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The prolific Waugh--an English novelist and satirist perhaps best known for Brideshead Revisited--described this slim, vicious comedy as "a little nightmare produced by the unaccustomed high living of a brief visit to Hollywood." The setting is the L.A. funeral industry, where Whispering Glades provides deluxe service to deceased stars and their families, and the Happier Hunting Ground does the same for dead pets. (At Whispering Glades, staff must refer to the corpses only as "Loved Ones.") The industry provides a perfect foil for Waugh's deadpan wit--and an apt metaphor for the movie business.Book Description
In Hollywood, at Whispering Glades, a full-service funeral home for departed greats, the mononymonous Mr. Joyboy and Aimee Thanatogenos fall in love...with each other and their work. He is chief embalmer, she a crematorium cosmetician. They spend their days contentedly prepping the loved ones for a final appearance.

Into this idyllic scene comes Denis Barlow, aspiring poet and funerary colleague. But Denis is downscale, his employer the Happier Hunting Ground, a pet cemetery. Denis looks to Aimee for professional reconstruction, falls in love with her instead, and sets up a triangle that is literally more than Aimee can bear.

"A fiendishly entertaining book -- Evelyn Waugh has never written more brilliantly. Devilishly, impishly amusing." (The New York Times) ... Read more

Customer Reviews (157)

This Book Influenced me to become a Funeral Director
In the past year I have gone back to this book
and discovered it influenced my choice of a career in Funeral Service. This is true entertainment on the funeral industry. This book is quite prophetic. This year I attended a lecture for Funeral Directors on Pet Cemeteries. I immediately recalled this book and the Pet Cemetery: "The Happy Hunting Ground" a fictional employer mentioned inthese pages. In reflection of my years of funeral service I many times saw LOVE TRIANGLES. The human side of me found me inclined to participate in such excitement. Lucky for me I resisted. So the love triangle thing is timeless! I found this work to be quite fun the second time around as I first read it in the 1970's, a time when few women were in funeral service. If you are not familiar with funeral service the role of embalmer,
poet and cosmetologist, continue to this day. This will live on for many more years. These pages are still current today. Be forewarned, the work is a brutal introduction inthe details of what goes on in the Funeral Home.
Funeral Directors should find this book particularly funny. If you have ever been in funeral service please purchase this book and be entertained.

I don't know... I wasn't impressed
While "The Loved One" was amusing enough and stylistically attractive, I just wasn't that impressed with it. The characters all seemed a bit too faded and pigeon-holed, and had no real personalities to speak of. While the premise had the capacity for great drama and/or comedy, instead there was a rather pallid combination of the two.

Joyboy was an entirely creepy personage, whose mannerisms and speech made my skin crawl, which I'm not entirely sure was the intent. Aimée was a whiny, indecisive little brat, and at times, I wanted to slap her. Dennis Barlow started out as a wholly sympathetic character, but midway through the story, Waugh turned him into an insensitive jerk with no redeeming qualities. I was jarred from the story by the abrupt change, and couldn't become interested in it again, no matter what happened next.

The twist ending was pretty much anticipated and very disappointing. I suspect that I generally tend to be disappointed by "great" writers, because I expect their work to have an indescribable *something* that other books don't have. Either way, "The Loved One" was okay, but it wasn't fantastic.

Delightful!!
I've had this book on my shelves for years and re-read it yesterday.Found it delightful and laughed out loud at some things.

I was confused by the mention of "HAL" in the first sentence as given on this site.There is no one named Hal in the story.Then I saw the problem.I have a Vintage Books edition where the first words of a chapter are in caps.The last word of the first sentence is "HAD".Part of the letter D has been cut off as has part of an e at the end of the second line.

Back to the story.Descriptions of funeral homes for people and pets are so good.I loved the little notes that Dennis sent about pets being in heaven and wagging their tails.

Classic Waugh
The Loved One is classic Waugh.Thought provoking, rather irrevent and good for an afternoon's belly laugh.If you enjoyed The Loved One you will also enjoy "SCOOP" and "Black Mischief".

The Loved One
At Whispering Glades funeral home, Loved Ones is the term used to refer to the deceased. My Joyboy, a foolish, weak-willed embalmer, prepares the bodies for viewing by the Waiting Ones, the relatives and friends of the Loved Ones. Miss Aimýe Thanatogenos, the appropriately named make-up artist at Whispering Glades, is young, innocent and foolish. Mr Joyboy carefully composes the faces of the Loved Ones so that they smile for her when it is time to put their make-up on. Aimýe blushes and generally acts as though her head is made of air.

