Officers and Gentlemen - post II

One of the real achievements of both the first and this book is the way that Waugh manages to convey the sense of waiting that comes with the war.

At one point Guy muses on the idea that soldiers should be given a drug that allows them to wait without any side effects. The commandos, now known as Hookforce because they are led by Colonel Ritchie-Hook, are finally deployed to Egypt.

Guy seems to spend most of his time simply getting on with it while the rest of the troops kick their heels. Meanwhile back in London the case against Guy, started after a mistake in an Italian restaurant, gathers pace as the disturbed boss of the secret service starts to plot a worldwide conspiracy that involves Guy.

It doesn’t help that leaflets encouraging Hitler in a mistaken belief it will aid Scottish nationalism are attributed to Guy rather than the unhinged niece of the laird of Mugg, the island where the commandos are carrying out their training.

But this is that sort of book. Fuses are lit to explode in laughter at various points with some going off quickly and others being timed to be detonated much later in the trilogy.

More tomorrow…

Lunchtime read: Frankenstein

The monster is always lurking and finally Frankenstein meets him again climbing high in the mountains. The creator wants to question his creation about the murder of his brother and the framing of the servant girl. Despite his knowledge of her innocence Frankenstein is unable to stop her being put to death by the court.

To get over his grief he heads for the mountains and there he meets the monster. The creature begs him to listen to his story and then decide how to react to him. If he spurns him without justification the monster warns he will go on a revenge spree.

Sitting in a mountain hut Frankenstein is then told a story of loneliness and solitude after everyone who comes across his creation rejects him. The story starts with the monster looking on a brother and sister and elderly father as a family that he aspires to be part of. He does things to help them under the cover of darkness but you sense that some sort of rejection is coming because there is always the fear of rejection underlying the story.

More tomorrow…

Officers and Gentlemen - post I

Sometimes the break between two books the follow each other can be used as a chance to introduce some more back story or to roll out some fresh characters.

In a comforting way Waugh just sticks with picking up where things left off. The opening pages set Guy against a backdrop of a London being torn to bits in the blitz and although he is meant to report back for a hearing no one seems to know what is going on.

As before the war the real jobs worth having are being given out at clubs between friends and Guy is advised to hang around if he wants to get involved with something interesting.

But wherever Guy goes he seems to be unwanted. A bit like his father, who is under pressure to give up his comforts in the boarding house, the war seems to be all about displacing people.

The limited number of characters are all roughly reunited with Guy being sent to the commando training camp run by Tommy Blackhouse, his ex-wife’s former husband. Meanwhile the ex-wife is in Glasgow down on her luck and prepared to enjoy a few days being pleasured by Trimmer her old hairdresser.

Guy meanwhile is just focused on finding a role and getting stuck back into the war.

More tomorrow…

Lunchtime read: Frankenstein

Although the language is firmly 19th century and the style not immediately accessible the strength of the story keeps you reading. The scene in the mountains with Victor and his creation is vivid and no wonder so many film makers were inspired to turn such clear scenes into action.

Having created the monster, although he keeps it secret how he did it, Victor Frankenstein is revolted by his eight foot high creation. What he thought might be beautiful and the best of men is hideous once the muscles underneath the skin start working.

He flees from the monster and is relieved to discover it has gone when he returns to his rooms with his old friend from home who has come to visit him. Victor then succumbs to a brain fever that keeps him in bed for months. Meanwhile there is no sign of the monster and his family, who he has not seen for almost six years.

He promises to write to them and then plans to visit. But then he hears that his youngest brother has been killed and he heads home grief stricken. On his way home he stops at the place where his brother was found in the mountains and as the rain falls and the lightning streaks the sky he spots the monster he created.

Victor is in no doubt that his own creation killed his brother and hurries home after watching the monster scale the heights of the mountain.

More tomorrow…

Taking a break from Powell

Although Dance to the Music of Time is enjoyable you do after a while start to look at other books by other authors with envy. As a result the choice of reading reverts back to the second part of the Waugh Sword of Honour trilogy. Get through that and finish off Dance... and no doubt a series of French, Russian and German writers will be a good antidote to so much British fare...

Lunchtime read: Frankenstein

There are certain books that you feel you know so well without ever having read them as a result not just of films but because they seem to form a part of society’s collective consciousness.

One of those is Frankenstein and another is Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Odd choices maybe for lunchtimes reads but titles that I intend to knock-off over the next few weeks.

Starting with a £2 version of Frankenstein printed by Penguin in its cut price Popular Classics range and it starts slowly. Through a series of letters a polar explorer explains to his sister about his ambition to get to the North Pole. As his boat reaches the ice the crew is disturbed to see a man pulled by dogs on a sleigh miles from land. The next day a similar sledge is found by the boat and they save the occupant from certain death.

