Men at Arms (Sword of Honor) (edició 2012)

Guy Crouchback, heir of a declining aristocratic English Roman Catholic family, "For eight years ...set apart from his fellows by his own deep wound, that unstaunched, internal draining away of life and love ...," after a long search finds a place as an officer in training in the Halberdiers, "a magnificent regiment." Men At Arms, the first of Evelyn Waugh's Sword of Honor trilogy, follows Crouchback through his training and his first action. The book is very British and very funny.

I spent Memorial Day weekend enjoying this satire of the British forces at the outbreak of World War 2. Waugh has a gift for creating memorable characters. In this book, the protagonist, Guy Crouchback, was nearly overshadowed by two of them, Apthorpe and Brigadier Ritchie-Hooke. Taken collectively, this trio demonstrates the aptness of Groucho’s example of an oxymoron: “military intelligence.” The timing of this read, and my enjoyment of it, in no way take away from my respect for my father and others of his generation in accomplishing a task they didn’t ask for. But my dad’s reminiscences also made clear that the side of military life Waugh portrays was also very real. ( )

Maybe even 4.5*!

The dark humor of this novel, the first in Waugh's Sword of Honor trilogy, struck me as quite similar to that in M*A*S*H. The eccentricities of Guy's fellow officers, the stupidities of some aspects of military life, etc. In some ways, this is the first of Waugh's books that successfully combined his satire with his more serious thoughts about life as a Catholic Englishman.

Christian Rodska does an excellent job narrating the book. I especially liked his voice for Apthorpe. ( )

much better than i expected. ( )

This wasn't the book I thought I was going to read when I picked it up, and I had a hard time getting myself to keep going with it because it was so much more serious than what I was looking for.

But I found that once I did pick it up, the dry, easy tone and the accessibility of the characters propelled me through it fairly quickly and enjoyably.

I'm not quite inspired enough to read the two sequels right now, but I do recommend this book to anyone who enjoys war novels and quality writing. ( )