A review by bruceolivernewsome
Men at Arms by Evelyn Waugh

4.0

I tend to like Waugh in the 1930s best. The Waugh of the 1920s started well and just grew more creative. His satire peaked in the 1930s. His wartime writings were mostly serious, sometimes classicly frivolous and characterful, but often searching for meaning and direction, sometimes close retellings of his own disappointing wartime experiences, until Brideshead Revisited brought everything together in one perfect fictional capture of the whole epoch from 1920s to 1940s, the decline of British civilization, of the upper classes particularly, the triumph of socialism, the end of optimism. Sword of Honour begins his thinking on the great themes of decline, beginning with the anti-meritocracy, as he experienced it, of the British Army: the false heroes, the bluffers, the slackers, the cowards, and even the murderers. The novel's hero is on a course of disappointment. The journey is compelling, as ever with Waugh, thanks to pace and depth. It relies heavily on real historical events or close parodies. Some of it is distinctly autobiographical, such as Waugh's experiences on Crete. This personal realism is both strength and weakness: it is close and authentic, but also sometimes tedious and as inconsequential as Waugh's own war. Yet, as ever, an imperfect Waugh is still a curiously gripping journey.