Once aboard it takes days for the survivor to warm up and be in a position where he will talk. When he does start his tale it is for the captain’s ears only and it begins with a life story detailing a boy with an open mind about science and a desperation to understand the laws that govern life and death.

But what of the other man on a sledge? Why does the saved traveller talk of destiny and death?

More tomorrow…

bookmark of the week

This was given to my son as a gift and is one of those bookmarks that has an image that moves when you look at it from side to side. In this case a flock of sheep about to be terrorised by a wolf. In this scan it somehow managed to get a bit of both images at once so you can see the wolf licking his lips about to attack...

Casanova's Chinese Restaurant - post IV

The last chapter in the book is dominated by death and a sense of injustice. Both Sir John Clarke and Maclintick die, one of old age and the other of suicide. Moreland and Jenkins had only seen the bitter critics three days before he ended his life. His wife had left him, probably never quite recovering from the evening where Stringham showed her that there was an alternative.

As the two friends sat uncomfortable in the house that held the wreck of the man and the marriage Maclintick talked about his marriage in reasonable terms. But Jenkins identifies a deeper malaise and it is without shock, but not without disappointment, that three days later the police break in and find the critic’s body.

As a result of the death of Maclintick because of the sense of warning that his misery showed could be contained in marriage, Moreland calls of his affair with Priscilla Tolland. She opts to get engaged to Chips Lovell, an old acquaintance of Jenkins’s adding another mess to the mix of family and friendships the narrator continues to make.

Meanwhile, Sir john Clarke has died and the real interest hovers around the question of his will. Quiggin has already shown irritation that suggests he know it is not him. Indeed it turns out to be Erridge, a wealthy landowner that manages to land the money. The windfall means he will not have to sell the woods after his return from a failed campaign in Spain where he managed to irritate rather than help anyone fighting Franco.

His rather sheltered life contrasts to the real misery and pain that must have been felt by the failed writer and lowly critics Maclintick.

A review will follow shortly…

Casanova's Chinese Restaurant - post III

The stresses of marriage are quickly on display as Moreland falls in love with Priscilla Tolland and upsets his wife, who reveals some of her past to Jenkins, including some of her former romances.

She can clearly read her husband like a book but the moment he actually concludes his symphony and Mrs Foxe throws a party for him. The Symphony is received with cautious praise from the critics Maclintick and Gossage who sum up that it is not bad but it is not outstanding.

But Moreland doesn’t have time to dwell on it because he ends up in a corner with a very drunk, but very amusing, Stringham. Although at his own mother’s home it is quite clear that Mrs Foxe would rather her son leave. Before he goes he also recalls some of the reasons why his marriage failed. It is genuinely amusing but tinged with sadness that the bright young thing of the first pages of the first volume has been reduced to a family embarrassment. Mind you it does make you smile the way Powell captures a character at full drink fuelled tilt.

More tomorrow…

Casanova's Chinese Restaurant - post II

There are the usual coincidences with Moreland and Jenkins bumping into each other in the hospital as they visit their wives – one expecting and the other recovering from a miscarriage. In the hall they also come across Widmerpool who is suffering from boils.

Before that there is a scene setting out the life that Jenkins has married into with Sunday lunch at Lady Warminster’s with various members of the Tolland family sitting round the table. Joining them is novelist Sir John Clarke but he is overshadowed by the news that Erridge Tolland is heading out to Spain to the civil war.

That dating reference puts this second chapter about three years on from the start of the book. Most date references are oblique but it does make you realise that in a matter of pages a fair amount of time has passed.

The end of the chapter sees the flipside of marriage. If Jenkins represents the state of marriage post true-love then Moreland sits in the middle of being more cycnical and at the other extreme – one punch away from divorce – is the music critic Maclintick. Moreland convinces Jenkins to go and visit him and when they get there they find husband and wife arguing.

An uncomfortable evening proves that marriage is not necessarily all smiles and professions of true love.

More tomorrow…

book review - Men at Arms

When you pick up an Evelyn Waugh you expect a satirical novel that will be well written but also amusing.

Having read Helena it is no surprise that to that mix you can add some religion and with the novel starting in Italy there is instantly a Catholic feel to things that is carried through with the religious views of the main character Guy.

This is the first of a trilogy about the second world war so you pick it up half expecting the action to start from the first page. But this is before things start to happen and as the main character shuts up his Italian villa and heads for home his driver tells him no one wants war.

