Books We Can't Quit: Put Out More Flags, by Evelyn Waugh

352 pages, $15.99

Review by Bridey Heing

Novels on war can be many things, but telling a story that is humorous without making a joke of war itself can be extremely difficult. It’s a line Evelyn Waugh walked continuously as he wrote before, during and after the Second World War, satirizing British elites with grace and good humor. In his 1942 novel Put Out More Flags, Waugh uses his cast of wealthy characters to illuminate the sheer insanity of creating war and those who see opportunity where conflict looms.

Put Out More Flags tells the story of Basil Seal, a recurring Waugh character who manages to make himself part of mischief and intrigue wherever he goes. Seal is bored and looking for an adventure when war with Germany is declared, and the young man immediately sees his own interest in being well placed once the fighting starts. As he tries to play an intricate game of family connections and bureaucracy, his peers prepare for war in their own ways, be it drinking heavily or holding Ivory Tower debates on art.

Waugh paints a vivid picture of a time nearly impossible to imagine today, when war was declared but not being fought. The confusion and general malaise as life goes on uninterrupted but for air raid tests and the odd soldier on the street is so distant from the picture most have of World War II, and it’s the perfect backdrop for Waugh’s tale. His characters debate and revel without knowing what is looming on the horizon, but the readers can see the inanity of their lackadaisical attitude with full knowledge of what’s to come.

The men and women Waugh writes about are, of course, not those who will be ultimately impacted by the war. They will not be evacuated from London, but rather will be able to retire to country estates of family and friends. They will not be on the front lines struggling to stay alive, but in cushy offices debating the broader points of strategy. This disconnect between the masses and the elites is a prominent theme in Waugh’s writing, which focuses on privileged classes.

Instead, Basil Seal and his ilk must deal with labyrinthine bureaucracy at the War Office, where its cast of characters are by turns infuriated and flustered with their lack of direction. The government has a decidedly Armando Iannucci feeling to it — shockingly dysfunctional behind a veneer of certainty and purpose. No one seems to know what they are doing, but everyone wants to climb to the highest possible rung on the ladder.

In a recurring subplot, a man with a suitcase of homemade explosives is jockeyed between offices, sent back and forth as officials seek to get rid of him while causing havoc for colleagues. No one seems to know how he got in or where he should be sent. Eventually, the bombs explode, causing no immediately clear damage to the building but presumably killing the man, although no one mentions him ever again. Little attention is paid to the supposed mad man with the suitcase, but it illustrates the toll elite games have on those outside of the fold.

Put Out More Flags is laugh-out-loud funny, and the humor being at the expense of the war industry makes that laughter cathartic. Whether in Britain during World War II or the United States today, it’s a small solace to see the figures behind war efforts painted as inept and bumbling — the butt of jokes. Given the self-righteous seriousness with which such officials take themselves, tearing down the smokescreens and peeking behind the curtain, even into a fictionalized caricature of events, brings them back down to earth and makes them fallible. And we, those who live with their decisions, are able to laugh at them. This is the power of Evelyn Waugh’s satire, and it’s the poignant and timeless appeal of Put Out More Flags, a book I absolutely cannot quit.

***

Bridey Heing is a freelance writer based in Washington, D.C. Her writing has appeared at NO TOFU, WildSpice, Literally Darling, and Hello Giggles. More of her work can be found here.