The privileged elite among whom Evelyn Waugh lived saw the war, the novelist wrote, as “a malevolent suspension of normality: the massing and movement of millions of men, some of whom were sometimes endangered, most of whom were idle and lonely, the devastation, hunger and waste, crumbling buildings, foundering ships, the torture and murder of prisoners … [which] had been prolonged beyond reason.” Few of Waugh’s friends understood that the “suspension of normality” would become permanent in its impact upon their own way of life.
