A new German edition of Sword of Honour was published earlier this year. This was the same translation as that published originally in 1981Ā but, according to the December issue of literaturkritik.de,Ā it has been checkedĀ (durchgesehen) and, one presumes,Ā updatedĀ somewhat. The German title isĀ Ohne Furcht und TadelĀ which is not a literal translation of the English title but a phrase used to describeĀ aĀ desired a quality of Medieval knights (Without fear and without reproach). The reviewer, Dr Sylvia Heudecker, offers the following explanation of why the book is relevantĀ for Germans:
The book…offers a very unusual reading to the German public. It is not the suffering of the victims or the cruelty of the perpetrators that determines the course of things. Here, life in the British army is reported from the perspective of an officer. The toneĀ is light, ironic, the figures shown are drawn with a satirical wink. The events in the troops, initially in the training and later in the service, often do not correspond to the allegedly penetrating seriousness of the historical situation. On the contrary, the reader learns how organizational planlessness and chaotic logistics lead to a joyous lottery of the soldiers, especially as long as they are on the home front.
The book is writtenĀ at the same time with critical distance and patriotic idealism from the military interior perspective on the Second World War. This perspective is also familiar to German literature, such as Ernst JĆ¼nger – but the narrative is entirely different. And so the novel sends its German reader to explore his own expectations of a war-romance. Already this experience is worth reading.
After commenting favorably on the translation by Werner Petrich, the reviewer describes the difficulty new readers must face in understanding military terminology that has fallen out of current useage in the years since the original novelĀ was published. The review concludes:
Waugh draws an illuminating portrait of his time, which is particularly impressive in that the view of Guy Crouchback is that of a “single, rather untypical Englishman.” Thus writes the author in his short foreword. Because Guy sees things differently fromĀ most around him, his interest is attracted by the seemingly secondary. He challenges the self-evident and thus opens up unusual perspectives. Although he belongs to a small elite, his Roman Catholic social positionĀ separates him from the rest of the Anglican upper class. Crouchback’s origin is that of an outsider in his own culture, who willingly serves the common fatherland. In this tension field, the novel moves to the last sentence: “Everything has gone very well for Guy.”
The translation is by Google with minor edits. Readers are invited to offer improvements or corrections by commenting below.
