contra mundum
There’s something about the Catholic novel that takes seriously the dialectic between an ancient tradition and a modern era that dismisses it. (Protestants, on the other hand, like to pretend their tradition transcends modernity, while in point of fact it is often suckled by it.) Waugh felt this tension acutely: As Shulevitz says, he “craved some stable and all-encompassing order but couldn’t stop spotting the flaws in whatever system he encountered.” No wonder he was so grumpy.