Put Out More Flags (Penguin Modern Classics)

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Dedicated to Randolph Churchill, who found a service commission for Waugh during the Second World War, the story is set in the first year of the war.

In between failed attempts at money-making and war heroism, Basil’s dalliances include amorous flirtations with a wealthy, lonely woman, estranged from her husband, and a frivolous Bohemian artist. In one particularly dastardly deed, he borrows money from the former woman to indulge the latter.What were the “three rich women” thinking about? The following passages are revealing. First, an exchange between Basil’s sister Barbara Sothill and her husband Freddy, a serving officer:

Evelyn Waugh's father Arthur was a noted editor and publisher. His only sibling Alec also became a writer of note. In fact, his book “The Loom of Youth” (1917) a novel about his old boarding school Sherborne caused Evelyn to be expelled from there and placed at Lancing College. He said of his time there, “…the whole of English education when I was brought up was to produce prose writers; it was all we were taught, really.” He went on to Hertford College, Oxford, where he read History. When asked if he took up any sports there he quipped, “I drank for Hertford.” Through his unsavory vision, we see how England rapidly converted from the drawing-room to the battlefield in the course of a year. Basil resists finding a war job until it's absolutely necessary, and watches his friends and acquaintances join forces with the war effort. Waugh wrote this book in real time; it came out in 1942, so the voices and attitudes are those of the upper class that were part of his daily round. We see the language change from society shorthand to military doublespeak, the outfits from tea gowns to fatigues, and the attitudes from conversation to action. With the outbreak of WWII, the opportunistic Basil states his objective early on: "I want to be one of those people one heard about in 1919: the hard-faced men who did well out of the war." For servants, the pay would be better working in a manufacturing industry, but they would also have more personal liberty and be free of the patronising and authoritarian discipline imposed by traditional upper-class employers. They would be free of the stifling deference required by the landed gentry who for generations had regarded themselves as superior beings. Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 2022-03-30 09:07:48 Bookplateleaf 0010 Boxid IA40415402 Camera USB PTP Class Camera Collection_set printdisabled External-identifier

Basil’s attempts at war heroism are far less successful than his money-making endeavors. When he flunks an interview for a privileged position in the army (“arranged” by his mother begging a favor of a prominent government official), Basil tries to interest the Ministry of Information into the strategic wisdom of annexing Liberia. When that too fails, he finagles a job in the War Office. But the job is without promise, so Basil executes a plan to persuade a close friend to write material resembling German propaganda—and then betrays his friend to the authorities. However, guilt then compels Basil to effect his friend’s escape to Ireland.

One of Evelyn Waugh’s favourite targets for satire in his early novels was contemporary fashions in the arts. In Decline and Fall the society Margot Beste-Chetwynde (later Lady Metroland) destroys a historic Tudor building to put in its place a monstrosity of plate glass, leather walls, and modernist furniture. In Put Out More Flags Waugh aims at the literary world. Much mention is made of the two proletarian poets Parsnip and Pimpernel. The independent-minded quarterly magazine that combines good looks, good writing and a personal approach. Slightly Foxed introduces its readers to books that are no longer new and fashionable but have lasting appeal. Good-humoured, unpretentious and a bit eccentric, it's more like having a well-read friend than a subscription to a literary review. And true to his principles, whilst the other characters are all trying to scuttle into cosy government sinecures or soft commissions as officers, Alastair volunteers to join the ranks. He endures the miseries of basic training without complaint (although he makes sure his wife Sonia has booked a comfortable nearby hotel for weekends). And in the end he is volunteering for Special Services – though it does seem to be the Boy’s Own Adventure prospects which appeal to him. But he is a character who develops, and he obviously represents what Waugh sees as the remaining strand of decency in upper-class values. I really enjoy Evelyn Waugh, and this witty satire set at the start of WWII and focusing on the lives of several members of the social upper class was the perfect antidote to some of my recent more contemporary (poorly written and boring) reads. So, amidst all the absurdity and tomfoolery in the rest of the novel, Waugh displays a mature touch as a writer in creating characters who change in time, who are not two-dimensional or vehicles for fun. Another example is Alastair Digby-Vaine Trumpington. He first appeared in the very opening scene of Decline and Fall, a Hooray Henry at Oxford, and he has lived a very conventional upper-class life ever since. Very rich, slightly naive, yet maintaining a ‘schoolboy’ sense of honour:In 1924 Waugh left Oxford without taking his degree. After inglorious stints as a school teacher (he was dismissed for trying to seduce a school matron and/or inebriation), an apprentice cabinet maker and journalist, he wrote and had published his first novel, “Decline and Fall” in 1928. Ambrose eventually morphs into a slightly tragic figure – exiled in Ireland – which rescues him from being a two-dimensional character. The same is true of Angela Lyne, Basil’s ‘so-called’ lover. She is estranged from her husband the dilettante architect Cedric, and at the outset of the novel she is returning from the south of France where she has been fruitlessly waiting for Basil. Besides the incongruity of British elites and WWII demands, Waugh dives deeper into Basil's personal life. Many years after writing the original novel, Waugh released a delightful addendum "Basil Seal Rides Again" to revisit the ne'er-do-well antihero. In the original book, the bond between Basil and his sister Barbara is especially close. His sibling connection is arguably stronger that that for his mother or his mistress and future wife Angela. In "Basil Seal Rides Again" he and Angela's now adult daughter Barbara (yes, named after his beloved sister) has fallen in love. Without giving away the ending, a parallel and reconsideration of Basil's love of his sister Barbara is reasserted. Now, it’s not that Basil’s family is impoverished by any means. On the contrary, his mother provides him a generous allowance for his personal indulgences, but still finds herself frequently paying off his debts when they become over-indulgences. Accordingly, the allowance is suspended. In terms of war heroism, Basil only thinks of achieving this without actually doing anything remotely dangerous or life-threatening—soldierly trench warfare, for example. And so he begins his creative endeavors.