WAUGH AND ENTERTAINMENT
351
of "blood" and class will always compromise his obligations to the poor
in heart and spirit and pocketbook. The unpleasant atmosphere of
Brideshead Revisited
was directly a result of the far-reaching disagree–
ment between Waugh and his religion.
In the last few years, however, Waugh has found himself again,
and has just published the second part of a novel in two volumes,
Men at
Arms
and
Officers and Gentlemen.
1
These volumes belong with his
finest comedy, and they show a surprising maturity, for in them Waugh
has been able to poke fun even at his Catholicism. But their excellence
derives principally from his having found something that again ex–
hilarates him: the Army. Waugh fell in love with the Army in much
the same way, and for the same reasons, that he fell in love with May–
fair twenty years ago. The Army, Waugh finds, is more interesting in
its distinctions of position and privilege (and in its ability to harbor
the pretenders to them) than a society which has been "democratized";
it is the final repository of the remnants of class and tradition, of un–
limited pride in inheritance, of true values, and of honor. It is also very
funny. Through its ranks move some of the phoniest, most brazen
picaroons in English literature, and in its infinite, inefficient reaches
lurk the grotesques, fossils, and fantasts of all good burlesque.
Guy Crouchback, the hero of these volumes, is the last male heir
of an ancient Catholic family which, though obscured by time and
fortune, is of unchallenged honor; it has had its share of martyrs, saints,
and madmen, and recognizes no English king after James
1.
At the be–
ginning of
M en at Arms,
Guy, middle-aged and much diminished from
his ancestors' glory, separated from his wife who has since remarried
three times, sulks in feeble melancholy at the family villa
in
Italy, in
despair about himself and the lack of purpose in his life. At the out–
break of WorId War II he returns to England and manages to join a
"good regiment," the Royal Corps of Halberdiers. The Halberdiers are
so historic, so distinguished and decorated that they can afford to look
down their noses at the Guards. Here, amid the congenial setting of
antiquity wedded to service, Guy-the forlorn gentleman, the withered
"flower of England"-comes to life again. "It seemed to Guy that in
the last week he had been experiencing something he had missed in
boyhood, a happy adolescence."
The Halberdier officers take part of their training in a boys' school,
and Waugh is at pains to draw a detailed analogy between life in the
Army and life in school. "The curriculum followed the textbooks, les–
son by lesson, exercise by exercise, and the Preparatory School way of
1.
Officers and Gentlemen.
Little, Brown. $3.75.