Dennis Barlow is a struggling poet and works as a pets' mortician. He has recently suffered the death of his uncle and house-mate, Sir Francis Hinsley, who committed suicide following his dismissal at a Hollywood studio. Barlow visits Whispering Glades, where Aimýe leads him through the funeral process. He is impressed, both with the young Aimýe, but also with the care and expense shown to the Loved Ones at Whispering Glades. It is a far height above the casual dumping into furnaces that makes up the majority of his own mortician's work.

Waugh writes with a cynical hand. At times, the text strays into near-parody, it is so caustic and contemptuous of the characters and situations presented. But there is enough wit and sharp insight to make the novel enjoyable. The dialogue in particular crackles, with sly British humour inserted alongside blatant parody of American language. Barlow is given the greatest lines - as a hopeful poet, he comes across as knowledgeable in the face of the grand American ignorance of poetry and culture, embodied subtlety within Aimýe, and more openly in the blubbering of Mr Joyboy. There is a sense that we are in on the joke with Barlow, which may prove uncomfortable for American readers, as the Americans in the novel are without fail stupid, greedy, shallow and uncultured.

The funeral industry is something that we shall all, in one way or another, come into contact with. One can only hope that it will be at a late stage in our life, but at places like Whispering Glades, children are cared for with as much loving attention as the elderly. Waugh's sharpest insight is showing the ways in which the bereaved are persuaded into outlaying huge amounts for their deceased relatives. Yes, an appropriate and tasteful funeral certainly provides closure and allows for a certain aesthetic and emotional sensibility at a difficult time, but there is no question that some of the grander options for funerals run to the excessive. Waugh captures this almost parasitic end of the industry successfully, with Whispering Glades providing services that range from ordinary all the way up to sarcophagi and private mausoleums.

Waugh's jokes tend to the subtle when it comes to dialogue, and the savage when it comes to plot. Clever lines are so smoothly inserted that an inattentive reader may miss them: 'We usually recommend the casked half-exposure for gentlemen because the legs never look so well.' But the larger parodies of plot are easier to spot. Throughout the novel, Aimýe is torn between her love for Barlow and her desire for career advancement through Mr Joyboy, which prompts her to write a series of purple letters to the Guru Brahmin, a conglomerate of 'two gloomy men and a bright young secretary', who share the workload of the Guru's newspaper column. Aimýe, of course, believes that the Guru is a wise man from India, one who is more than capable of helping her choose the right man. We know the joke's on her, but we are also able to raise the satire to a higher level, in realising that, while she helps relieve grieving relatives of their money, outside of work she is capable of being all but swindled by an imaginary Guru.

An easy criticism of the novel is that none of the characters are particularly likable. Aimýe is naive and hopelessly shallow, while Mr Joyboy is ridiculous and far too much of a mother's boy. Barlow is the most sympathetic of the characters, but only because we are amused by his caustic wit. Take that away, and he is as unappealing as the others. But the novel exists as a satire, not a character study, and it is there where it succeeds. The funeral industry is as ripe as any other for savaging, and Waugh more than rises to the challenge.

The ending to the novel is an incredibly neat fit. Too neat to be anything but contrived, though again, this works because of the novel's intention. The ending is foreshadowed on almost every page, and if that isn't enough, Aimýe's name gives the game away. While it does wrap up a little too neatly for Barlow, the novel ends in the way that a novel satirical of the funeral industry must. The Loved Ones is short, funny and very sharp. ... Read more

