One gets used to a certain pattern in reading an author's works, and generally Galsworthy is no exception to that - a reader reasonably begins to expect a diffused albeit not hidden description of beauty of England through his works, apart from questions of social status, English caste system, status of women, and more. His women are perhaps not strident in speaking but very eloquent in silently standing up for themselves and their rights not yet granted them by society. His upper caste isn't the caricature of a leftist author that whips the lower ones or starves them, but rather people who have an idea of noblesse oblige that they were brought up to or those not yet quite there.
And then one arrives at this work, a different one! Who knew Galsworthy could write a book to match a P.G. Wodehouse work in being so hilarious!
This one is difficult to describe in that it is like a one person play on stage where the artist is portraying everything ridiculous about various things one normally sees the humour of privately but suffers publicly, not because these things are always ridiculous but because often enough they are the scarecrows rather than valiant figures one is naturally inclined to revere. Duty to country, war, patriotism, roles of upper castes as defined in England and Europe in guiding the lower classes, and more than anything else, speeches and articles, are all out there held up to a mirror with the figure of a sincere but clueless man of upper classes out to do his bit in every way he can think of. The only other author who could and did hold up such a mirror was George Bernard Shaw, and he did it through various plays of his.
Not that any of these virtues are less than noble, but that lacking thought and perspective, those indulging in attempts do become a bit ridiculous. Not as much as the protagonist here, of course, who is a flawless stream of hilarious attempts to go from one effort to other and next in his quest to be of use during war and do his duty, while really being unaware of just how comic and more he is.
