Guy Crouchback,heir to a declining English Roman Catholic family returns to England from Italy at the start of World War Two and joins the Royal Corps of Halberdiers,along with various ... See full summary »
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Guy Crouchback,heir to a declining English Roman Catholic family returns to England from Italy at the start of World War Two and joins the Royal Corps of Halberdiers,along with various eccentrics though his attempts to get back with his wife Virginia,from whom he is separated,fail. After being implicated in a colleague's death he is sent to train a commando brigade on a Scottish island and ends up on Crete,taking part in its evacuation and escaping to Egypt with fellow officers Ludovic and Ivor Claire. He is returned to England courtesy of Mrs Stitch to possibly prevent him from naming Claire as a deserter. Guy marries Virginia a second time by which timer she has a child by ex-lover Trimmer. Whilst Guy is in Yugoslavia having a confusing time with the partisans Virginia is killed,along with Guy's uncle Peregrine,by a doodlebug bomb. Guy returns to England after getting involved in charitable agencies and eventually remarries. Written by
don @ minifie-1
Guy's character changes in rank in various scenes. for example he is a Lieutenant when sent on his second two days leave, when he returns early (after falling out with his ex wife) he's on the train clearly wearing the pips of a captain. Then reverts back to being a Lieutenant, until he's a Captain again when off the coast of Africa, reverting to a Lieutenant again when posted back to London (possibly a demotion there), but in the next scene on arrival in Scotland, he's once again a Captain. See more »
'Sword of Honour' can be seen as an update of the Boultings' 'Pilgrim's Progress' - an anachronistic idealist fights in World War Two for reasons of chivalric honour, only to see the world overrun by liars, cheats, murderers, cowards and lunatics; where decency is pointless, even dangerous.
William Boyd's restructuring of Waugh's war trilogy is a miracle of adaptation - his leavening of verbal humour with slapstick; his capturing of Waugh's elliptical tone; his creation of haunting visual patterns acting as counterpoint to the horrific satire that is the war. There is one haunting sequence amid so much disintegration, the false bomb warning during Virginia's post-natal party, that magically hints at forces beyond man's self-defeating endeavour, while also rescuing a character Waugh was rather hard on. In the moral sense.
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'Sword of Honour' can be seen as an update of the Boultings' 'Pilgrim's Progress' - an anachronistic idealist fights in World War Two for reasons of chivalric honour, only to see the world overrun by liars, cheats, murderers, cowards and lunatics; where decency is pointless, even dangerous.
William Boyd's restructuring of Waugh's war trilogy is a miracle of adaptation - his leavening of verbal humour with slapstick; his capturing of Waugh's elliptical tone; his creation of haunting visual patterns acting as counterpoint to the horrific satire that is the war. There is one haunting sequence amid so much disintegration, the false bomb warning during Virginia's post-natal party, that magically hints at forces beyond man's self-defeating endeavour, while also rescuing a character Waugh was rather hard on. In the moral sense.