Put Out More Flags (Penguin Modern Classics)

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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. The Sword of Honor books would seem to come next, followed by Scoop (1938), and such dilute and repetitious work as Black Mischief (1932) and the embarrassingly wish-fulfilling (though often beautifully written) Brideshead Revisited (1945) at the bottom of the list. This is important because this novel is a rather biting satire about the corrupt decadence of the British aristocratic elite, with whom Waugh was very familiar. The protagonist in this instance is Basil Seal who, in the language of his day would be labeled a rascal and a bounder, or a cad and a scoundrel, someone who, despite his mischief and misdemeanors, is a likeable fellow overall.

Though the subject is grim and we know the outcome, as the author did not at the time of writing, his social commentary is spot-on. Basil's schemes reach a new low in this novel, and how his social standing allows him to constantly escape is frustrating to the point of hilarious.

The highlights are probably Basil Seal's various scams: his effective use of MI13, the evacuee racket and his fake fascist conspiracy.

I recently read, and very much enjoyed Sword of Honour, like this book, Sword of Honour is a satirical novel about World War Two. Basil is unswayable and, inevitably, a heavy snowfall cuts off the Old Mill for eight days, stranding the couple with the children. The quiz closed before the Jubilee, with its surfeit of Union flags, so we don't know how that may have affected things.Barbara believes a war is just what her brother needs to give himself some direction: ‘He’s not meant for peace . Reviewing the book in the New York Times in 1942, John Chamberlain ungenerously likened its style to ‘the wicked Saki . Nor is there anything merely funny about Basil Seal, the black sheep remittance man of Black Mischief who reappears here in deeper, more sinister colors as a man who "rejoiced, always, in the spectacle of women at a disadvantage: thus he would watch, in the asparagus season, a dribble of melted butter on a woman's chin, marring her beauty and making her ridiculous, while she would still talk and smile and turn her head, not knowing how she appeared to him, "as, in his own words, "one of those people one heard about in 1919: the hard-faced men who did well out of the war. The scam hits a snag, however, when Basil tries it on a Mr Todhunter, the billeting officer for the neighbouring district.

During the period following Waugh’s death in 1966 up to the 1981 broadcast of the Granada Brideshead series on ITV, the BBC offered several other adaptations. 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.Basil manages to make a nice living this way, then turns in an old friend for sedition, takes over the fellow's apartment, and finally finds his place in the war by the very end. A few years ago, I spent a week in County Galway at a country house hotel popular with fishermen during the high season, and with eccentrics in every other.