Why read The Soldier's Art?

Book cover of The Soldier's Art

Book description

Part eight in a 12-part oeuvre of the English upper class, as seen through the eyes of Nicholas Jenkins. It is 1941 and Nicholas settles for a stoical co-existence with the Blitz, though death is thinning the ranks of his pre-war associates.

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Literary fiction

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Soldier's Art as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Simon Akam

Author

Anthony Powell was another fundamentally unmilitary individual pushed into service by the demands of a world war.

However, while Evelyn Waugh depicts the run of regimental life and active service, Powell’s achievement in The Soldier's Art and The Military Philosophers, the seventh and eighth installments of his Dance to the Music of Time sequence, is to show the British bureaucratic war, the battle as (theoretically) run from Whitehall, with an equally acute eye. The central character - Nick Jenkins, a cipher for Powell - finds himself in a London desk job, a liaison officer to variously the Poles, Belgians,…

From Simon's list on the British Army.