Classic Book Review: ‘Scoop’ by Evelyn Waugh
Tolita Raymond
February 13, 2014
I recently read an article in which an author listed Evelyn Waugh’s ‘Scoop’ amongst his favourite books. He said that he considered it superior to his masterpiece ‘Brideshead Revisited’.
‘This, I have to see’, I told myself and grabbed a copy as soon as I could. Having initially been suspicious that ‘Brideshead…’ might have been subject to the kind of nostalgic hyperbole that besets a certain era and/or author, I swiftly changed my mind on reading. I found it worthy of the acclaim and numerous screen adaptations to say the least.
Alas, I should have known from past experience that these sort of literary expeditions rarely yield much fruit. Art is essentially subjective. If I cherish a piece of work, someone else’s claim that a superior alternative exists hardly ever meets my expectations.
‘Scoop’ is about a well-intentioned, if a little green, young investigative journalist William Boot who stumbles across an opportunity of a lifetime. Following a professional blunder, instead of getting sacked as he anticipates Boot is appointed by none other than his newspaper ‘The Beast’s self-important proprietor Lord Copper, to cover the outbreak of civil war in the fictional North-East African state of Ishmaelia. (From its description it’s historically a combination of Liberia, Ethiopia and perhaps a bit of Somalia thrown in for additional complexity). Whilst on his travels Boot comes across all sorts of colourful characters and finds out perhaps more than he’d like to know about the machinations of the Fourth Estate. Journalists, he discovers, don’t just report the news. Their power extends to actually creating news; taking the nugget of a story and twisting it beyond recognition. What’s more, some are handsomely rewarded for it.
Waugh himself was quite the globetrotter and earned a reputation, amongst other things, as a respected travel writer. He had spent some time in various African states by 1938 when ‘Scoop’ was first published and he uses some of his first-hand knowledge to flesh out the detail. No-one is spared ridicule. There’s a black nationalist who likes to claim all of humankind’s greatest inventions were the work of the Negro. There are pot shots at Western super powers and their interest in the stability of developing countries being limited to how much they can exploit their natural resources…
‘…Ishmaelia…is not rich at all. If it were rich it would already belong to England…There is no oil, there is no tin, no gold, no iron…’ said the functionary. Growing vexed at such unreasonable rapacity.
‘What do you want with it?’
‘I am going as a journalist’
‘Ah, well, to the journalist every country is rich…’ (Page 59, Penguin Classic Edition 2000)
Waugh presages the greed and entitlement of the post-colonial political elite in Ishmaelia’s nepotistic ruling family The Jacksons.
Casual racism falls from the lips of the working and middle class alike with course epithets such as ‘Yid’ and ‘Nigger’ flying around as freely as you’d expect in a time before Joe Bloggs could be shamed into superficial compliance to notions of equality. Offensive references, however to the Ishmaelites being cannibals and intermittently calling them ‘coons’ might very well be the author’s own. (Christopher Hitchens, in his foreword to the 2000 Penguin Classics edition, tries to exonerate Waugh by playing down the use of racist terminology in the narrative itself. However he eventually concedes that he was ‘a reactionary’).
Racial slurs aside, ‘Scoop’ sounds good on paper. A slim volume, full of wit and canny observations…and yet despite being about less than half the size of ‘Brideshead Revisited’ it didn’t come close to holding my attention as much. I was bored from the onset. The in-jokes and witticisms that might tickle the fancy of seasoned journalists could not mask the fact that none of the characters were nearly as worthy of interest or as layered as Charles Ryder, the Marchmains and their menagerie of friends and acquaintances.
This is my third foray into Waugh’s work, with ‘A Handful of Dust’ being my first. I found that rather underwhelming at the time but it’s dynamic in comparison to ‘Scoop’. I don’t want to believe ‘Brideshead…’ is the pinnacle of his efforts and I am tempted to delve into more of the Waugh back catalogue. But there’s a niggling part of me that thinks I should just quit whilst I am ahead, before my perception of his work is tainted beyond repair.
‘This, I have to see’, I told myself and grabbed a copy as soon as I could. Having initially been suspicious that ‘Brideshead…’ might have been subject to the kind of nostalgic hyperbole that besets a certain era and/or author, I swiftly changed my mind on reading. I found it worthy of the acclaim and numerous screen adaptations to say the least.
Alas, I should have known from past experience that these sort of literary expeditions rarely yield much fruit. Art is essentially subjective. If I cherish a piece of work, someone else’s claim that a superior alternative exists hardly ever meets my expectations.
‘Scoop’ is about a well-intentioned, if a little green, young investigative journalist William Boot who stumbles across an opportunity of a lifetime. Following a professional blunder, instead of getting sacked as he anticipates Boot is appointed by none other than his newspaper ‘The Beast’s self-important proprietor Lord Copper, to cover the outbreak of civil war in the fictional North-East African state of Ishmaelia. (From its description it’s historically a combination of Liberia, Ethiopia and perhaps a bit of Somalia thrown in for additional complexity). Whilst on his travels Boot comes across all sorts of colourful characters and finds out perhaps more than he’d like to know about the machinations of the Fourth Estate. Journalists, he discovers, don’t just report the news. Their power extends to actually creating news; taking the nugget of a story and twisting it beyond recognition. What’s more, some are handsomely rewarded for it.
Waugh himself was quite the globetrotter and earned a reputation, amongst other things, as a respected travel writer. He had spent some time in various African states by 1938 when ‘Scoop’ was first published and he uses some of his first-hand knowledge to flesh out the detail. No-one is spared ridicule. There’s a black nationalist who likes to claim all of humankind’s greatest inventions were the work of the Negro. There are pot shots at Western super powers and their interest in the stability of developing countries being limited to how much they can exploit their natural resources…
‘…Ishmaelia…is not rich at all. If it were rich it would already belong to England…There is no oil, there is no tin, no gold, no iron…’ said the functionary. Growing vexed at such unreasonable rapacity.
‘What do you want with it?’
‘I am going as a journalist’
‘Ah, well, to the journalist every country is rich…’ (Page 59, Penguin Classic Edition 2000)
Waugh presages the greed and entitlement of the post-colonial political elite in Ishmaelia’s nepotistic ruling family The Jacksons.
Casual racism falls from the lips of the working and middle class alike with course epithets such as ‘Yid’ and ‘Nigger’ flying around as freely as you’d expect in a time before Joe Bloggs could be shamed into superficial compliance to notions of equality. Offensive references, however to the Ishmaelites being cannibals and intermittently calling them ‘coons’ might very well be the author’s own. (Christopher Hitchens, in his foreword to the 2000 Penguin Classics edition, tries to exonerate Waugh by playing down the use of racist terminology in the narrative itself. However he eventually concedes that he was ‘a reactionary’).
Racial slurs aside, ‘Scoop’ sounds good on paper. A slim volume, full of wit and canny observations…and yet despite being about less than half the size of ‘Brideshead Revisited’ it didn’t come close to holding my attention as much. I was bored from the onset. The in-jokes and witticisms that might tickle the fancy of seasoned journalists could not mask the fact that none of the characters were nearly as worthy of interest or as layered as Charles Ryder, the Marchmains and their menagerie of friends and acquaintances.
This is my third foray into Waugh’s work, with ‘A Handful of Dust’ being my first. I found that rather underwhelming at the time but it’s dynamic in comparison to ‘Scoop’. I don’t want to believe ‘Brideshead…’ is the pinnacle of his efforts and I am tempted to delve into more of the Waugh back catalogue. But there’s a niggling part of me that thinks I should just quit whilst I am ahead, before my perception of his work is tainted beyond repair.
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