A pansy. An old queen. A habit of dress, a tone of voice, an elegant, humorous deportment that had been admired and imitated, a swift, epicene felicity of wit, the art of dazzling and confusing those he despised - these had been his; and now they were the current exchange of comedians; there were only a few restaurants, now, which he frequent without fear of ridicule, and there he was surrounded, as though by distorting mirrors, with gross reflections and caricatures of himself. Hissez le Grand Pavois. Translated from the English of 'Put Out More Flags' by Georges-Philippe Brabant.

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.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. Freddy: “If there’d been more like us and fewer like Basil there’d never have been a war. You can’t blame Ribbentrop for thinking us decadent when he saw people like Basil about. I don’t suppose they’ll have much use for him in the Army. He’s thirty-six. He might get some sort of job connected with censorship. He seems to know a lot of languages.” Basil does well out of the war, up to a point: he unhesitatingly takes advantage of his sister's latently incestuous attraction for him—the scenes in which this attraction surfaces, played out in chilling nursery talk between Basil and Barbara, are among the best expositions of sibling love I've ever encountered—makes money and finds a temporary mistress out of a scheme in which he must find a country billet for three appallingly uncouth évacué children, and earns himself a reputation as a spy-catcher for the War Office by turning in poor Ambrose, now the editor of a literary magazine, as a crypto-fascist.

Basil] is a man for whom there will be no place in the coming workers’ state; and yet, thought Ambrose, I hunger for his company. It is a curious thing, he thought, that every creed promises a paradise which will be absolutely uninhabitable for anyone of civilised taste. Nanny told me of a Heaven that was full of angels playing harps; the communists tell me of an earth full of leisure and contented factory hands. I don’t see Basil getting past the gate of either” (69-70).Seeking aphorisms, I read this book. Learning that the following came from this work, I suspected there must be more: It is a curious thing, he thought, that every creed promises a paradise which will be absolutely uninhabitable for anyone of civilized taste.

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: Barbara: “You’ll see…Basil will be covered with medals while your silly old yeomanry are still messing in a Trust House and waiting for your tanks.” They whirl around trying not to get their fingers burnt, but eventually the war calls out to them, and even the reprobate Basil Seal volunteers for a commando posting. What starts out as a comedy ends up with several characters rolling up their sleeves and deciding that they better get along with it. Basil represents the intersection of the decline of British Empire with the chaos of WWII. The absurdity of the elitist arrogance of the British upper class as it faces the very real threat of defeat at the hands of Germany is brilliantly presented. Basil's mother stubbornly ignores sheltering during the blitz of London. Basil's wealthy mistress's husband vaults headlong into enemy fire more concerned about paperwork than death. An inept aristocratic navy officer named Cedric Lyne does his best to avoid any real wartime responsibility only to fail at his first test of leadership. Waugh provides many examples of the affluent British characters laughably failing to adapt to wartime conditions. Waugh worries about the softness of the British nobility and leaders as they encounter the gritty challenges of 20th century globalism and more urgently the war with Germany. Very few male novelists can draw women well; Waugh is a towering exception. His Angela personifies all the vain (in both senses) smartness of the years between the wars; the waste of her life symbolizes the waste of the old values of upper-class England; her words when Basil tells her, in proposing, that he will be a terrible husband forecast the future of that class and place: "Yes, darling, don't I know it? But you see one can't expect anything to be perfect now. In the old days if there was one thing wrong it spoiled everything; from now on for all our lives, if there's one thing right the day is made."

Retailers:

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.