A review by armaget
Esprit de Corps: Sketches from Diplomatic Life by Lawrence Durrell

adventurous funny informative lighthearted medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

Look at this guy. Doesn't he look just great?


It's Antrobus. : (

Surprisingly good n funny considering I'm not in the diplomatic corps and I wasn't out and about in 1951. My grandpa though was an American diplomat guy and did that quite a bit and even some after he retired. ("You know how Grandpa's always running off to Africa?" "oh yeah.")

So here are the stories in order of appearance:

The Ghost Train- The Serbian train incarnation of a shuttle to hell. Best chapter because of it's ecstatically well-meaningness and purely evil hilarity.

Case History- "Help! The Americans are taking over the English language with their shitty words!" or, Antrobus has a heart attack over some Coca Cola.

Frying the Flag- Two sisters on typewriters writing for a shitty little newspaper warp the world around them. It's great.

Jots and Tittles- Someone eats a moth.

For Immediate Release- A hopelessly useless but enticing diplomat gets run around from post to post since he can't do anything right. He likes the Leaning Tower though.

White Man's Milk- An alluring but harmful dance occurs.

Drage's Divine Discontent- Drage sees the fiery angels of god. He gets baptised but due to a mix up is under the impression that he's about to be assassinated.

Noblesse Oblige- De Mandeville and Dennis walk some Siamese cats around while being gay.

Call of the Sea- A whole party of diplomats gets swept down a river on a raft while having said party. They get shot at quite a bit. Similar energy to the Ghost Train except the ghost train was more joyful and sinister. 

Overall a pretty nice weird and outdated little book. The illustrations were smashing of course. Maybe one day I'll learn more about Diplomatic Life and reread it.