Officers and Gentlemen

OFFICERS AND GENTLEMEN is the second in the "Sword of Honour" trilogy by Evelyn Waugh, a trio of novels that some have acclaimed the best fiction produced by World War II (I personally would not go that far) and others have stated represent Waugh's best work (with which I tend to agree, although I haven't yet read everything by Waugh). The protagonist is Guy Crouchback, the last in the male line of an upper-class English family that proudly traces its heritage back for centuries but in recent generations has seen its fortunes dwindle. Still, as World War II opens, Guy finds meaning and comfort, and a guide for life, in the traditional values. The first in the trilogy was Men at Arms ("MA"), and OFFICERS AND GENTLEMEN ("O & G") begins where MA ended, without any appreciable pause or break. Indeed, those who have not first read MA might find O & G somewhat bewildering. But the character of O & G, for the first two-thirds of the novel, is markedly different than MA. The satire has a keener edge, and the humor is more frequent and less subtle. There are places where it approaches the "laugh-out-loud" sort of P.G. Wodehouse. The novel is elaborately plotted (again like Wodehouse), with a number of remarkable incidences of coincidence. Most of the novel could easily be classified as comedy, much of it surrounding the army's bureaucratic muddles and messes ("order, counter order, disorder"). In a sense, it is a British forerunner of "Catch-22". (I would be very surprised if Joseph Heller had not read O & G; published six years before "Catch-22", it most probably influenced Heller and the later novel, even if subconsciously.) But everything changes about two-thirds of the way into the novel when Guy and his army group, Hookforce, arrive in Crete to help defend the island against the German invasion. The British forces are woefully disorganized and under-supplied, and by the time Hookforce is landed, the British army is being thoroughly routed. Guy's disillusionment becomes complete, and the novel becomes somber, with what humor there is of the black variety. If anything, the pace of O & G is even more rapid than that of MA, with even heavier reliance on dialogue to carry portions of the narrative. O & G also is more British; it assumes in the reader greater familiarity with the British military organization and with British society and culture, so that many small points are unknown to at least this American reader 50 years later. Still, O & G is superbly written, and it is Evelyn Waugh's masterly command of the English language and English narrative that most commend the novel. As between O & G and MA, I find it difficult to decide which is the better novel. Just as I did with Men at Arms, I round up a few fractions of a point and aware five stars to OFFICERS AND GENTLEMEN.

Guy Crouchback feels the London scene resembles a Turner Painting. This is the second book of a trilogy, but it works well as a stand-alone literary offering. Guy is under a cloud. He has been recalled from Africa. One of the things he has come to realize is that the concept of honor has changed. If someone were to challenge him to a duel, he would laugh. Guy's father is at Matchett. Mr. Crouchback is puzzled by some snacks received from America from his grandchildren who are spending the war there, for safety. Miss Vavasour has cherished a chivalrous devotion to Guy's father since settling at Matchett. Guy feels he has been sent from Africa to London like a package. The Brigadier has advised that he would be hearing from him. Jumbo Trotter is dispatched to hand over Guy's orders. His destination is Matchett, the default address Guy provided. Miss Vavasour tells Jumbo that Major Grigshawe, the quartering commandant, is seeking to remove Guy's father. When Jumbo has a word with the major, the problem disappears. Guy is instructed to report to Marchmain House. Subsequent to going to Marchmain House, Guy proceeds to the Isle of Mugg to join the B Commando forces. (The laird is called Mugg, and seeks dynamite to carry out some of the projects on his estate.) He encounters Colonel Tommy, and he marvels at how easily permanent officers make the transition from equality to superiority. Jumbo Trotter joins the group, although when it is time to be dispatched to Egypt he, (Jumbo), is left in Scotland. B Commando has draconic private law. It is claimed in Cairo that there is no place in the service for private armies. Near Alexandria Guy is tasked to locate Ivor Claire who had been absent from duty for two weeks. Guy finds him in a private nursing home. B Commando is on the verge of mutiny over the training regime at this point. Waugh shows the forces of war as a mixing of classes, nationalities, roles, perspectives, and even means of transport. Metaphors change. Painters no longer use pictorial representation but the planning staff does. THE DAILY BEAST seeks to make an issue of the fact that a supposed creator of military glory has been drummed out of the regular services on grounds of snobbery. (The individual is a hair stylist.) Guy's part in the war played out in Crete. It was not the place of a Halberdiers officer to get his name in the papers. Imagine first that war readiness takes place in England and Scotland, and next that events of actual war are transacted by means of an international cast on Crete, and, then, consider that the descriptions, comic and effusive, are supplied by a modern-day Dickens and the achievement of Evelyn Waugh may be brought into focus. Bravo.