Book Description
Scoop is the closest thing foreign correspondents have to a bible. They swear by—and along with generations of general readers laugh at—the zany antics of reporters in fictional Ishmaelia.Few readers, however, are acquainted with Waugh's memoir of his stint as a London Daily Mail correspondent in Abyssinia (now Ethiopia) during the Italian invasion in the 1930s. An entertaining account by a cantankerous and unenthusiastic war reporter, Waugh in Abyssinia provides a fascinating short history of Mussolini's imperial adventure as well as a wickedly witty preview of the characters and follies that figure into Waugh's famous satire. In a new foreword, veteran foreign correspondent John Maxwell Hamilton explores how Waugh ended up in Abyssinia, which reallife events were fictionalized in Scoop, and how this memoir fits into Waugh's overall literary career, which includes the classic Brideshead Revisited. As Hamilton explains, Waugh was the right man (a misfit), in the right place (a largely unknown country that lent itself to farcical imagination), at the right time (when the correspondents themselves were more interesting than the scraps of news they could get.)The result, Waugh in Abyssinia, is a memoir like no other. AUTHOR BIO: John Maxwell Hamilton, a longtime public radio commentator, has reported in the United States and abroad for ABC Radio, the Christian Science Monitor, and others.He is dean and Hopkins P. Breazeale LSU Foundation Professor at the Manship School of Mass Communication at Louisiana State University and the author or coauthor of five books. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Waugh was a great travel writer, but why buy this?
I agree with the other reviewer of this book that much of Evelyn Waugh's travel writing, at least in the 1930s when he was at his sharpest as a writer, was among the best in English in the twentieth century (comparable to Robert Byron and Peter Fleming), and that this title is at the top of the Waugh list.Readers should know, however, that there is a very inexpensive anthology of all of Waugh's travel writings available from amazon: Waugh Abroad (ISBN 1400040760).It is in hardcover in the Everyman series and amazon sells it new for less than $ 20.I may be overlooking something, but the anthology seems to be a far better choice:Evelyn Waugh went lots of places and wrote brilliantly about many, including but not limited to Ethiopia.

"Waugh in Abyssinia" seems a forgotten jewel
Today there are only two copies available on Amazon used books!What a great book. Only 169 pages, but a wonderful insight into the leadin to the Italian invasion of Abyssinia (not long before WWII) and thru to the early period of the consolidation of the Italian victory.
The super justly famous Evelyn Waugh created, in this book, a tremendously educational outline and insight into a whole period, and parts of it are so witty that tears of laughter were running down my face several times.

Interestingly, to me at least, the original purchaser of the copy I got evidently did so in 1986, in Nairobi. I have a feeling it is not available at your local newsstand, but if I knew how good it is and didn't already have it.. I'd sure be looking for it.
... Read more

Book Description
One of the foremost writers of our time, Evelyn Waugh was also one of its most extraordinary eccentrics, with a life full of comedy and conflict. Selina Hastings, who was granted unrestricted access to his personal papers by Waugh's family, has uncovered a wealth of new material in her eight years of research for this volume. Letters, diaries, and family photographs shed new light on Waugh's childhood, his affairs at Oxford, his ill-fated first marriage and subsequent romantic adventures, his World War II military service, and his enduring but thorny friendships with such notable figures as Diana Cooper, Ann Fleming, and Nancy Mitford. Perceptive, fascinating, by turns hilarious and tragic, Hastings's portrait gives us Waugh's glittering social life at Oxford, where he was a friend of Harold Acton, Cyril Connolly, Anthony Powell, and Alastair Graham, the inspiration for Sebastian Flyte in Brideshead Revisited. Waugh then followed a diverse career as schoolmaster, world traveler, war co ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Great biography, miserable subject
I've read two other biographies of Evelyn Waugh, but this is the best of the lot. Ms. Hastings is not writing a literary life of her subject, nor a elegiac review of his life and friends.This is Evelyn Waugh, warts and all.And boy, does he have them.

I have to say, towards the end of the book, I got to the point that I wished he would die already.The picture presented is of an alcoholic snob who wasted his talents at every opportunity.How he had any friends is a mystery.

Ms. Hastings presents a thoroughly researched biography, thus the evolution of Waugh from a middle-class younger son (his older brother was the family favorite - much to his resentment) to an estate-owning squire with seven children is clearly documented.Her clear vision of her subject is such that the reader doesn't really find him sympathetic at any time (at least I didn't).I particularly like it that she doesn't manufacture reasons or excuses for his many times outrageous behavior, as indeed, there are none.

Ms. Hastings give an excellent picture of the 'bright young things' of which Waugh was a member, as well as the lives of the upper class and literary set of the UK before, during, and after WWII.Her sources are clear, and her bibliography is one of the best I've seen.

This is a very good book, very well written - even if the subject is a monster.

