Death of a Hero

Lawrence Durrell regarded "Death of a Hero" as the best war-novel of the epoch. Its author, Richard Aldington was at the time a reknowed translator of Balzac, Boccaccio, and Apuelius; a close friend of Eliot, Pound and Mead; and the husband to imagist poet H.D. He has unfortunately not been given his due in present times, but if you enjoy Wyndham Lewis and Evelyn Waugh Aldington will be a thoroughly stisfying experience. The novel here reviewed was published in 1929 and described by critics as a memorial to a generation presented in a rhythmic prose that many have glamorized as jazzy, although, in all sincerity it has none of the jive, but enough stilted trills to warrent the title. Spurred by Voltarian irony and DH Lawrence-like candor the story follows the hero, George Winterbourne, as he resolves to leave the Edwardian gloom of his embattled parents behind him and escape to Soho, which on the eve of the war buzzes with talk of politics, pacifism and free love. He paints, he marries, he takes a mistress: the perfect hero of his time...whose destiny is the bloody nightmare of the trenches... - Brideshead Rivisted has overlapping themes, but the two styles could not be more different. Aldington's fugue is a chronicle of this doomed favorite of the gods: a searing testament to the corrosive waste of human warfare, the agenda of politics and the hopes of the hopeless. This is as stark and unadulterated an attack on British hypocrisy and affectation as you'll ever find - ferocious, unsparing and passionate. But the satire of the author is more blunt than Waugh's for example and more philsophical rather than social, thus making this a kind of elitist read at present, but one that is rewarding nonetheless.

Sarcasm, plus. Interesting "jazz" styling and a final hundred pages that bring home the horrors of war.