MEN AT ARMS

Listed by the publishers as a "serio-comic novel of military life", this turns out to be more "serio" than "comic" and, from an American view, nigh on to dullness. English readers familiar with life in the British Army would no doubt find this entertaining but readers here, outside of a few eccentric characters and incidents, will miss the practiced satire, the wicked wit and mordant mockeries of his previous books. Here is Guy Crouchback, Catholic, at 36 still sub-adolescent, who joins up the first year of World War II with all the gusto of a Crusader. His love for his regiment, the Halberdiers, is tested by frustrating months at the rear, by the transfer to French Colonial Africa where Guy's chances of becoming a hero vanish when he is the victim of a practical joke perpetrated by his superiors. He is shipped back to England, still confused, still adolescent. His bitterness in doubled when, following another's suggestion, he brings hospitalized Apthorpe a bottle of whiskey, which kills him. Even the colorful Apthorpe, Guy's buddy, and another older junior officer who has two rather arresting fetishes, porpoise boots and a special potty, recalling dimly the early Waugh, do not redeem the unhappy effect. The Waugh devotees will be on deck for this but a cooling word in advance will prepare them for the break with what has gone before.