Jitterbug Blues
The between-the-wars generation had it tough. They missed the slaughter in the trenches, were too old for the Marxism of the 30s, and never had it quite so good as their school days at Eton and Oxford. It was a generation consumed by nostalgia. They also had 19th century educations which did little to prepare them for the bleak post-war welfare state. They hated the angry young men of the 1950s, but never could form a coherent enough reaction to be called the angry old men. That would certainly have fit Evelyn Waugh. Cranky, brilliant, and so it has been said, hilarious, Waugh was a kind of literary W.C. Fields. This bio does a very good job, it seems to me, of introducing the author to general readers. Hastings writes well, and tells all without being unseemly or too personal, or too prudishly 'politically correct' as many contemporary biographers have become. There are other one-volume books out on Waugh but this one stands out for its graceful prose.

Enthralling
The best biography I have read of Waugh. In fact, one of the bestbiographies I have ever read. The depth of research is most impressive. Thestyle of writing is very agreeable. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

An English "Catch-22"
Evelyn Waugh's "Officers and Gentlemen" is a often satirical look at the British Army in the often disasterous early years of the Second World War."Officers and Gentlemen" is the middle volume of a trilogy on the career of the fictional everyman Guy Crouchback, an overage junior officer in the equally fictional Royal Corps of Halberdiers.Waugh picks up the story in this volume with Guy's return from an aborted mission in Africa to experience the London Blitz.Guy ends up assigned to a commando training base in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. The Commando will be assigned duties in Egypt and end up participating in the struggle for Crete.

Waugh is a superbly gifted writer whose capture of the absurdities of the British class system and the bureaucratic foolishness of the British Army is often spot-on for humor.The narrative arc concerning Guy's successive and almost random Army assignments will be sidesplitting to those who have experienced that process in any army in real life.At the same time, and much in the manner of "Catch-22", Waugh captures the degradation of combat for individuals, even in successful battles.The description of the failed campaign in Crete is as heart-breaking as the commando training at the Island of Mugg is hilarious.

This book was first published in 1955, and some of the nuances of the humor may be lost on those without background in the history of the Second World War or British society.This volume of the trilogy can be read by itself but may make more sense when read in the sequence of the Sword Of Honor trilogy.

This book is highly recommended to those seeking some entertaining insights into the Second World War.

Excellent Second Volume in the Sword of Honour Trilogy
First published in 1955, `Officers and Gentlemen' is the second volume in the `Sword of Honour' Trilogy.The book is somewhat more fast-paced and exciting than its prequel, `Men at Arms', and as such makes for an excellent read.The reader follows the novel's hero, Guy Crouchback, as he returns to the Halberdier barracks following his escapades in Africa.Guy is then posted to the Isle of Mugg in Scotland, where he joins the newly formed Commandos.The brigade is then shipped off to Egypt, and eventually ends up in Crete where they attempt, in vain, to defend the island from a German attack.`Officers and Gentlemen' ends with Guy having come full circle when he arrives once more at the Halberdier barracks almost one year exactly after he left.

The prose in `Officers and Gentlemen' is as excellent as one would expect from a Waugh novel, and one finds oneself unable to stop reading at some points in the story thanks to Waugh's ability to nurture the reader's interest.The book's characters are also exceptionally well constructed and it is a delight to stumble across such eccentric individuals as Doctor Glendening-Rees, an expert in survival techniques who makes a troop of Commando volunteers eat seaweed for a week, and Mugg, the explosives-obsessed Scottish laird.

Waugh's writing in this book is by no means confined to well-structured prose and memorable characters.Indeed, through Guy Crouchback one is exposed to cynical observation of the often ill-organised army, and to descriptions of the abandonment of Crete which conjure up Apocalypse Now-like images of tired, frightened soldiers caught in the chaos of retreat.`Officers and Gentlemen' also expands on the themes which Waugh hints at in `Men at Arms'; those of the virtues of paternalist hierarchy and of tradition.Guy Crouchback's belief that these virtues still exist is obviously put under great strain by his experiences in Crete and by the alliance between Russia and Britain.An awareness of these themes gives `Officers and Gentlemen' an extra dimension.

`Officers and Gentlemen' is a very good read.Not only does it offer us an insight into the life of an army officer in war time Britain, but Waugh's humour and gift for producing beautiful prose make this a superb second volume in the `Sword of Honour' Trilogy.

