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Men at Arms

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Men at Arms

Not who you're looking for? Others named Men at Arms: novel by Terry Pratchett · 2005 film directed by Kaaren Kaer

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Overview

Men at Arms is a 1952 novel by the British novelist Evelyn Waugh. Sword of Honour Men at Arms is the first novel in Waugh's Sword of Honour series, the author's look at the Second World War. The novels loosely parallel Waugh's wartime experiences. Plot summary The protagonist is Guy Crouchback, heir of a declining aristocratic English Roman Catholic family. Guy has spent his thirties at the family villa in Italy (based on the Earl of Carnarvon's 1885 villa Altachiara in Portofino). Crouchback has been shunning the world after the failure of his marriage and has decided to return to England at the very beginning of the Second World War, in the belief that the creeping evils of modernity, gradually apparent in the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, have become all too clearly displayed as a real and embodied enemy. He attempts to join the Army, finally succeeding with the (fictitious) Royal Corps of Halberdiers, an old but not too fashionable regiment. He trains as an officer and is posted to various centres around Britain. One of the themes is recurring "flaps" or chaos — embarking and disembarking from ships and railway carriages that go nowhere. Crouchback meets Brigadier Ben Ritchie-Hook, a fire eater (probably based on Lieutenant General Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart, a college friend of Waugh's father-in-law whom Waugh knew somewhat from his club) and Apthorpe, a very eccentric fellow officer; in an episode of high farce, the two have a battle of wits and military discipline over an Edwardian thunder-box (portable toilet) which Crouchback observes, amused and detached. Before being sent on active service, he attempts to seduce Virginia, secure in the knowledge that the Catholic Church still regards her as his wife; she refuses him. He and Ben Ritchie-Hook share an adventure during the Dakar Expedition in 1940. Apthorpe dies in Freetown, supposedly of a tropical disease; when it is discovered that Guy gave him a bottle of whisky when visiting him in hospital (there is an implication that Apthorpe's disease, unknown to Guy, was really alcoholic liver failure), Guy is sent home, having blotted his copybook.

From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Notable quotes

“Fate wins. At least, so it is claimed. Whatever happens, they say afterwards, it must have been Fate.‡”
— ‡When someone is saved from certain death by a strange concatenation of circumstances, they say that's a miracle. But of course, if someone is killed by a freak chain of events—the oil spill just there, the safety fence broken just there—that must also be a miracle. Just because it's not nice doesn't mean it's not miraculous. (p. 1)
“Over the last year or so Tiffany’s mother had been quite surprised, and a little worried, at Tiffany’s sudden thirst for education, which people in the village thought was a good thing in moderation but if taken unwisely could lead to restlessness.”
— Chapter 1, “Leaving” (p. 24)
“Presumably he was insane, by the usual human standards, but it was hard to tell; the phrase “differently normal” might do instead.”
— Chapter 7A, “Post Haste” (p. 223)
““The king is insuring against ‘what everyone knows’ being wrong. It so often is.”
— Chapter 1 (p. 3)
“His hands had closed automatically into fists because he had always been a man who thought with them. Soon he would try to use them; she knew it, because it was easier to punch than think.”
— Chapter 2, “Rough Music” (p. 27)
“There are quite a lot of reasons why that course of action might not, with ease, be rescued in any coherent way from the category of the insanely unwise, Dean.”
— Ponder Stibbons, in Ch. 11

Quotes via Wikiquote (CC BY-SA), each with its original source.

Men at Arms is a 1952 novel by the British novelist Evelyn Waugh.

Overview

Men at Arms is a 1952 novel by the British novelist Evelyn Waugh. Sword of Honour Men at Arms is the first novel in Waugh's Sword of Honour series, the author's look at the Second World War. The novels loosely parallel Waugh's wartime experiences. Plot summary The protagonist is Guy Crouchback, heir of a declining aristocratic English Roman Catholic family. Guy has spent his thirties at the family villa in Italy (based on the Earl of Carnarvon's 1885 villa Altachiara in Portofino). Crouchback has been shunning the world after the failure of his marriage and has decided to return to England at the very beginning of the Second World War, in the belief that the creeping evils of modernity, gradually apparent in the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, have become all too clearly displayed as a real and embodied enemy. He attempts to join the Army, finally succeeding with the (fictitious) Royal Corps of Halberdiers, an old but not too fashionable regiment. He trains as an officer and is posted to various centres around Britain. One of the themes is recurring "flaps" or chaos — embarking and disembarking from ships and railway carriages that go nowhere. Crouchback meets Brigadier Ben Ritchie-Hook, a fire eater (probably based on Lieutenant General Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart, a college friend of Waugh's father-in-law whom Waugh knew somewhat from his club) and Apthorpe, a very eccentric fellow officer; in an episode of high farce, the two have a battle of wits and military discipline over an Edwardian thunder-box (portable toilet) which Crouchback observes, amused and detached. Before being sent on active service, he attempts to seduce Virginia, secure in the knowledge that the Catholic Church still regards her as his wife; she refuses him. He and Ben Ritchie-Hook share an adventure during the Dakar Expedition in 1940. Apthorpe dies in Freetown, supposedly of a tropical disease; when it is discovered that Guy gave him a bottle of whisky when visiting him in hospital (there is an implication that Apthorpe's disease, unknown to Guy, was really alcoholic liver failure), Guy is sent home, having blotted his copybook.

From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Notable quotes

“Fate wins. At least, so it is claimed. Whatever happens, they say afterwards, it must have been Fate.‡”
— ‡When someone is saved from certain death by a strange concatenation of circumstances, they say that's a miracle. But of course, if someone is killed by a freak chain of events—the oil spill just there, the safety fence broken just there—that must also be a miracle. Just because it's not nice doesn't mean it's not miraculous. (p. 1)
“Over the last year or so Tiffany’s mother had been quite surprised, and a little worried, at Tiffany’s sudden thirst for education, which people in the village thought was a good thing in moderation but if taken unwisely could lead to restlessness.”
— Chapter 1, “Leaving” (p. 24)
“Presumably he was insane, by the usual human standards, but it was hard to tell; the phrase “differently normal” might do instead.”
— Chapter 7A, “Post Haste” (p. 223)
““The king is insuring against ‘what everyone knows’ being wrong. It so often is.”
— Chapter 1 (p. 3)
“His hands had closed automatically into fists because he had always been a man who thought with them. Soon he would try to use them; she knew it, because it was easier to punch than think.”
— Chapter 2, “Rough Music” (p. 27)
“There are quite a lot of reasons why that course of action might not, with ease, be rescued in any coherent way from the category of the insanely unwise, Dean.”
— Ponder Stibbons, in Ch. 11

Quotes via Wikiquote (CC BY-SA), each with its original source.

Not who you're looking for? Others named Men at Arms: novel by Terry Pratchett · 2005 film directed by Kaaren Kaer

Men at Arms across IJR

Ask Genius by OpenServe about Men at Arms Create in Studio Build a game Watch videos