It is customary, I have noticed, in publishing an autobiography to preface it with some sort of apology. But there are times, and surely the present is one of them, when to do so is manifestly unnecessary. In an age when every standard of decent conduct has either been torn down or is threatened with destruction; when every newspaper is daily reporting scenes of violence, divorce, and arson; when quite young girls smoke cigarettes and even, I am assured, sometimes cigars; when mature women, the mothers of unhappy children, enter the sea in one-piece bathing-costumes; and when married men, the heads of households, prefer the flicker of the cinematograph to the Athanasian Creed -- then it is obviously a task, not to be justifiably avoided, to place some higher example before the world. For some time -- I am now forty-seven -- I had been feeling this with increasing urgency. And when not only my wife and her four sisters, but the vicar of my parish, the Reverend Simeon Whey, approached me with the same suggestion, I felt that delay would amount to sin. That sin, by many persons, is now lightly regarded, I am, of course, only too well aware. That its very existence is denied by others is a fact equally familiar to me. But I am not one of them. On every ground I am an unflinching opponent of sin. I have continually rebuked it in others. I have strictly refrained from it in myself. And for that reason alone I have deemed it incumbent upon me to issue this volume.
A self-satisfied fool recounts his mundane achievements in this cult classic and comic gem. Published anonymously in 1924, this spoof memoir was hailed by The New Yorker as "a sublime, ferocious farce.
Una sátira contra la hipocresía. Administrador de una parroquia, superintendente de la catequesis y presidente de la Liga por la Pureza de San Potamus, Augustus Carp tiene por costumbre exponer los pecados y defectos de los demás mientras, al mismo tiempo, es perfectamente capaz de ignorar los propios. Desde su más tierna infancia, Augustus emprende continuas campañas contra la lascivia, la bebida y el tabaco, mientras a su vez cae en muchos otros vicios en nombre de la piedad. Cuanto más en serio se toma Carp a sí mismo y más enardecidamente lucha contra los pecadores, más hace reír al lector, que verá fácilmente a través de la supuesta caridad cristiana del protagonista. La vida de Carp recorre un abanico de situaciones vergonzosas que van desde su incapacidad de bajar de los autobuses sin caerse, pasando por sus problemas crónicos con las flatulencias o su cruzada para salvar a una linda actriz de teatro de los pecados de su profesión, hasta una borrachera de proporciones épicas producida por el consumo desmesurado de un misterioso "zumo de frutas". Escrito en 1924, Augustus Carp es un gran clásico de la literatura de humor inglesa moderna. "Una farsa sublime y feroz." The New Yorker "Incomparable, una sátira desternillante contra la hipocresía." New Statesman "Una de las grandes novelas cómicas del siglo XX." Anthony Burgess "La voz narrativa de Augustus es una obra maestra de ironía controlada, que se revela en cada palabra y cada giro de su elegante sintaxis." The Washington Post "Carp es piadoso, hipócrita, glotón, no demasiado brillante y, sí, residente criticón de Camberwell, y el narrador de lo que Anthony Burgess llamó una de las fantásticas novelas cómicas del siglo XX." London Review of Books "Una de esa pequeñas obras maestras que parecen salir de la nada." Frank Muir "Esta apócrifa autobiografía de un triste terrateniente inglés piadoso y satisfecho de sí mismo es quizá menos accesible que otros clásicos del humor, pero la curiosa estupidez de su protagonista logra fácilmente pasar el listón." Publishers Weekly "La obra cómica de Bashford ofrece la autobiografía burlesca de Augustus Carp, un egocéntrico, estirado y puritano zoquete, que se perdona a sí mismo sus numerosos vicios en nombre del cristianismo, razonando sus propias debilidades mientras condena a los demás por los mismos actos. Muy divertida." Library Journal "El libro desconocido mas divertido del mundo." Robert Robinson
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