Slow Start but Impressive Finish
I just finished "Officer and Gentlemen" after having read "Men at Arms" last year.I must admit that I began asking myself what the point of the story was through the first two thirds of the book.Waugh has an enjoyable style of writing that has carried me through others of his books.I remember thinking what a wonderful book "Brideshead Revisited" was after I finished it.However, to this day I'm not sure why the author wrote it.Evelyn Waugh has a reputation as a humorist but that, for me, is misleading.I can see his satire and spoofing of the upper class and there is much of that in "Officers and Gentlemen".However, Waugh is no Mark Twain.My favorite book by Waugh is "A Handful of Dust" which touched me very deeply.Reading that this, too, is a work of humor (as well as tragedy) confuses me.

"Officers and Gentlemen", as I mentioned, starts out slowly but reaches a point of real insight when the men of Hookforce enter the reality of war.The theater of war is Crete and the personalized images of war were, for me, the real value of the book.I realized that the first two thirds was to acquaint us with the different characters so we were better able to see the effects that war had on them.Along the way we do get a lot of "humorous" satire on the military and its bureacracy.One scene has the main Character, Guy, contemplating all that he has witnessed and experienced.His deep thoughts end when called for cocktails.

This is the sixth book by Evelyn Waugh that I have read.I'll read more because he writes well.I mentioned that ther are times that I wondered what his point was in writing a particular book.However, there are also times, such as I experienced in "Officers and Gentlemen" where I am very glad that I read the book.

War And The Solitary Man
The period of time between the fall of France and the Nazi attack on the Soviet Union justifiably has been called Britain's finest hour, when the island nation stood alone against Hitler and the Axis powers. Trust Evelyn Waugh to write a novel about this effort that manages to find more to mock and be acerbic about than to be proud of. Amazingly, as fiction "Officers And Gentlemen" not only works but shines, and is a gripping account of how one fellow's war may or may not jibe with the larger political effort around him.

In the previous volume of Evelyn Waugh's "Sword of Honour" trilogy, "Men At Arms," we met the pallid Guy Crouchback, heir to an Anglo-Catholic aristocratic line of no special importance, struggling to find some personal meaning in the great conflagration that was World War II. ýMen At Armsý is a mostly funny read, a comedy of errors and barracks farce, with some dramatic detours that accumulate in frequency and gravity by story's end.

"Officers And Gentlemen" has a starker break point between the humor and the drama, which occurs after Guy and his unit is sent to Crete to cover the British retreat there. The Crete section of this story is harrowing, affecting reading; a collection of isolated moments that never quite gel because they are not supposed to. Waugh based this on his own similar experience doing very much the same thing in that battle, and throws up a dozen or so vignettes that only barely pierce through the fog of war: Radios thrown over the side of a ship; a soldier disguising himself as an officer so he can flee the front easier, a commander too tired to give orders to his newly-arrived reinforcements, a vigil beside a dead soldier lying nameless in a desolate village.

Virtually every soldier Guy meets is lacking in some way, particularly a by-the-book brigade major named Hound and a dashing but callow sort named Claire who are among his closest companions. While Stukas dive and rain havoc on the shattered troops, Guy tries to figure out what he's supposed to be doing in this awful place. When he finally gets his orders, they are to do the unimaginable: Surrender.

Before Crete, "Officers And Gentlemen" is a fairly funny read, not in a laugh-out-loud way so much as invigorating. The opening part features the aerial Battle of Britain, sacred stuff in the history of the conflict, but leavened here by the fact it is being observed by two tipsy officers inside a private club who watch nearby buildings burn and try to agree on which painter the resulting effect is most reminiscent of: "Not Martin. The skyline is too low. The scale is less than Babylonian."

Then itýs off to the Inner Hebrides, and the mythical island of Mugg, with its rocky outcroppings, its castle "indestructible and uninhabitable by anyone but a Scottish laird," and a troop of Commandos slowly going to seed. Guy struggles to prove himself worthy of this crew, even as he begins to wonder about their merit.

