Unconditional Surrender by Evelyn Waugh, author of Vile Bodies http://realini.blogspot.com/2020/12/vile-bodies-by-evelyn-waugh-10-out-of-10.html and ten other Magnum opera

10 out of 10

 

 

Evelyn Waugh was one of the greatest writers in the history of the world, able to write sublime comedy – a list might be provided at the end, with the works that have elated this reader, but let us just mention Scoop http://realini.blogspot.com/2018/07/scoop-by-evelyn-waugh-adapted-for-bbc.html Decline and Fall, The Loved One, Black Mischief – and drama, such as the divine Brideshead Revisited.

 

Unconditional Surrender is a war story, like the other great novels – Men at Arms http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/04/men-at-arms-by-evelyn-waugh-is-one-of.html and Put Out More Flags – and Guy Crouchback is the main character, perhaps not the usual hero, the Superman we are used with these days.

In fact, his nickname now is ‘Uncle’, reflecting his age, which is now forty, and with that, he gets refused for various positions in the army, indeed, he trains with a unit and he is told at the end that they are sorry, they are going to see action soon, but cannot take him along, because he is ‘too old now’.

 

They cannot risk him being injured and compromising the mission, and we could be so happy now that ‘sixty is the new forty’ or is it the new thirty, with advancement in medicine, technology, we are getting to the stage described by marvelous Yuval Harari, one of the most influential thinkers of this century, in his quintessential Homo Deus, A Brief History of Tomorrow http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/homo-deus-brief-history-of-tomorrow-by.html where we find about how people will get to live forever…well, not exactly that, but life expectancy will rise to incredible levels

Guy Crouchback will be processed by a machine which seems to have elements of the computer, though it had not been designed by the famous Superhero and tragic figure, Alan Turing, who has been pushed to commit suicide, by the awful policies of his time on homosexuality, and the result when they search for someone with some training on parachute jumping and knowledge of Italian, the card has his name on it…

 

When he is tested by a superior officer, he talks fast and the other does not understand, thinking it might be Sicilian, but it is not, it is just that the comprehension and the Italian of the superior is limited, perhaps non extant…

Incidentally, reading a previous part from this trilogy, I was extremely amused by reading ‘escarpate la mucca’ which seems to mean the cow has escaped and liking this too much, I have named one of the tomcats out there in the garden Imucca – they are not ours intentionally, it is just that their mother came to look for food, then brought the whole litter, and now we have Imucca (which actually comes from Immanuel Kant, his initial denomination, and Mucca, combining the two) Ezigbo - from Things Fall Apart http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/04/things-fall-apart-by-chinua-achebe-is.html - Okwo from the same magnum opus, Orzabal from Tears For Fears and Signac, one of my favorite pointillists…

 

Guy will end up in former Yugoslavia, in Croatia, where he will operate as a sort of liaison officer with the partisans, a bunch of very unruly, somewhat treacherous fighters, who claimed to be all for the alliance with the British, only to cheat, lie to Winston Churchill when he meets the famous Josip Broz Tito, and the side with the Soviets and put up some strange maneuvers for the visiting American general…

The latter was coming to see for himself the prowess, fighting capability of the partisans – reputed and known to fight with other conationals, indeed, at times, they fought more with their own side than with the Germans…for the Nazis, they would launch some guerilla attack and then flee, and generally, they avoided contact with the Germans – and for this special visit, which would decide if the Americans help them, and to what extent, they in fact had prepared an attack on a small unit, so small that there had been voices saying that an attack with two brigades on such an insignificant opponent would look bad…

 

As it is, it does not work well, for the Germans do show up, in just two vehicles, but this is enough to derail a lot of the planned operation…anyway, Guy has a very tense, conflictual relationship with the partisans, who are mefiant, unlikeable, paranoid, self-interested, brutal, and cruel – though there is admiration for the amount of resilience they showed, their young girls refuse anesthetic and show a super human tolerance to pain and dedication to the cause – and when our hero tries to help some Jewish people that come for help, there is a serious brouhaha, and the officials complain, they refuse support

Meanwhile, we have Virginia, the ex-wife in legal terms, although for the Catholic Church, there is no such thing as divorce, and for them, marriage is forever, unless there is an extraordinary annulment or evidently, death, and she is in trouble now, for she has no money and she is furthermore pregnant and the baby is obviously not Guy’s.

 

She tries to have an abortion, but she has no money, the first doctor she is asking for help is appalled, then she has a name, but there is nobody at the address and finally, she has to find a husband, that is the conclusion reached and she sees Guy again, who is not in love with her anymore, but he is so sensitive to the problem at hand, as to be considered a fool or idiot by others, maybe he is crazy to tolerate the situation.

But as he explains, there is a martyr attitude, a saintly take on the fate of the future child, who has no chance, nobody to help him or the mother, and he is the last chance and he will marry Virginia, take care of her…when he is told that this is World War they have around, the superhero is correct in stating there is nothing he can do about the millions in pain, but he can do something about this baby….what a sublime thing to do

 

 

http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/unique-in-world.html?q=unique+in+the+world try this at home, and then read about the revolution

http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html