Customer Reviews

Officers and Gentlemen

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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 its 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 that or allows the reader to. Even light moments are interrupted by grim tidings, like the fate of a minor character aboard a ship of Italian internees sailing to Canada (based on a true incident). At the same time, Waugh doesnt wallow in sorrow or bathos. Even his toughest sections in Crete are unsentimentally and plainly presented. He doesnt expect our tears, or want them. He just wants to involve us in his personal take on mankinds greatest challenge of the 20th century, a take all the more valuable because its not at all what you might expect from World War II storytelling. The ending of the story, for example, when Britain no longer finds itself alone after Hitler attacks the Soviet Union, would be a cause for celebration in any other book, but for Guy (and Waugh) it is something else to mourn. His nations cause is besmirched by the fact it has taken on an ally every bit as diabolically totalitarian as the enemy.

Such things make the novel tougher for others to take, but to me it points up the singularity and uniqueness of Waughs vision, which make all his writing, but particularly great works like this one, worth reading.

As with the other volumes in Sword of Honour, (Men At Arms before and Unconditional Surrender after), readers wanting insight and context are well off visiting David Cliffes handy notes at http://www.abbotshill.freeserve.co.uk/home2.htm.

This book continues the 'Sword of Honor" trilogy begun with Men at Arms. Halberdier Guy Crouchback returns from Africa chastened, but still anxious to serve his country in its time of need. Dismissed from his regiment due to his complicity in the death of his friend Apthorpe, Guy is now assigned to a Commando unit. As part of a patchwork group called Hookforce, X Commando reaches the island of Crete just in time to cover the retreat and embarkation of the regular Allied forces, and are left with orders to surrender to the enemy after the other groups have left.

Once again, Waugh points his dry English wit at the freshly-commissioned British officers of WWII to amusing effect, while still making serious points about the readiness of British forces and the military suitability of Britain's gentry. For example, one running gag is an officer frantically rushing to headquarters only to find that the commander doesn't know what to do with him. The comedic high point is when Trimmer (a former hairdresser) is sent on a largely pointless mission by officers who are desperate to score a success - any success - in order to improve public perceptions of their unit. Operation Popgun goes awry when the sub gets lost and accidentally stumbles into enemy territory, and when a sergeant, acting without orders, blows up a supply train, a clever reporter manages to describe the mission as a dramatic success, rather than the comedy of errors that it actually was.

More serious are the concluding sections that describe various characters' arduous withdrawal from Crete. While there may be some black humor in these scenes, they seem to played more for dramatic effect, to show how men react to such harrowing situations. Although Major Hound, Guy, and Ivor Claire each make different choices, one can scarcely say that one was really better than the other.

Readers who enjoyed Men at Arms will find this volume rather darker, with less emphasis on hijinks and more on military action. Men at Arms really should be read first, however, because this volume assumes a certain familiarity with Crouchback's personality and military record, as well as some of the minor characters who are referred to frequently. If you read Men at Arms but didn't really care for it, be forewarned: this book isn't any funnier, but delves a little more deeply into the misery of war.

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 award five stars to OFFICERS AND GENTLEMEN.

Evelyn Waugh's "Officers and Gentlemen" is a often satirical look at the British Army in the often disasterous early years of the Second World War. "Officers and Gentlemen" is the middle volume of a trilogy on the career of the fictional everyman Guy Crouchback, an overage junior officer in the equally fictional Royal Corps of Halberdiers. Waugh picks up the story in this volume with Guy's return from an aborted mission in Africa to experience the London Blitz. Guy ends up assigned to a commando training base in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. The Commando will be assigned duties in Egypt and end up participating in the struggle for Crete.

Waugh is a superbly gifted writer whose capture of the absurdities of the British class system and the bureaucratic foolishness of the British Army is often spot-on for humor. The narrative arc concerning Guy's successive and almost random Army assignments will be sidesplitting to those who have experienced that process in any army in real life. At the same time, and much in the manner of "Catch-22", Waugh captures the degradation of combat for individuals, even in successful battles. The description of the failed campaign in Crete is as heart-breaking as the commando training at the Island of Mugg is hilarious.

This book was first published in 1955, and some of the nuances of the humor may be lost on those without background in the history of the Second World War or British society. This volume of the trilogy can be read by itself but may make more sense when read in the sequence of the Sword Of Honor trilogy.

This book is highly recommended to those seeking some entertaining insights into the Second World War.

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.

I just finished "Officer and Gentlemen" after having read "Men at Arms" last year. I must admit that I began asking myself what the point of the story was through the first two thirds of the book. Waugh has an enjoyable style of writing that has carried me through others of his books. I remember thinking what a wonderful book "Brideshead Revisited" was after I finished it. However, to this day I'm not sure why the author wrote it. Evelyn Waugh has a reputation as a humorist but that, for me, is misleading. I can see his satire and spoofing of the upper class and there is much of that in "Officers and Gentlemen". However, Waugh is no Mark Twain. My favorite book by Waugh is "A Handful of Dust" which touched me very deeply. Reading that this, too, is a work of humor (as well as tragedy) confuses me.

"Officers and Gentlemen", as I mentioned, starts out slowly but reaches a point of real insight when the men of Hookforce enter the reality of war. The theater of war is Crete and the personalized images of war were, for me, the real value of the book. I realized that the first two thirds was to acquaint us with the different characters so we were better able to see the effects that war had on them. Along the way we do get a lot of "humorous" satire on the military and its bureacracy. One scene has the main Character, Guy, contemplating all that he has witnessed and experienced. His deep thoughts end when called for cocktails.

