''Put Out More Flags'', the sixth novel by

Evelyn Waugh Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh (; 28 October 1903 – 10 April 1966) was an English writer of novels, biographies, and travel books; he was also a prolific journalist and book reviewer. His most famous works include the early satires ''Decli ...

, was first published by

Chapman and Hall Chapman & Hall is an imprint owned by CRC Press, originally founded as a British publishing house in London in the first half of the 19th century by Edward Chapman and William Hall. Chapman & Hall were publishers for Charles Dickens (from 1840 ...

in 1942. The title comes from the saying of an anonymous Chinese sage, quoted and translated by

Lin Yutang Lin Yutang (10 October 1895 – 26 March 1976) was a Chinese inventor, linguist, novelist, philosopher, and translator. One scholar commented that Lin's "particular blend of sophistication and casualness found a wide audience, and he became a ma ...

in ''The Importance of Living'' (1937): Dedicated to

Randolph Churchill Major (rank), Major Randolph Frederick Edward Spencer Churchill (28 May 1911 – 6 June 1968) was an English journalist, writer and politician. The only son of future List of British Prime Ministers, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill a ...

, who found a service commission for Waugh during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, the story is set in the first year of the war. It follows the activities of a cast of mostly upper-class British characters, some of them reintroduced from Waugh's earlier satirical novels '' Decline and Fall'', '' Vile Bodies'', and '' Black Mischief''. Facing first the dormant conflict of the

Phoney War The Phoney War (; ; ) was an eight-month period at the outset of World War II during which there were virtually no Allied military land operations on the Western Front from roughly September 1939 to May 1940. World War II began on 3 Septembe ...

and then the cataclysmic events of 1940, peacetime lives of boredom and frivolity give way to a sense of purpose and solidarity.

Plot

At the country estate of Malfrey, Barbara Sothill loses her servants, who go off to work in factories, and her husband, who rejoins his reserve regiment. As district billeting officer, she has to find accommodation for evacuees. Her widowed mother in London tries to find an army commission for Barbara's wayward brother Basil Seal, who is sleeping with a Marxist artist called Poppet Green, but Basil fails his interview spectacularly. An aesthete friend of his, the left-wing gay Jewish intellectual Ambrose Silk, looks for a safe niche in the Ministry of Information. Basil's former mistress, the married millionairess Angela Lyne, returns from a solitary holiday in France. Basil decides to spend the winter quietly in the country with his sister at Malfrey, where he helps her in homing problem children and then gets people to pay him for taking them away again. He meets a lonely bride whose husband is away in the army and sleeps happily with her. Back in London his friend Alastair Trumpington, refusing to try for a commission, joins the army as a private. All alone, her estranged husband Cedric having joined the army, Angela Lyne stays in her flat and takes to the bottle. The husband of Basil's lover returns and his racket is running out of steam, so he "sells" his problem children and, returning to London, meets by chance an old colleague who gets him a commission in army counter-intelligence. There he shadows allegedly dangerous communists like Poppet Green and her friends. Another old friend who is now the army, Peter Pastmaster, deciding he ought to marry and father an heir, courts the eligible young Molly. Together they find Angela collapsed in the street and, taking her back to her flat, warn Basil about her condition. He responds with sympathy, spends time with her and tries to moderate her drinking. Angela's husband visits her with their child before embarking with the ill-equipped and ill-organised British forces for Norway, where he dies in combat. For a projected literary magazine, Ambrose Silk writes about his lost love, a Brownshirt named Hans who is now in a Nazi concentration camp. Basil persuades him to leave out Hans' fate, so that the article appears to praise the SA. He then shows it to his boss as evidence of a cell of allegedly dangerous fascists. The publisher is jailed, but Ambrose escapes to neutral Ireland, disguised as a Jesuit priest. Basil takes over his luxurious flat and adds to it Susie, his boss's luscious secretary. After the total expulsion of the British from the continent, special forces are set up to harass the victorious Germans. Alastair Trumpington joins them and Peter Pastmaster recruits Basil Seal, who marries the widowed Angela and looks forward at last to action: "There's only one serious occupation for a chap now, that's killing Germans. I have an idea I shall rather enjoy it."

Critical reception

Jonathan Raban Jonathan Mark Hamilton Priaulx Raban (14 June 1942 – 17 January 2023) was a British award-winning travel writer, playwright, critic, and novelist. Background Jonathan Raban was born on 14 June 1942 in Norfolk. He was the son of Monica Raban ...

described the novel as being "as tightly constructed – point and counterpoint – as a baroque fugue", while L. E. Sissman argues that ''Put Out More Flags'' represents a turning point in Waugh's writing career: "Waugh somehow fuses the savage, deadly comedy of his earlier books with the ominous seriousness of his later ones."

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Put Out More Flags Fiction set in 1939 1942 British novels Chapman & Hall books Novels by Evelyn Waugh British satirical novels Novels set during World War II