Modern Classics Sword of Honour (Penguin Modern Classics)

For long-time Waugh fans, this book may be a disappointment. To make one volume of his three separate novels, each a classic in its own right, Waugh did some trimming and rewriting, and his work has suffered by it. Several small but choice episodes are missing; the knowledgeable reader will look in vain, for example, for the farcical scene with the 'fifth columnists' of the Loamshire Regiment. That note of sober censoriousness, that 'Pinfold' touch that darkened Waugh's later years, is evident in his emendation of his earlier text. 'That explosion on Mugg' now kills the laird and his splendidly mad niece. Left to the reader's imagination, as Waugh left it originally, surely the laird enlivens his island with happy, lunatic detonations for the rest of his days? An older and joyless Waugh slew him.

The explanatory Notes by Angus Calder are contemptible. Calder has missed (or was unable to explain) some long-time errors. e.g. that Apthorpe was proficient in 'Morse', and therefore challenged the signallers to a contest using flags. But signaling with flags is called 'semaphore'. Calder does not explain why Guy mumbles instead of saying 'Here's how' at the Marine Hotel, and this is an exquisite Mitford touch some modern readers will miss. On the other hand, Calder is eager to point out anachronisms, a humourless exercise which ignores the novelist's privilege of rearranging events for dramatic effect. Waugh's 'Sword of Honour' trilogy is fiction drawing heavily on fact, but it is neither autobiography nor history, and Waugh never claimed it was either.

Apart from 'explaining' many matters which should be common knowledge, Calder also tells us that Ruskin was a 'racist', that a certain popular soldier's song was 'inane', styles a further song 'truly awful', and asserts that the Kenya farming community where Guy and Virginia once lived was 'lush and sordid' and this would have much suited Virginia. These are matters of opinion, and snotty fashionable opinion what's more, and I for one am uninterested in Mr Calder's telling me what I ought to think and feel about the people, the places, and the period of which Waugh wrote. What Mr Waugh chose to say suffices.

Read the three fine Waugh originals rather than this unhappy compilation. Enjoy them free of tampering by both Waugh, and any pompous contemporary commentator.

Of all of Waugh's works, his semi-autobiographical Sword of Honour resonates most closely with me - not only is it somewhat more complex and sympathetic to human weakness than his earlier classics, but he has captured the ambigiuities, absurdity and complexities of soldiering (in a British Commonwealth Army, anyway) to a greater extent than almost any other author I have come across. The frustrations and disappointments of Waugh's main protagonist, Crouchback, as he transitions from idealistic officer cadet hoping to find fulfilment in a crusade against evil to a disillusioned junior officer in a military backwater at the end of the war closely parallel those of the author, although I am willing to bet the bombastic and buffonish Apthorpe and aloof and uncongenial Ludovoc reflect a bit of Waugh as well. Waugh's eye for the absurd and ironic captures the essence of the everyday and humdrum in the military, and his casual yet vivid impressions of military personalities or institutional oddities certainly offers ready parallels in my experiences of unit and headquarters life when far from the front. While his accounts of the tedium of enforced idleness while waiting for X Commando's special operation, Ritchie-Hook's completely unreflective enthusiasm or the bureaocratic manouvering of General Whale at HQ Hazardous Offensive Operations may bring a flash of recognition and grim amusement to the modern day soldier, the accusation of the refugee Mme Kanyi demands reflection - perhaps the willingness of good men to accept hardships and danger to absolve personal selfishness and laziness doesn't always end for the best.

Got 15 books as a Christmas gift -all Evelyn Waugh. Trying to collect them all.. What can I say but a good read!!!!!!