Media Frenzy (Scoop - Evelyn Waugh)

Member Name: Salz

Product:	Scoop - Evelyn Waugh
Date:	28/10/02 (455 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Funny , Delightfully readable, He knows that of which he writes

Disadvantages: Some decidedly old fashioed (some would say racist) language

It helps when reading this book to remember that Evelyn Waugh himself was a foreign correspondent in Abbysinnia as it then was and so this book is not only a delightful high farce but also a cutting satire. As he himself remarks in his preface, it may be hard for readers now to accept it but this is how the world was not so very long ago.

In every other way the book has become more pertinent, rather than less as the years and the appetite of the public for neatly packaged and colourfully reported news has mushroomed. Now amongst the media constant self-referential conversations regarding it's own pernicious and/or preservative powers in society it is good to be reminded that it has been so for a long long time. Perhaps it has been like this forever. However it has never before been so much like this.

SYNOPSIS.

William Boot was a small country squire who contributed a weekly wildlife column to the Daily Beast, Lord Copper?s newspaper. John Courtenay Boot was a novelist and socialite. There is no known relation between them, in fact they are in blissful ignorance of the other's existence, let alone activities. But when Mrs Stitch. John's aunt, persuades Lord Copper that her nephew is the man for the job in Ishmaelia, inevitably it is William who is plucked out of obscurity, kitted out and the shipped off to East Africa.

Ishmaelia (Waugh's imaginary independent African country) is a collection of the inhospitable, unprofitable pieces of East Africa and as such was granted its independence by the Great Powers who found that the most convenient solution. An African American family are installed as permanent presidents in the new capital of Jacksonburg. They exercised a suzerainty of varying effectiveness over the surrounding countryside.

On his awkward trips out to Ishamelia (via France and Yemen) he meets with various characters ? most notably a mysterious businessman and a fellow English journalist ? Corker
. Corker is an experienced hack and shows William the ropes. He even translates Williams telegrams from journalese to English once their respective employers have decided that they should work together. Corker collects oriental figurines and for some inexplicable reason I cannot imagine as anyone else but Eric Idle.

Once the William and Corker and the whole gang of journalists arrive in Jacksonburg they find they have nothing to do. It is the rainy season and no revolution, counter-revolution or counter-counter-revolution will be taking place until the rains stop. In the small guest house in which he is staying William meets a young woman ? Katchen. He falls madly in love with her and she for her part appreciates his company (and certainly his expense account).

So it falls out that when all the journalists decamp to meet a completely non-existent rebel army in the countryside William remains in the capital. There he accidentally uncovers the story of the year and scoops the whole world. What was his story? You will have to read the book and find out.

STYLE.

Wonderfully readable. Light and breezy in the great tradition of the English comic novel. Almost P. G. Wodehouse on Safari. I consumed it over one rainy weekend.

CONTENT.
As you might expect from the era very little on the swearing, sex, and/or violence fronts. The only thing that will shock modern readers is the references to negroes and even niggers which made me sit up and stop reading as if I had been slapped in the face. Still it faithfully represents the attitudes of people at the time, and one gets the feeling that Waugh is poking fun at the pretentiousness of Racial and Cultural supremacists (but this may be my too generous reading). You have been warned ? but it shouldn't spoil your enjoyment.

CONCLUSION.

A very funny, infinitely readable book. Ideal for a rainy day or a mild illness.

Summary: