Customer Reviews

Sword of Honor a Trilogy

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The sad thing is that this book (originally three books) is now rarely read or even remembered. Sad, because it is a remarkably good read, as good as anything Waugh ever wrote. It follows the trials of Guy Crouchback, a middle aged (at 35!) upper class Englishman from a distinguished but fading old Catholic (of course) family who desperately wants to do 'his bit' during World War 2. It is funny, sad and enlightening from start to finish. Oddly enough, considering the vastly different backgrounds and styles of the two writers, I almost see this book as a companion to Spike Milligan's War diaries. While Spike tells us about the war from the view of a working class oik in the lower ranks, Waugh gives us the upper class officer's perspective. You could easily imagine their two characters (biographical in Spike's case, and pretty close to biographical in Waugh's) passing through each other's books. If you can't get a copy on Amazon, pick it up if you see it at a shool fete jumble sale. You'll find it surprisingly rewarding.

Guy Crouchback is almost saintly. He is Catholic, patriotic, and selfless. When World War II comes along he is eager to serve his country and to be thrown into the caldron of war. But, by his own admission, he is not "simpatico" and he always seems to be the square peg trying to fit into a round hole. Perhaps his military career parallels that of the author, Evelyn Waugh.

There is of course no place for Guy in the British Army where his hard work and dedication are little rewarded and his war experiences are spotted with malfortune, little of which is of his own making. Guy "blots his copy book" early on and ends up being suspected of spying for the Italians. Waugh dots this novel with a cast of clownish characters and comic adventures in which Guy sadly participates.

Waugh's irreverent attitude toward World War II has probably made this novel less popular than it should have been. For example, at the opening of the war, Crouchback wonders why England, in the face of simultaneous invasions of Poland by Germany and the Soviet Union, chose to go to war with one and not the other. At another point, Guy muses that "he was engaged in a war in which courage and a just cause were quite irrelevant to the issue." In the best Waughian tradition, he does a hatchet job on the much-celebrated Yugoslav resistance movement of Marshall Tito.

Waugh, oddly enough, has also made the interesting comment that he wrote the "obituary" of the Roman Catholic Church in England with this novel. I take him at his word although perhaps I can't fully appreciate the Catholic subtleties of the novel.

Waugh originally published this novel in three volumes between 1952 and 1962. He then published the three volumes in one, omitting "tedious" passages. One of the tedious passages he omitted was, to me, the most memorable of the book -- the tale of children evacuated from London at the beginning of the war and thrust, with hilarious consequences, upon the country gentry for caretaking. So, you might read the novels -- Men at Arms, Officers and Gentlemen, and The End of the Battle -- separately as well as together.

World War II has produced a lot of good history and movies, but little that could be called good literary fiction. Waugh's comic, sad, and cynical novel is one of the best.

Smallchief