War is human tragedy, and Waugh never loses sight of that or allows the reader to. Even light moments are interrupted by grim tidings, like the fate of a minor character aboard a ship of Italian internees sailing to Canada (based on a true incident). At the same time, Waugh doesnýt wallow in sorrow or bathos. Even his toughest sections in Crete are unsentimentally and plainly presented. He doesnýt expect our tears, or want them. He just wants to involve us in his personal take on mankindýs greatest challenge of the 20th century, a take all the more valuable because itýs not at all what you might expect from World War II storytelling. The ending of the story, for example, when Britain no longer finds itself alone after Hitler attacks the Soviet Union, would be a cause for celebration in any other book, but for Guy (and Waugh) it is something else to mourn. His nationýs cause is besmirched by the fact it has taken on an ally every bit as diabolically totalitarian as the enemy.

Such things make the novel tougher for others to take, but to me it points up the singularity and uniqueness of Waughýs vision, which make all his writing, but particularly great works like this one, worth reading.

As with the other volumes in ýSword of Honour,ý (ýMen At Armsý before and ýUnconditional Surrenderý after), readers wanting insight and context are well off visiting David Cliffeýs handy notes at http://www.abbotshill.freeserve.co.uk/home2.htm.

Vastly over-rated
I am a huge Evelyn Waugh fan--A Handful of Dust, Put Out More Flags, and Brideshead Revisited are among my favorite novels of all time. But this book just doesn't work. It seems a mishmash of different parts and seems haphazardly, even lazily written. Waugh seems to get bored of his protagonist Guy Crouchbook toward the end and dumps him to follow other characters, characters recently introduced to us and who we don't particularly care about. Although the Crete scenes are nicely done, we just want to get them over with. This book isn't half as good as the first part of the trilogy and, I hate to say it, if it wasn't Waugh it would almost certainly not be in print today. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Seminal Waugh + adventure travel = top flight period piece
This book is a 'Must Read' for the following lot of people:
1) Those who have an appreciation for Waugh's fiction.
2) Those who have an interest in colonial Great Britain just before the fall of the British Empire when, arguably, it was at its height.
3) Those who have traveled well beyond the "It is Tuesday, this must be Bangkok" scheme of things.
4) Those who enjoy social satire mixed with dry wit, and enlivened by a wonderful sense of the absurd.
5) Connoisseurs of the English language in its written form.

'When the Going was Good' is five travel episodes written in a period from 1929 to 1935, as abridged by the author for inclusion in this book.These episodes range from a casual, meandering cruise of the Mediterranean Sea in 1929 to reportage on the invasion of Ethiopia by Italy in 1935 presaging the Second World War.In between are the coronation of Emperor Haille Salasie Ras Tafare(the first Rastafarian), some random "Globe-trotting" beginning in Aden running through the Zanzibar coast and then down to the Congo, and finally an attempted trip from British Guyana down through Brazil.
Obviously, the really beautiful thing about any book by Evelyn Waugh is the concise, incisive, succint and often surgically precise use of the Queen's English.What makes these gems particularly precious is that they are set in conditions that were considered laughably backward and dangerously primitive even for the standards of the early part of the 20th century.Any such journey into the Dark Continent, and into the New World promises to be fraught with dangers and difficulties almost beyond description.Fortunately for the world of literature these were met by an author who was up to the task of describing these incidents in a way that makes them interesting, funny, and illuminating.Waugh has an uncanny ablity to use the slings and arrows that life sends one's way as weapons of satire and delight.Perhaps the most delightful vignette in this book filled with delightful vignettes is his description of his adventures with the well-meaning but misinformed American theological professor who is the leading authority on the Ethiopian form of Christiantiy, and who meanwhile is totally confused by its religous rites.Their time together takes them from the midst of the royal coronation to a field trip trek through wilderness to that church's holiest shrine in the company of a multi-talented fly by the seat of the pants Armenian chauffeur and an Ethipioan urchin whom they pick up along the way.Suffice it to say that the material Waugh got in that one trip was of the sort that one could write an entire short book from, and indeed this is just what he did in the novella titled 'Black Mischief.'Yes, that's correct, Waugh fans, the stuff of some of his books was captured right here on these pages during these travels and herein lies a treasure trove of details that one finds later played out in the novella mentioned above, in 'A Handful of Dust' and even 'Brideshead Revisited.'Thus, reading these accounts of his travels really helps to bring alive those other stories which you have probably read and wondered about where he got his inspiration.Finally, for history buffs, one gets to literally live the life of the colonial gentleman in the midst of these pages because Waugh, afterall belonged to the smart set and the smart set made up a significant portion, however small, of the colonial population that ran the British Empire.So, when Evelyn goes travelling, he doesn't necessarily do it with a backback upon his back trudging to and fro.No, he has a set of trunks and helpers, and old school ties that lead to introductions which in turn lead to social sitauations that develop into adventures and eventually become fodder for his travelogues.The point being that because this was the author's life, we get to witness firsthand the life of Imperial Britain as it existed in the African colonies and British spheres of influence.This is heady stuff and really a wonderful kind of social history that anyone from the avid social voyeur-ethnographic tourist to the fan of the British colonial empire should appreciate.
'When the Going was Good" is a book that I can heartily recommend, and one that I took much pleasure from reading. ... Read more

