Features March 2017
The fall of the house of Cazalet
On the works of Elizabeth Jane Howard.
World War One inspired the British to short, shocked poetry, perhaps because chivalry was one of the first casualties. The literary monuments of World War II and the end of empire, however, are extensive prose sequences: Waugh’s Sword of Honour Trilogy (1952–61), Anthony Burgess’s Malayan Trilogy (1956–59), Olivia Manning’s Fortunes of War six-pack (1960–65 and 1977–80), Paul Scott’s Raj Quartet (1965–75), and J. G. Farrell’s thematically linked Empire Trilogy (1970–78). Again, the stylistic correlation between subject and form is suggestive.
The British fought a multi-theater war in a spirit of prosaic disillusion. The 1945 election...
New to The New Criterion?
Subscribe for one year to receive ten print issues, and gain immediate access to our online archive spanning more than four decades of art and cultural criticism.
Subscribe
