“There was a Gothic pavilion where by long habit Freddy often became amorous; he did become amorous” (13).“Often, in Paris, Lady Seal had been proud that her people had never fallen to the habit of naming streets after their feats of arms; that was suitable enough for the short-lived and purely professional triumphs of the French, but to put those great manifestations of divine rectitude which were the victories of England to the use, for their postal addresses, of milliners and chiropodists, would have been a baseness to which even the radicals had not stooped” (17).“…and the French seemed to have put off their politeness and packed it in moth-balls for the duration of hostilities” (23).“She sipped, gazing out at the passing landscape, every mile of which gave some evidence of the changing life of the country; hunger and the bad night she had spent raised her a hair’s breadth above reality, and her mind, usually so swift and orderly, fell into pace with the train—now rocking in haste, now, barely moving, seeming to grope its way from point to point” (23).“…ladies in wimples and distress…” (31).“He kept his sense of honour as he might have kept an expensive and unusual pet; as, indeed, once, for a disastrous month, Sonia had kept a small kangaroo named Molly” (50).“Removed from the realm of metaphor to plain English…” (54).“Sir Joseph thus found himself, through his loyal friendship with Cynthia Seal, in the equivocal position of introducing, with a view to his advancement, a man for whom he had a deep-seated horror to a man who had something of the same emotion towards himself. It was not a concurrence which, on the face of it, seemed hopeful of good results” (60).“…there were too many of them at the table; when you put out your hand for your glass and your neighbour at the same time put out his knife for the butter, he gave you a greasy cuff…” (69).“The human mind is inspired enough when it comes to inventing horrors; it is when it tires to invent a heaven that is shows itself cloddish” (71).“There the three had stood, on the eve of the war, in Malfrey Parish Hall, one leering, one lowering, and one drooling, as unprepossessing a family as could be found in the kingdom” (98).“Marlene had a species of seizure which aroused unfulfilled hopes that she might be dead” (100).“…but Cedric telephoned first, wryly remembering the story of the pedantic adulterer—‘My dear, it is I who am surprised; you are astounded’” (217).“So he had given way and that year had spanned the stream with a bridge in the Chinese Taste, taken direct from Batty Langley” (218).“He had left persecution mania downstairs with his hat and umbrella” (223).“At last they reached the classic columns of the railway terminus. It is not a cheerful place at the best of times, striking a chill in the heart of the gayest holiday-maker. Now in war-time, before dawn on a cold spring morning, it seemed the entrance to a sepulchre” (253).“Ambrose found a corner darker, even, than the general gloom” (254).“…one man alone could go freely anywhere on the earth’s surface; multiply him, put him in a drove and by each addition of his fellows you subtract something that is of value, make him so much less a man; this was the crazy mathematics of war” (268).“…Sir Joseph Mainwaring, whose courtly and ponderous form concealed a peppercorn lightness of soul, a deep unimpressionable frivolity, which left him bobbing serenely on the great waves of history which splintered more solid natures to matchwood” (273).
I recently read, and very much enjoyed Sword of Honour, like this book, Sword of Honour is a satirical novel about World War Two. The books that comprise the Sword of Honour trilogy were written in the 1950s and 1960s when Evelyn Waugh was able to put World War Two into some kind of perspective. Sword of Honour also happens to be one of Evelyn Waugh's masterpieces. Put Out More Flags, an earlier war novel, opens in the autumn of 1939 and all takes place during the twelve months of the war. It was published in 1942.I have read most of Evelyn Waugh's major works now, and, as usual, the quality of the writing here is a pleasure. The story follows the wartime activities of characters introduced in Waugh's earlier satirical novels Decline and Fall, Vile Bodies and Black Mischief. The uncertainty and confusion of the so-called "phoney war" are brilliantly evoked, and - as is so often the case - the satire and humour are very black. Basil Seal, who readers may recall from Black Mischief, is the star of the show. His opportunism creating all manner of mischief for those he runs into, and his scam involving a troublesome family of evacuated children is brilliant and sums him up perfectly. To suggest this book is full of humour would be misleading: one scene involving the troubled and tragic Cedric Lyne visiting his estranged wife Angela, with their son Nigel, for once impressed by him in his army uniform, is absolutely dripping with sadness and melancholy, and demonstrates Waugh's extraordinary skill. Overall the book felt slightly uneven and a bit rushed. There is much to admire and enjoy, however I conclude this is one of Evelyn Waugh's less successful novels (measured against his exceptionally high standards). It's of most interest to Waugh completists (of whom I am definitely one) and should not be prioritised ahead of his key works: Brideshead Revisited, Sword of Honour, Decline and Fall, and A Handful of Dust. 3/5
What do You think about Put Out More Flags (2002)?
The timing for reading Evelyn Waugh's sixth novel, Put Out More Flags published in 1942 at the beginning of WWII, was good for me. It is another of his great satires featuring Basil Seal, of whom was featured prominently in the last Waugh book I read Black Mischief. Seal is a scoundrel, but a very likable one when all is said and done. The title of the novel comes from Lin Yutang's book The Importance of Living, which I unsuccessfully tried to read (it comes across to me as the kind of book you dip into at different parts but would be a chore to read straight through). Anyway, back to Waugh's book which follows on the heals of my having read Max Hasting's single volume WWII history Inferno, which makes the significance of the events in the novel come alive in a greater fashion. Furthermore, there is some great writing in this novel, for example: It was one of those affairs which, beginning lightheartedly as an adventure and accepted light-heartedly by their friends as an amusing scandal, seemed somehow petrified by a Gorgon glance and endowed with an intolerable permanence; as though in a world of capricious and fleeting alliances, the ironic Fates had decided to set up a standing, frightful example of the natural qualities of man and woman, of their basic aptitude to fuse together; a label on the packing case 'These chemicals are dangerous' – an admonitory notice, like the shattered motor-cars erected sometimes at dangerous turns in the road; so that the least censorious were chilled by the spectacle and recoiled saying, 'Really, you know, there’s something rather squalid about those two.'
—Patrick McCoy
Thank God for Waugh! Going back to him - it must be ten years since I've read any - is like emerging from a Turkish bath, alive in every pore, your senses quickened and joie de vivre restored. The dialogue is brilliant, the characters sad, odious, weak, shabbily noble - all of them brilliantly anatomised. Waugh's sympathies are huge (and yet in life such a splenetic and selfish man!) and his wit is at full tilt. What a horrible, horrible man is Basil Seal. The evacuee children, the Connollys, are among Waugh's best comic creations. Named, I now realise, for Cyril Connolly!
—Jason Goodwin
Put Out More Flags follows the careers of some of Waugh's characters from earlier novels through the first year of the Second World War - the period often called 'The Phoney War' as, after the declaration of war in September 1939, nothing much seemed to happen for quite some time. Waugh brilliantly captures the time - the muddle, the manoeuvring for position, the governmental and military cock-ups, the opportunities to make a fast buck. There's plenty of black humour of course, but also a sense of sadness and regret. Greater work was to come: Brideshead Revisted and the brilliant Sword of Honour trilogy, but Put Out More Flags marks a further transition from the earlier out and out satires (a process already begun in the bitter A Handful of Dust) towards a more fully realised vision. That said, there's some wonderful sustained comic writing in this book. Basil Seal's peregrinations through the frozen English countryside with a party of evacuees from hell in tow as he works an elaborate extortion scam is one of the best things I've read in a long while.
—Julie