First published in 1955, `Officers and Gentlemen' is the second volume in the `Sword of Honour' Trilogy. The book is somewhat more fast-paced and exciting than its prequel, `Men at Arms', and as such makes for an excellent read. The reader follows the novel's hero, Guy Crouchback, as he returns to the Halberdier barracks following his escapades in Africa. Guy is then posted to the Isle of Mugg in Scotland, where he joins the newly formed Commandos. The brigade is then shipped off to Egypt, and eventually ends up in Crete where they attempt, in vain, to defend the island from a German attack. `Officers and Gentlemen' ends with Guy having come full circle when he arrives once more at the Halberdier barracks almost one year exactly after he left. The prose in `Officers and Gentlemen' is as excellent as one would expect from a Waugh novel, and one finds oneself unable to stop reading at some points in the story thanks to Waugh's ability to nurture the reader's interest. The book's characters are also exceptionally well constructed and it is a delight to stumble across such eccentric individuals as Doctor Glendening-Rees, an expert in survival techniques who makes a troop of Commando volunteers eat seaweed for a week, and Mugg, the explosives-obsessed Scottish laird. Waugh's writing in this book is by no means confined to well-structured prose and memorable characters. Indeed, through Guy Crouchback one is exposed to cynical observation of the often ill-organised army, and to descriptions of the abandonment of Crete which conjure up Apocalypse Now-like images of tired, frightened soldiers caught in the chaos of retreat. `Officers and Gentlemen' also expands on the themes which Waugh hints at in `Men at Arms'; those of the virtues of paternalist hierarchy and of tradition. Guy Crouchback's belief that these virtues still exist is obviously put under great strain by his experiences in Crete and by the alliance between Russia and Britain. An awareness of these themes gives `Officers and Gentlemen' an extra dimension. `Officers and Gentlemen' is a very good read. Not only does it offer us an insight into the life of an army officer in war time Britain, but Waugh's humour and gift for producing beautiful prose make this a superb second volume in the `Sword of Honour' Trilogy.

The period of time between the fall of France and the Nazi attack on the Soviet Union justifiably has been called Britain's finest hour, when the island nation stood alone against Hitler and the Axis powers. Trust Evelyn Waugh to write a novel about this effort that manages to find more to mock and be acerbic about than to be proud of. Amazingly, as fiction "Officers And Gentlemen" not only works but shines, and is a gripping account of how one fellow's war may or may not jibe with the larger political effort around him.In the previous volume of Evelyn Waugh's "Sword of Honour" trilogy, "Men At Arms," we met the pallid Guy Crouchback, heir to an Anglo-Catholic aristocratic line of no special importance, struggling to find some personal meaning in the great conflagration that was World War II. ?Men At Arms? is a mostly funny read, a comedy of errors and barracks farce, with some dramatic detours that accumulate in frequency and gravity by story's end."Officers And Gentlemen" has a starker break point between the humor and the drama, which occurs after Guy and his unit is sent to Crete to cover the British retreat there. The Crete section of this story is harrowing, affecting reading; a collection of isolated moments that never quite gel because they are not supposed to. Waugh based this on his own similar experience doing very much the same thing in that battle, and throws up a dozen or so vignettes that only barely pierce through the fog of war: Radios thrown over the side of a ship; a soldier disguising himself as an officer so he can flee the front easier, a commander too tired to give orders to his newly-arrived reinforcements, a vigil beside a dead soldier lying nameless in a desolate village.Virtually every soldier Guy meets is lacking in some way, particularly a by-the-book brigade major named Hound and a dashing but callow sort named Claire who are among his closest companions. While Stukas dive and rain havoc on the shattered troops, Guy tries to figure out what he's supposed to be doing in this awful place. When he finally gets his orders, they are to do the unimaginable: Surrender.Before Crete, "Officers And Gentlemen" is a fairly funny read, not in a laugh-out-loud way so much as invigorating. The opening part features the aerial Battle of Britain, sacred stuff in the history of the conflict, but leavened here by the fact it is being observed by two tipsy officers inside a private club who watch nearby buildings burn and try to agree on which painter the resulting effect is most reminiscent of: "Not Martin. The skyline is too low. The scale is less than Babylonian."Then it?s off to the Inner Hebrides, and the mythical island of Mugg, with its rocky outcroppings, its castle "indestructible and uninhabitable by anyone but a Scottish laird," and a troop of Commandos slowly going to seed. Guy struggles to prove himself worthy of this crew, even as he begins to wonder about their merit.War is human tragedy, and Waugh never loses sight of th