Arena

More antiwomen than antiwar, this novel led a bad taste in my mouth I was looking up something in the dictionary and came across this author’s name. Better known as a poet, he wrote a novel about World War I as well as a controversial biography of Lawrence of Arabia. As, against all odds, there was a copy of one in the local library, I decided to try it, imagining it might be a little like Ford Madox Ford’s Parade’s End. I'm all for healthy cynicism but this book takes the biscuit. In fact, it might actually take a whole Peek Freans factory as far as biscuits go. The author/narrator seems to despise almost everyone and casts his superior and judgmental eye on them. No one is immune from his contemptuous derision. Roman Catholics are described as ‘slimy’, for instance. The really objectionable aspect is the unremitting misogyny. Everyone might be a target for Aldington’s scorn and disdain, but the majority of it is reserved for the female of the species. He characterises the hero’s (