Put Out More Flags – Evelyn Waugh, 1942 ★★

Mind You There's a War on

In September 1939 a 21-year British holiday from history came to a sharp end. War was declared and Poland carved up by Germany and Russia as the rest of the world looked on. It was time to strike back.

Only it wasn’t, not right away. First came something called the “Phoney War,” eight months of waiting and hoping. Just two years later, Evelyn Waugh set about mocking that time of simmering conflict and self-rationalization was as experienced by London’s smart set.

Put Out More Flags is a satire written in the anything-goes spirit of Waugh’s earlier, peacetime works. Government ministries set about planning ridiculous strategies, seeing the enemy everywhere but where they actually are, getting men killed by sheer lack of imagination.

The Good Soldier – Ford Madox Ford, 1915 ★★★★★

A Different Kind of Mystery Novel

Reading The Good Soldier is like being trapped in a room with one of the windiest, endlessly digressive bores you can imagine. And then the penny drops and you realize you are in the middle of a rather fun mystery.

Who is this odd narrator, John Dowell, and why is he so in the thrall of a strange English couple, the Ashburnhams? What is the deal with Dowell’s wife? And why did Ford Madox Ford give this novel the title The Good Soldier, given there is nothing in it relating to the Great War then raging across Europe?

Another mystery less difficult to explain is the hold this elliptical book has had over generations of readers, only gaining stature in later critical surveys. The Good Soldier is a probing, devastating, subtly but persistently comedic examination of duty, religion, and so much else that falls under the heading of what one is brought up to believe.

Scoop – Evelyn Waugh, 1938 ★★

Fleet Street Follies

When it came to media bashing, Evelyn Waugh got his licks in early and often. Scoop is his acid take on the artful folly of foreign correspondents competing for the big story, not really caring if they have to invent it.

Based on his recent experience as a war correspondent covering the 1935 Italian invasion of Ethiopia (then known as Abyssinia), Waugh presents Ishmaelia, an East African land of no cultural or material importance. Here is sent, completely by accident, one William Boot, nature correspondent for the Beast.

Can this gormless rustic bumpkin accustomed to writing about great-crested grebes possibly land the big story? To quote Mr. Salter, a toady to the Beast’s overbearing publisher Lord Copper, “Up to a point.”

A Handful Of Dust – Evelyn Waugh, 1934 ★★★★★

Achieving Perfection Imperfectly

There may be no such thing as a completely perfect novel. Yet few achieve greatness despite missing perfection quite like this one. What makes A Handful Of Dust a classic are the same things that catch readers like me short on a first read. It’s the grittiness that grabs you.

Take a set of cold, seemingly unknowable characters. A radical tone shift from comedy to drama. A dire third act with an O. Henry twist out of nowhere. An abrupt finale that can’t be anything but anticlimactic.

If I was a book publisher in the 1930s with this manuscript in my hands, I would have sent Evelyn Waugh back for a rewrite, probably grumbling at him on his way out. Thus the world might have missed out on one of the century’s greatest literary works.

Black Mischief – Evelyn Waugh, 1932 ★★★★

Perils of Western Civilization

Nothing prepares one for the spritely acid bath of Evelyn Waugh’s third novel less than reading it after his first two novels. Yes, those are black comedies, too, but there’s something extra-chilling about the whimsical savagery found here, where life is cheap and violence constant.

Off the coast of northeastern Africa, the island nation of Azania stands athwart the march of progress, its people enmeshed in bloody feuds and quick scams. Seth, the new emperor, seeks to change that by looking to Europe for inspiration. He happens upon a mash-up of Marxism and family planning that blows up sooner than you can say: “THROUGH STERILITY TO CULTURE.”

Counting on the help of an opportunistic Brit, Basil Seal, Seth’s road to nowhere implicates both Africans and Europeans as well as the hope they might have anything to learn from each other.

Vile Bodies – Evelyn Waugh, 1930 ★★★½

Aiming for the Gut

So much of what made Evelyn Waugh great, including the decade he blossomed in and the smart set he dished so ruthlessly about, is on display in this, his second novel, a triumph of form over substance.

No doubt Waugh intended it just so.

In many important ways, Vile Bodies marks a turning point in the author’s career. He already had his signature voice worked out. Here he aims for scope and bite, casting a wide net on the social antics of the jaded aristocratic scions dubbed the “Bright Young Things.” These were people he knew and loved best. And they loved him back, even more after he pilloried them in print with this mordant, often acid book.

