Product Description

Lord Copper, newspaper magnate and proprietor of the Daily Beast, has always prided himself on his intuitive flair for spotting ace reporters. That is not to say he has not made the odd blunder, however, and may in a moment of weakness make another.Acting on a dinner-party tip from Mrs Algernon Smith, he feels convinced that he has hit on just the chap to cover a promising little war in the African Republic of Ishmaelia. One of Waugh's most exuberant comedies, Scoop is a brilliantly irreverentsatire of Fleet Street and its hectic pursuit of hot news.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #13293 in Books
• Published on: 2003-08-28
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

About the Author
Evelyn Waugh was born in 1903 and was educated at Hertford College, Oxford. In 1928 he published his first novel, Decline and Fall, which was soon followed by Vile Bodies (1930), Black Mischief (1932), A Handful of Dust (1934) and Scoop (1938). In 1945 he published Brideshead Revisited and he won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1952 for Men at Arms. Evelyn Waugh died in 1966.

Customer Reviews

Is the review finished? Up to a point
Waugh is both appreciated and reviled for much the same qualities. The same caustic wit and social observation that sliced through the ridiculous class structure of his time also brought a flippancy and 'carelessness' which in our politically correct age reads uncomfortably.

Scoop is a classic example, essentially involving a mix up in the assignment of a plum overseas journalism posting to cover the Ishmalian civil war. This is written in the age of Goebbels and Stalin, and so it is no surprise to see that the power of the press is essentially responsible for destabilizing the otherwise unassuming African state. Where the journalists decide there is a story, a story will exist. Is it really that different today?

Waugh uses his social observation skills to almost ludicrous extremes, with portraits of Lord Copper, Boot of the Beast and the other journalists in the pack being both ghastly and stunningly incompetent. The novel retains its comic touch, although has dated slightly more than some of Waugh's other works. Essentially many of the caustic barbs would be more suited to an age familiar with the excesses of Beaverbrook and Rothermere.

This is essentially classic Waugh, and thus should be approached with a little prior knowledge of his style. If you like him, you'll love this - I devoured it in a day.

Classic that has lost none of its relevance
Scoop is a classic that has long none of its relevance since Waugh satirised the haphazard process of news gathering and reporting.

With the rise of "television news", the crazy mix between internal agendas and accident has perhaps become more wayward. If readers and listeners only knew the half of it ...

Waugh reviled & persecuted - try reading between the lines!
To Chad, Andy Barnes and others who found Scoop offensive, consider the alternative viewpoint:

I first read this book at Wilmslow Grammar School in the mid-1970s, when it was clearly not considered racist or any unsuitable for school children. Furthermore, we were taught that Waugh himself is embodied in the naive everyman character, William Boot, who sees everything but avoids the pitfalls of premature judgement. Waugh's whimsical but savage narration, on the other hand, lampoons everything in sight, notably the enterprising but weary African response to expense account journalism.

Ishmaelians are stereotyped and lightly ridiculed not because Waugh was personally racist, but because he is attacking the mores and prejudices of his readership, albeit it such a light-hearted fashion that the vast majority would barely realise they were being sent up.

As such, Scoop is a perfect document of its time, but I doubt that much has really changed. For all our political correctness nowadays, it seems to me that most people are more suspicious of and offensive towards foreigners now than ever. Waugh was right - plus ca change, plus c'est le meme chose!