20th Century Unconditional Surrender - Softcover

Evelyn Waugh was born in Hampstead in 1903 and educated at Hertford College, Oxford. In 1928 he published his first novel, Decline and Fall, which was soon followed by Vile Bodies, Black Mischief (1932), A Handful of Dust (1934) and Scoop (1938). During these years he also travelled extensively and converted to Catholicism. In 1939 Waugh was commissioned in the Royal Marines and later transferred to the Royal Horse Guards, experiences which informed his Sword of Honour trilogy (1952-61). His most famous novel, Brideshead Revisited (1945), was written while on leave from the army. Waugh died in 1966.

The final novel in Waugh's Sword of Honour trilogy (along with MEN AT ARMS and OFFICERS AND GENTLEMENÐboth read by Rodska and available from Sterling), this book follows Guy Crouchback from his desk job during the London Blitz to a posting to Yugoslavia. His many disillusionments lead him to admit shamefully that the war came about, in part, because of honorable men like him who desired to assert their ideals. Rodska splendidly renders every character in the novel's rich social galleryÐpatriotic windbags, jaded intellectuals, stoics, heroes and heels. His national inflections sound perfect, and he even manages to convey what the text refers to as the "officer voices" some soldiers adopt around their subordinates. G.H. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine