That’s me in the Middle by Donald Jack is the second in the series of novels about Bartholemew Bandy a Canadian World War 1 pilot. Jack served in the second war and subsequently wrote the Bandy series between 1962 and 2002.
Bandy is a somewhat chaotic upper class character who seems to get buffeted by events as he stumbles through the Great War. ‘That’s me in the Middle’ feels like classic farce with the scenes tenuously threaded together until the end when it almost makes sense. It is light, humorous and very reminiscent of Jeeves and Wooster but in parallel there are chilling observations on the horror and human waste of the war.
I wasn’t enjoying reading “That’s me in the Middle”, I am not a fan of a genre that eulogises the lifestyle of the old British aristocracy or the mad cap escapades of its heroes (although I love modern farce such as the novels of Jonas Jonasson) but by the time I got to the end of it I had changed my mind, it’s not great but it isn’t terrible. If you want something light about war (yes I know what a contradiction in terms that is) this might be worth a read.
3.5/5