I didn’t enjoy Saki’s 1911 offering, so I was going to skip this one, until I read the plot description and realized it was speculative fiction. This novel is set in a world where Germany has conquered Britain! This fascinated me, and it was clear that Saki was the only writer who saw World War I coming, so I had to read it.

Saki’s prose is witty and crisp; here’s an example: “Plarsey had never been able to relinquish the idea that a youthful charm and comeliness still centered in his person, and labored daily at his toilet with the devotion that a hopelessly lost cause is so often able to inspire. He babbled incessantly about himself in short, neat, complacent sentences, and in a voice that Ronald Storre said reminded one of a fat bishop blessing a butter-making competition.” It’s Saki’s usual satire of high society, except this time his aim is to roast England for being insufficiently militaristic. The idea is that soft Britain was completely caught off guard and was unable to defend itself against a German invasion.

All the spec fic elements are great, especially his descriptions of how the German overlords changed the public parks in London. (They spruce up Hyde Park but add tacky public art, like a statue of Alice in Wonderland, just like what we have in NYC.) Saki foresaw the Hitler Youth phenomenon by a couple of decades with his description of Germany’s attempt to win over the young people via the Boy Scouts. You have to read the book to find out if this works or not. All the British aristocrats are lazy and muddle-headed and just want to go on with their lives as usual even though their country has been annexed. There are two main characters, a husband and wife. The wife, Cicely, is a beautiful woman who only cares about her own pleasure, very similar to many other female characters in the books of 1913. Her husband, Yeovil, is very worked up about the fait accompli, which is what they call the take-over, but may be lulled into apathy by the delights of upper class British country life (hunting and riding and other outdoorsy things.)

The downfall of this book is the same as last time: anti-Semitism. Cecily is going to have a piano player visit, and her husband asks, “Not long-haired and Semitic or Tcheque or anything of that sort?” “There are even more [Jews] now than there used to be,” says another character. “I am to a great extent a disliker of Jews. . .” It’s very hard to picture German society as a haven for Jews, but that is how Saki imagines it. There aren’t really a lot of charcters in this story that I could sympathize with.

Weirdly, the book that this one most reminded me of is Heinlein’s Starship Troopers, because they both have the same wacky message that the key to civic virtue is military service.

Also, this is the book of 1913 that has the second-most porn-y name, after Wet Magic. ( )

> Babelio : https://www.babelio.com/livres/Saki-Quand-Guillaume-vint/863255

> Plus qu'une fable, un monde fascinant à découvrir.
—Danieljean (Babelio)

La revue de presse : Florence Noiville - (Le Monde) - Publié le 14 novembre 2003
Avec l'intégrale des nouvelles parue aux éditions de L'Age d'homme (« Le Monde des livres » du 27 juin), et après dix ans d'interruption dans les traductions, on avait repris goût à la lecture de Saki. Cela tombe bien puisque arrive aujourd'hui - quasiment pour l'anniversaire de sa mort, un 13 novembre - son ultime roman, sorti en 1913, alors que Hector Hugh Munro ne va pas tarder à tomber, en 1916, en France, sous une balle allemande. Toute l'ironie mordante de Saki vous saute à la gorge avec le portrait de cette Cicely si contente d'elle-même et de ses « adorables cils », et avec, derrière lui, l'autopsie drôle et sans concession d'une société britannique en secrète décomposition. … ; (en ligne),
URL: https://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/2003/11/14/quand-guillaume-vint-de-saki_... ( )

I didn't find it especially boring. It was funny and clever and satirical and even made me a little choked up once or twice. I liked it a lot more than I thought I would. Of course, it could be that I was just in the right mood or something. ( )

Good, but boring. Has a good meaning behind it, but you have to read it to find it and its drawn out. Great writing style. ( )