http://standpointmag.co.uk/node/4269/full
Standpoint magazine (something with which I am not familiar) has published an
essay by Paul Johnson on WWII novels. He discusses the novels of AP (all of
DMOT), Evelyn Waugh (Brideshead, Put Out More Flags and Sword of Honour) and
Olivia Manning (the Balkan and Levant trilogies) as the best on offer and sees
no reason to rank them one above the other because they each describe a
different war experience. On the US side he seems a bit weaker. He mentions
Mailer (The Naked and the Dead) and Jones (From Here to Eternity) but leaves out
Heller (Catch 22) and Wouk (The Caine Mutiny). Wouk's later novels (Winds of
War and another doorstopper called War and Remembrance) were, as Johnson would
put it, more historical novels because they lack the immediacy of participation
in the events described. Thanks are due to the Waugh Society for posting this.
jeff










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