This is the sixth book by Evelyn Waugh that I have read. I'll read more because he writes well. I mentioned that ther are times that I wondered what his point was in writing a particular book. However, there are also times, such as I experienced in "Officers and Gentlemen" where I am very glad that I read the book.

Let me state the negatives first. This, the middle novel of Waugh's SWORD OF HONOUR trilogy, is not a book I would recommend reading out of context. Although the references to the first novel, MEN AT ARMS, are mostly incidental, they are frequent and often unexplained. The first volume was held together by the story of its protagonist, 36-year-old Guy Crouchback, finding his way into a temporary commission with a rather unusual regiment, the Halberdiers, in the first years of WW2. Here, however, Guy disappears for long stretches. Readers of the first volume will recognize secondary characters as old colleagues from the Halberdiers mess, or subsequent husbands or lovers of Guy's divorced wife, but without those connections the first half of the novel may seem rather diffuse. Fortunately the ending makes up for it.

A major theme of the novel is contained in the title. Officers and gentlemen, in popular speech, are supposed to be synonymous. But in wartime, not necessarily so. Guy, as minor aristocracy and a quietly resourceful soldier, is decidedly both. But much of the focus of the first part of the book is given to an operator called Trimmer. A former hairstylist, he is certainly no gentleman, and pretty useless as an officer too. Yet he happens to fill the bill for a nation starved for heroes, and after a farcical episode has been inflated into a selfless act of derring-do, he finds himself promoted far beyond his deserts. But gentlemen can fail as officers also; there is at least one character of impeccably blue blood who lets the side down rather badly. Although he never seems to win the laurels, Guy is the rare touchstone by which most of the others are measured and found wanting.

The novel begins in the world of P. G. Wodehouse: upper-class twits exchanging vapid repartee in London clubs. Soon this changes to satire of a different sort, making fun of the self-perpetuating bureaucracy of warfare, where everyone and everything is referred to by an alphabet soup of initials.. The comedy would probably mean more in the postwar years when people were still reeling from a surfeit of such absurdities; at times it seems almost like a British version of CATCH-22.

But then at the halfway point, the tone changes. Guy, as a member of a commando outfit called Hookforce, gets sent to Crete just too late to prevent the German invasion. This part is almost autobiographical, and it shows. Waugh himself, as part of a similarly-named force, was one of the last to escape Crete before the final surrender. Suddenly the picture of the chaos of war becomes horribly true. The tone of comedy remains, but it is no longer distinguishable from the real thing, for war itself can out-satirize any satire. The last third of the book is a magnificent achievement that almost compensates for the diffuseness of the opening, and most certainly sets the stage for the final volume.

I only regret that I am so late in discovering the joys of Evelyn Waugh. Having read Men at Arms, I could not wait to get to Officers and Gentlemen, which is equally gripping and amusing. I look forward eagerly to the final volume in the war trilogy, End of the Battle. I will order it through Amazon, of course.

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.

Waugh divides OFFICERS AND GENTLEMEN into two books, a seven-page interlude, and an epilogue. The first book, "Happy Warriors", begins with the Nazi bombing of London and captures the effects of war and mobilization on, mostly, upper class civilians. In addition, this book explores the oddly inept training received by the troops of Hookforce, where Waugh's earnest protagonist Guy Crouchback is an officer, and the shenanigans of Captain Trimmer, who seeks petty gain through his wily army service. The message of this book is that life, even in war, occurs as a polite farce, where good intentions never shape the big picture.

Meanwhile, the second book, "In the Picture", captures the experience of Hookforce as it lands in Crete in May 1941 after the Nazi invasion. Hookforce is too-little, too-late, and joins the battle after it has become a disastrous rout and the Commonwealth troops, while showing patches of bravery, mostly behave like a defeated and leaderless mob. In this chapter, Waugh is absolutely sensational as he journeys with the cowardly Major Hound toward safety and shows Captain Crouchback attempt to restore communication within the broken army. As this occurs, Waugh also offers a range of minor characters who represent different aspects of escape and bravery, with the comical heroism of Captain Trimmer raising the spirits of Brits at home. Wikipedia, by the way, says that Waugh actually fought in Crete and escaped capture "by crashing through German lines in a tank."

In OaG, Waugh writes with great pace and elegance. He also spots his writing with wonderfully descriptive or insightful paragraphs, which never slow his narrative or blur its focus. Here's one example, which describes officers retreating in car:

"For a time no one spoke except the wounded man who babbled in delirium. Fatigue had brought the Brigadier to a condition resembling senility, in which comatose periods alternated with moments of sharp vexation. For the moment his effort of decision had exhausted him. One tiny patch in his mind remained alive, and with this he steered, braked, changed gear. The road ran zigzag and the darkness deepened."

This is my second installment in THE SWORD OF HONOR TRILOGY. My first, MEN AT ARMS, was about the absurdity of duty. In OFFICERS AND GENTLEMEN, the absurdity of action also exists. But in moments of true peril, Waugh's absurdity drops away and there is, in the soldier's mission, subtle heroism and admirable purpose.

BTW: My favorite moment in this terrific novel captures Crouchback and some random soldiers, perilously adrift in the Mediterranean, encountering dreamlike nighttime seas occupied by moaning whales and turtles, where, "after the moon had set, Guy saw the calm plain fill with myriads of cats' eyes." Highly recommended.