Product Description
Evelyn Waugh was widely loved as one of the funniest and most irreverent writers of his day. This is a collection of his quotes on a range of subjects including religion, morals, manners, journalism, food and travel. ... Read more

Book Description
THE END OF THE BATTLE is the final volume of Evelyn Waugh's masterful trilogy about war, religion and politics that began with MEN AT ARMS and continued with OFFICERS AND GENTLEMEN.

The end of WW II finds Guy Crouchback, once again in England, radiating despair from behind his desk. But then his training as a commando and his facility with Italian land him one last assignment--liaison work, not in Italy, but with Tito's forces in Yugoslavia.

"[Waugh's] military trilogy has much to recommend it. The wit endures; at full strength wit is rage made bearable, and useful." (The New York Times) ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

England Forever
I have been reading Evelyn Waugh since high school - too long ago to admit to the year.I enjoy his black humor and his subjects and his writing.Some stories have been better than others but I am glad to have finally found this one as it wraps up some loose ends.

The End of the Trilogy
I have now completed the Evelyn Waugh trilogy of World War II and I must say that "Men at Arms", "Officers and Gentlemen", and "The End of the Battle" were an interesting experience.The books were very good in the same sense that Evelyn Waugh's writing skills are very good.However, the subjest is World War II and, in that context, Evelyn Waugh is no James Jones (which is a statement I'm sure the late James Jones would agree with).I'm not sure I was able to enjoy Waugh's writing quite as much given the subject and his treatment of it.I confess that I did not come to this conclusion until I finished "The End of the Battle" but I also admit that I was gathering doubts while reading the first two books.

What Waugh's trilogy comes across as is a mildly satirical, upper-class, socialistic examination of the effects of a mainland power struggle.In the process, we get an enjoyable spoof of military buearocracy, marvelously eccentric characters that only the English can produce, and a tinge of tragedy through the eyes of a man who timidly stuck his neck out because it was the right thing to do.What we miss is the defining event of the 20th Century.

I will agree that Waugh throws some helpful perspectives into focus such as the randomness of death, the quality of courage, and the strange bedfellows that often unite in such global common causes.However, one gets the sense that all this is only as important as being properly dressed for dinner.Is that the satire that I'm too dense to appreciate?If so, let this review be my public self-humiliation.I, for one, prefer, for this subject, the down to earth analysis of the common soldier of WWII as presented in James Jones trilogy "From Here to Eternity", "The Thin Red Line" and "Whistle".Waugh's book made me realize that there was an element in England, as well as other countries at the time, for whom WWII was exercise in power from whatever perspective you saw it.For some it was probably what you deservedly got for failing to support the Republican forces in Spain.Oh well, most of us still can't figure out how England voted Churchill out of office before the war was over.

I will continue to read Waugh because he truly is a gifted writer.However, I prefer "Scoop" and its' fictional African setting to this trilogy and its' trivialization of the defeat of tyranny.

A somber, but satisfying conclusion to Sword of Honor
The acclaimed Sword of Honor trilogy concludes in this somber, but still hopeful story of the closing days of WWII in Europe.The protagonist, no-longer-youthful British officer Guy Crouchback, is assigned as liaison to a group of Yugoslav partisans, and finds himself involved in the plight of a group of desperate Jewish refugees.On the Home Front, Guy re-unites with his ex-wife Virginia (for whom he still has strong feelings) but can she provide him with a hoped-for heir, or will she die like the character in Ludovic's novel, forcing Guy to seek love and happiness elsewhere?