Guerrillas – V. S. Naipaul, 1975 ★★½

Uncovering Danger and Lust in the Tropics

Under a haze of bauxite dust and resentment spurred by foreign exploitation, a Caribbean island nation is revealed to be a ticking time bomb, only we never quite know when it will explode. If ever.

Guerrillas pulsates with menace if not a lot of action. Instead, there is much talking and cigarette smoking. Finely written if mostly inert, Guerrillas is less a story than a portrait of attitudinal ennui.

Did I like it? Yes, V. S. Naipaul was a brilliant writer, who here cements his reputation as a keen-eyed hybrid of Evelyn Waugh and Joseph Conrad. Even more than them, though, it’s hard to care about his people.

Decline And Fall – Evelyn Waugh, 1928 ★★★★

A Devilishly Delicious Debut

A famous first novel that holds up on its own merits as well as a signpost for a stellar career, Decline And Fall introduces readers to the scathing satire of Evelyn Waugh, where hope is folly, life is a joke, and people regularly suffer for the sin of being alive.

All that, and it manages to be a lot of fun, too.

Often the pleasure of reading first novels by noted authors is twigging onto themes and motifs developed with greater success in their later, more mature works. But Waugh’s debut has no youthful awkwardness to shed. It is fully accomplished fiction, somewhat facile in places and heavy-handedly abrupt in its ending, but masterful in terms of dialogue, description, and mordant observation.

Claudius The God – Robert Graves, 1935 ★★★★

Perils of Absolute Rule

A sequel to any great novel faces a steep challenge measuring up, especially when the original works well enough alone. After barely surviving the perils of the world’s most dangerous family, only to be made Emperor of Rome, how can poor Claudius entertain us now?

With Claudius The God, it is no longer a matter of surviving, but reigning. Will Clau-Clau-Claudius, the stuttering, staggering, drooling leader of the greatest empire ever known, make a royal hash of his empire, or restore a measure of Roman sensibility and prosperity?

For much of the novel, he seems on the road to creating marked improvement for his people and his legacy. Then he realizes it isn’t good to be the king, not for him and not for his people.

1984 – George Orwell, 1949 ★★★

Why I Don't Love Big Brother

Here is a book so influential you don’t need to touch it to know its grisly details. So many immediate associations come thick and fast, from the title itself to terms like Big Brother, memory hole, and Thought Police.

As a political treatise, it long ago passed the test of greatness: People still talk about it. But how does 1984 hold up as a novel? Would it make sense if I told you I came away both overwhelmed and underimpressed?

The book is a sweeping indictment of collectivist authoritarianism, its target Marxist but vague enough to encompass other totalitarian philosophies. The term “Ingsoc” is rolled out often, suggesting that what we are seeing at work is not far off from present-day English socialism.

“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears,” Orwell writes. “It was their final, most essential command.”

A Bend In The River – V. S. Naipaul, 1979 ★★★½

Western Civilization Rules

The unique voice of V. S. Naipaul has both blessed and cursed his literary legacy. Often celebrated for his outsider view of Western civilization, he is also lambasted as a crude, sexist apologist for same.

One thing he could never be accused of was sentimentality. His books take shots in all directions, ridiculing progress, tradition, Marxism, capitalism, religion, ethnocentrism, even multiculturalism. When considering a book that encapsulates his iconoclastic cynicism as well as A Bend In The River, it’s important up front to accept and even appreciate the author’s desire not to play nice.

That doesn’t make A Bend In The River a great novel for me; I don’t rate its story or characters that high. But it is powerful to read.

The Loved One – Evelyn Waugh, 1948 ★★★½

Death Be Not Cheap

A novel easy to enjoy but hard to love, The Loved One demonstrates how able a novelist Evelyn Waugh was when he didn’t give a hoot about any of the characters in his book.

It may well be the bleakest satire Waugh ever crafted, plunging his readers into an utterly alien and forlorn land known as California. There celebrity reigns supreme, death is the ultimate arbiter of social status, and empty chatter replaces serious conversation. This is a point in its favor, our English protagonist Dennis Barlow is told:

“They are a very decent, generous lot of people out here and they don’t expect you to listen. Always remember that, dear boy. It’s the secret of social ease in this country. They talk entirely for their own pleasure. Nothing they say is designed to be heard.”