Once back in London there is nowhere for him to go so he has to use contacts to get drafted into to a regiment that still appears to operate on a friends and contacts basis. But this is still the phoney war and even when things start to get formal with Germany it is still all about exercises and drill for Guy and his fellow would-be officers.

But then things get suddenly serious and before Guy and his colleagues can even get there the Dunkirk escape has happened and France has fallen. They are left defending against rumours before being shipped out to the African coast. Once there they are dissuaded from taking any action. But Guy is led into attacking the coast by a mad Brigadier and that combined with accidentally contributing to his friends death by giving him alcohol in hospital lands him on a boat heading home for a court martial.

The satire is subtle with it being more about the military establishment and a certain class of people more than happy to appear in their clubs in military dress but equally as keen to keep away from any real action.

But there are two great figures in this first volume. Firstly, fellow elderly officer candidate Apthorpe. With his thunder-box, a portable latrine he used to avoid catching syphilis from fellow soldiers, he manages to provoke a battle with the officer in charge for the use of the device. Then he also manages to confuse his rank and overstep his authority on numerous occasions.

Colonel Ritchie-Hook is the other great character. He seems intent on leading his own war in a sort of bayonet charging way and in the end leads Guy into trouble for encouraging him, and then joining him on a landing on the coast that descends into a grenade throwing match. He represents the old army but also a type of attitude that is lacking in those hanging around the bright lights of London.

This does evoke a picture of London on the outbreak of war and there is also an insight into the apparent unpopularity of Catholicism very few people seem to want to worship along with Guy. Where there is humour it is directed at the system and the attitude of certain types of people. But there is also fear, buried underneath the Ritchie-Hook bravado but nonetheless there all the same.

No doubt that fear will surface in the second book. But where Waugh differs from some trilogy writers is that he does leave not just the main character on a cliff hanger – will he be court martialed – but also the entire state of the war.

Version read - Penguin paperback

Casanova's Chinese Restaurant - post I

One of the criticisms some people have made of Anthony Powell is his occasional timing problems with Dance to the Music of Time. This book starts in a place where it feels as if there is a continuity problem.

This is a time when Deacon is alive and in a pub with some musicians and critics who become central to this book. It feels odd because why were they never mentioned in the previous books in a period when they would have overlapped?

The answer probably has more to do with the theme of this book - marriage. Central to the first scene apart from Deacon is Moreland who is a musician who is sitting with critics Maclintick, Gossage and fellow musician Carolo. An actor, Norman Chandler arrives to try to get Deacon to buy an antique and the party move on to Casanova's Chinese Restaurant.

From there they move onto see Matilda, the focus of Moreland's attention, acting alongside Chandler. At the end of the performance Jenkins foes back stage to meet Matilda but the interest is the fawning Charles Stringham's mother Mrs Foxe shows for Chandler begging him to join her for dinner.

More tomorrow...

Lunchtime read: What's Become of Waring

The moral of the story seems to be that publishing is not such a great industry to get involved with. At the end Hugh the publisher goes back to school teaching. Plus in addition the conclusion seems to be that everyone is ultimately driven by a lust for power. Everyone it seems apart from the narrator.

The last couple of paragraphs, after all the loose ends have been tied-up, have Powell musing about what drove his characters on. But just as with Nick Jenkins in Dance to the Music the narrative figure seems to be content drifting along observing rather than getting directly involved with the rat run.

In the end of the story the various different strands are concluded and you do put the book down having enjoyed a tale that makes fun of what isn’t there. In the case of Waring it was an absence of any real writing talent, the case of the séance crowd the absence of happiness with the current world and for those in the publishing world the constant hunt to end the absence of the happiness that a best seller would deliver.

A review will follow soon…

Lunchtime read: What's Become of Waring

I am not feeling very well. Don't quite know what's up but a headache is part of the problem. As a result I will post about this tomorrow. I finished the book today ad it ended with smiles nearly all round but then had a last couple of paragraphs that did make you wonder.

I'll explain all tomorrow...

Lunchtime read: What's Become of Waring

Where some authors might set out a cast of characters that interlink and drive the narrative forward Powell tends to use family as a device. It is the same in Dance to the Music of Time but what he does here is clearly more limited. It moves around the Pimley family.

Initially the link is childhood memories and Hudson, who is engaged to one of the two daughters Beryl. But there is a black sheep in the family Alec and he turns out to be the mysterious T.T Waring.

The problem with Waring is not so much him being alive - something he might not be anymore as the result of a storm - but the fact that Hudson has discovered he is a plagarist.

Meanwhile, the narrator's boss has become a follower of a sect and the femme fatale Roberta continues to weave her spell.

More tomorrow...