Early in the book, Guy's father admonishes that "if only one soul is saved, that is full compensation" and this seems to be the real point of the author's story, and ultimately of the entire trilogy: after all the nonsense, the foolishness, the failures, and even the horror, just one single act of mercy can be enough to account for a wasted life.This hope for a final justification lends an optimistic tone to a book that is otherwise filled with the death and destruction of the bombing of London, but it also ties together the various themes that the trilogy has focused on: the senselessness of war, the relevance (or irrelevance) of Catholicism, and the manifest follies and inequities of modern Britain and Western culture generally.If the first two volumes of this series seemed a little too light and pointless, this book is where it all really pays off.A strong statement about how one man makes sense of an increasingly senseless world.

Victory Without Heroes
The final volume in Evelyn Waugh's "Sword Of Honour" trilogy brings us to the end of World War II, as Guy Crouchback's quest to find glory on the battlefield has sputtered out. When we meet him in this volume, he is more of a shell than ever, his psyche ripped apart by the terrible fighting he witnessed on Crete. Will he find one last shot at redemption, of ending his own private war in victory rather than defeat?

"End Of The Battle" is the most problematic of Waugh's trilogy. The humor found in the preceding volumes is nearly gone. Key characters are snuffed out without warning. Waugh is bluntly straightforward about what he sees as the chief failing of his own country in war, a failing he saw carried over into the time he wrote this in 1960-61: The lapse of British will in the face of leftist challenge and Soviet domination.

There's no way I'd recommend any reader to this book without first getting his or her hands on "Men At Arms" or "Officers And Gentlemen," if not both. "End Of The Battle" assumes a reader is familiar with the concepts Waugh spent those last two books espousing, the cause of Catholic exceptionalism in the face of mundanity and evil, the slow strangulation of martial spirit by bureaucratic "banf," Guy's inability to have children. If you don't care about this stuff going in, Waugh is not going to do much to sell you. He already laid the groundwork in the earlier volumes; "End Of The Battle" is concerned with resolution.

There's many Waugh bete noirs in evidence, some which will no doubt bother many modern readers. Communists and leftists are practically interchangable, and there's a "velvet mafia" at work, too, homosexuals who toil to undercut democracy and serve Uncle Joe Stalin. Even if this was not at odds with history (the Burgess spy ring members were nearly all gay), Waugh presses his point with unsettling belligerence.

What's to be said for a comic novel whose most comic sequence involves a woman's fruitless search for an abortion? Actually, quite a lot. The comedy in "End Of The Battle" may be largely mirthless, but it is sharp and biting, too. The characterizations of Guy, his father, uncle Peregrine, and Guy's former wife Virginia are layered and involving. Waugh moves his story in unexpected directions, and as he does so, brings the themes and concerns of his trilogy into focus and resolution that, while not always satisfying, have integrity.

"End Of The Battle" reminds me a lot of the Hemingway novel "A Farewell To Arms," with the same pathetic tone and the prevailing sense of war's wastefulness even behind the lines. It's a very lived-in book. It also makes for an arresting conclusion to Waugh's last major work of fiction, the "Sword Of Honour" trilogy, as a kind of existential if not nihilistic book that nevertheless manages to be profoundly spiritual in its focus. At one point, Guy's father explains that winning or losing great conflicts matters less than the salvation of a single soul, and it is this Waugh means for the reader to carry away.

Does Waugh do this? A lot depends on your mindset going in, on your ability to go with the often-nasty twists and turns Waugh puts his characters through, and whether you've done your homework reading the previous volumes. Waugh the cynic makes a good case in the end for the presence of grace in this world, but perhaps a better one for how difficult such grace is to achieve.

Inspirational and entertaining conclusion to trilogy
As the final and easily the best volume in Waugh's Sword of Honor Trilogy, this book manages to stay light and amusing while dealing with the greatest taboo subject of twentieth century literature: man's relationship with God. Waugh handles the weighty topic with the same dexterity with which hetreats all of his subjects, never bogging down and keeping the readerlaughing.The story also provides interesting historical material on bothWWII and the disappearance of the English aristocracy.I would recommendreading Men at Arms and Officers & Gentlemen, the first two volumes ofthe trilogy, to be able to follow the story and the significance of theevents. ... Read more

Book Description
Travel in Africa,the English aristocracy,the bungling and courage of military life,post-1945 America, all these are favourable sites for the diaries of one of the harshest and funniest English novelists of this century. ... Read more