On "Officers and Gentlemen" by Evelyn Waugh **

The second book in the Sword of Honor trilogy takes quite some time getting going. It follows Guy Crouchback as he moves into active service. But it also follows a number of other characters, both at home and abroad. As such, at times, I found it hard to follow, not because the writing is dense but because I just wasn't pulled forward enough to care.

Near the start, we learn that Crouchback's nephew has become a prisoner of war. His father schemes to keep his two-bedroom residence out of the service of army officers quartering in England. And Guy himself is on a mission to hunt down his dead friend Apthorpe's goods to distribute them according to his will/desire. We run into Guy's old wife and several army friends of his. There's a subplot about Guy maybe being a spy (based solely on misunderstandings) that never gets developed. There's a neat little segment where a man who fails in his mission gets promoted after the army dresses up what happened in its best language. In this absurdist and humorous sense, the book seems much like Catch-22; but unlike that book, this book doesn't for the most part seem to have as much gravitas. I didn't find myself caring that much about the characters or being sideswiped by sudden, shocking violence, until near the end.

I suppose Waugh is aiming for a climax, which is why the plot seems to kick in in the last hundred pages, when Crouchback, after being reassigned from his old unit to a commando unit, now as a communications officer, goes on a mission to Crete, where the troops beat a hasty retreat and Crouchback's own unit is left deserted--to surrender. More happens after that (we learn why they were left, for example), of course, as there is a third book and more war adventures to come.