Postwar Whirl

Last week the sometimes gloomy subject of the postwar world got a laugh at last. Out of Britain came the most amusing satire of World War II. Called The Adventures of the Young Soldier in Search of the Better World (Faber & Faber, 6s.), it is a breezy but atrabilious burlesque at the expense of postwar plan ners. Author: Britain's bearded, ebullient Cyril Edwin Mitchinson Joad, who in the last ten years has espoused pacifism, Mosleyism, polygamy, socialism, appeasement, Christianity, spiritualism, hedonism. He has also written some earnest, reputable books of philosophy, become one of the most popular members of the British Broadcasting Corp.'s "Brains Trust" (Britain's Information Please).

The book owes much of its punch to Illustrator Mervyn Peake, whose line drawings (see cut, p. 101) blend Tenniel fantasy with George Grosz bitters.

Cripps and the Devil. Satirist Joad's Young Soldier is "a fine specimen of young English manhood, with a more enquiring turn of mind than is sometimes found among those who have emerged from the valley of the shadow of middle-class education." When his adventures begin, he has just been listening, in his mess, to a broadcast by Sir Stafford Cripps on What We Are Fighting For. Sir Stafford said we are fighting to make a better and happier world. The Young Soldier thinks that is very nice, wonders how it is to be brought about. He decides to collect his thoughts during a walk. Out of the bosky underbrush pops the Devil in the person of Captain Percy Nick (Per-Cynic). The Devil, Heaven's most unsuccessful politician, laughs at the Young Soldier for worrying about Politician Cripps and at all talk of a better world emerging from the war. "When the devil was sick," he misquotes Rabelais, "the devil a saint would be. When the devil was well, the devil a saint was he."

Next the young man encounters an orating windbag, Mr. Speakeasy, M.P., whose booming platitudes about freedom from want fail to interest the pensive soldier. He is also unmoved by the frenzied screechings of Mr. Escapegoat, the diplomat, and the Rev. Hateman, the cleric, who unite in a Vansittart diatribe about German savagery and sing a duet: "The Germans are not the Herrenvolk. We are the Herrenvolk. ..."

Mr. Ema and Miss Ame. Then the Young Soldier meets fat, jolly Mr. Transportouse (Transport House is the head quarters of Britain's conservative labor leaders, loathed by leftish Laborites), who genially expounds the wonders that will come from Labor Party gradualism. He takes out of a box two tiny human figures --Mr. Ema (Education for the Masses) and Miss Ame (Ministress for Amenities). They deliver pretty speeches about classless education and beautiful laborsaving apartments for all. This meeting slightly lifts the Young Soldier's spirits. He hurries past a gesticulating Robot mechanically expounding Marxism and predicting Capitalism's postwar collapse.

But the Young Soldier is dismayed by Red-tape Worm, a bureaucrat. Red-tape Worm predicts that in the postwar world human reflexes will be deliberately conditioned soon after birth. Tiny ivory radio sets will be inserted in each skull so the authorities can learn what people think, can flash thoughts into each citizen's head. Worm also predicts that Government will provide for every possible human need.

Deep Breathing and Prayer. Red-tape Worm's preview of the future so terrifies the Young Soldier that he draws his Commando knife and hacks the bureaucrat to pieces. New heads appear on each piece. The young man flees, falls, regains consciousness to hear a voice say: "Red-tape Worm really had forgotten the soul."

The voice belongs to the astral body of Mr. Heardhux (a verbal combination of Mystics Gerald Heard and Aldous Hux ley). Heardhux exhorts the Young Soldier to retreat from the postwar world, to find the way to a "universal spiritual consciousness" through meditation, fasting, breathing exercises and prayer.

The Young Soldier is rescued from perplexity by the appearance of "a small gentleman in late middle age, somewhat protuberant equatorially, with bright eyes, red lips and a short, grey beard" -- in short, Cyril Edwin Mitchinson Joad.

Like the Devil, Philosopher Joad laughs at all the ideas the Young Soldier has encountered, says man cannot be saved by faith or good works alone, but by a combination of both. When the Young Soldier begs to be told whether the postwar world will be better or not, Joad gaily says he really does not know. He adds that there are two "signposts" to improvement. These are a World Federation and a revival of man's spiritual life. The Young Soldier asks if Joad intends to follow these signposts himself. Says Joad:

"My dear chap I am a philosopher.

I am, if you like, the signpost. . . . Besides, I am too old. It is you who will have to make that better world, not I."

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