Lord Jim – Joseph Conrad, 1900 ★★★★

The Price of Dreams

Nearly everybody grows up with ideals; few of us can even try to live up to them. Adulthood is tough enough without that little fact thrown in. Joseph Conrad puts us on a very dark journey by examining how one young man’s failure to measure up costs him everything he had.

The result is a gripping read of probing psychology and cultural displacement that simultaneously raised the bar for naturalistic adventure fiction at the dawn of the 20^th century.

At the root of everything is the man called Jim. Is he a hero, a coward, or just, as we are often reminded, “one of us,” a man stuck in the middle who can only ever see himself at opposing ends of the bell curve of human conduct? Conrad keeps us wondering.

Helena – Evelyn Waugh, 1950 ★★★½

Something Better than History

History stops for no one, but occasionally makes detours. Helena tells of one such detour brought on by an old woman which changed the world.

Helena was the ex-wife of one emperor and the mother of another. More to the point, as Evelyn Waugh presents her, she crystalized the dawn of the Christian era in Europe with an act of faith that magnified the role of religion in the future of the West.

Imbued by the spirit of the Magi, Helena offers up a simple prayer: “For his sake who did not reject your curious gifts, pray always for all the learned, the oblique, the delicate. Let them not be quite forgotten at the throne of God when the simple come into their kingdom.”

Waverley – Walter Scott, 1814 ★★★

Putting on the Plaid

History is full of accidents. For example, this novel. If not for a missing tackle box, no one would ever have gotten to read it.

In the preface to his 1829 edition of Waverley, Walter Scott explains how he wrote the first few chapters of this, gave it up, and put the manuscript in a garret room where he kept lumber. Poking around said room trying to find a tackle box to lend to a friend, he came across the manuscript, read it, was surprised to enjoy it, and decided to finish it.

And thus history, or rather historical fiction, came to be.

Animal Farm – George Orwell, 1945 ★½

Grimm and Grimmer

Have you ever re-read one of those books they used to assign you back in school? Did you ever notice how almost-uniformly unpleasant they are to read today?

The Painted Bird is the most wretched of them, but there were a host of suicide stimuli on offer back in my day: The Lord Of The Flies, A Separate Peace, Crime And Punishment, The Bell Jar, The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter and of course this story about what happens when an oppressed group of animals take over a farm.

Did they want to put us off reading forever? Did they want social media to take over the planet before it had even been invented?

The Third Man – Graham Greene, 1949 ★★★½

Dirty Deeds in Vienna

Trust no one. Believe nothing. Whenever you imagine the worst possible outcome, rest assured the final result will be worse.

Paranoia as art had been around for most of the 20^th century; in The Third Man Graham Greene transformed it into entertainment, a mass-market hit on its own which connected to the unsettled postwar zeitgeist. A seminal work, unquestionably; but how good, really?

As a movie, which is how it is best remembered, The Third Man holds up quite well with a striking visual approach and engaging performances. As a book, what you get is a lean, well-paced mystery story enveloped in postwar atmosphere and European ennui.

The Complete Stories Of Evelyn Waugh – Evelyn Waugh, 1998 ★★★

Novelist Keeps it Short

Being a bad guy has its uses. In fiction, Evelyn Waugh dished out cruelty in a way that kept readers both delighted and coming back for more.

No wonder he was so cynical.

The Complete Stories Of Evelyn Waugh collects everything fictional Waugh ever published short of novels. The result is a train wreck of dangerous travels, bad marriages, family insanity, and death which showcases the range of one of the last century’s literary masters.

Jude The Obscure – Thomas Hardy, 1895 ★★

The Cruelest Art

As is so with butchers and lawyers, being a good novelist requires more than a little healthy sadism. Needs of drama and conflict require putting characters through the wringer, even (especially?) those you like.

Perhaps Thomas Hardy minded that as, after Jude The Obscure, he left novels behind and switched to poetry.

If so, he made sure he got every last dreg of cruelty out of his system by spilling it on the page of his final manuscript.

Work Suspended – Evelyn Waugh, 1942 ★½

Not Ready for Prime Time

When I gravitate to a particular author, I can find something worthwhile in nearly anything they have written. The more obscure, the more potential to surprise or even flatter me by revealing something I can briefly fancy no one else ever noticed or appreciated.

Even a work that is boring or unpleasant to read, or obviously flawed, may reveal aspects of the author a better book will not, like stylistic quirks or habitual framing devices you don’t notice as much when a ripping yarn or brilliant descriptions soak up all your attention.