification of terms made and appended to an existing trust or will and testament
* A modification of terms made and appended to an existing constitution, treaty, or standard form c ...
to his will instructing that he be buried at Forest Lawn.
Waugh also claimed that American morticians would refuse to service his body should he die in the US.
The novel was well-reviewed, however, and sales were good.
''
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'', though, refused to publish the novel because they thought the themes of the novel had already been well-handled by American authors, such as
S. J. Perelman,
Sinclair Lewis, and
Nathanael West, the latter of whom had written two novels on themes (Hollywood studios and advice columnists) Waugh tackled in ''The Loved One''. The magazine wrote "The freshest part of Mr. Waugh's story is the part which refers to the English in Hollywood, and we wish, wistfully, that he had concerned himself more exclusively with that theme."
Allusions in other works
Tom Paxton
Thomas Richard Paxton (born October 31, 1937) is an American folk singer-songwriter who has had a music career spanning more than fifty years. In 2009, Paxton received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. mentions ''The Loved One'', along with
Jessica Mitford
Jessica Lucy "Decca" Treuhaft (née Freeman-Mitford, later Romilly; 11 September 1917 – 23 July 1996) was an English author, one of the six aristocratic Mitford sisters noted for their sharply conflicting politics.
Jessica married her second ...
's book ''
The American Way of Death
''The American Way of Death'' is an exposé of abuses in the funeral home industry in the United States, written by Jessica Mitford and published in 1963. An updated revision, ''The American Way of Death Revisited'', completed by Mitford just be ...
'', as one of the inspirations for his satirical song "Forest Lawn".
[Paxton, Tom. ''The Compleat Tom Paxton ven Compleater'. Compact Disc. Rhino Handmade, 2004.]
Film adaptation
The book was adapted in 1965 by
Terry Southern and
Christopher Isherwood
Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood (26 August 1904 – 4 January 1986) was an Anglo-American novelist, playwright, screenwriter, autobiographer, and diarist. His best-known works include '' Goodbye to Berlin'' (1939), a semi-autobiographical ...
into a film of the same title, which features, while adding to the novel's plot with new characters and scenes, many in-joke cameos and familiar California filming locations such as the
Greystone Mansion. Isherwood himself can be glimpsed within the film as one of 'Uncle Frank's' mourners.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Loved One, The
1948 British novels
British satirical novels
Novels by Evelyn Waugh
British novels adapted into films
Hollywood novels
Funeral homes in fiction
Fiction about suicide
Little, Brown and Company books
Chapman & Hall books