Scoop

Rating:
Summary: a well written funny look at journalism and Africa
Review: Evelyn Waugh's is at his best here. He takes on the press barons, foreign correspondents, the world of diplomacy and 1930's Africa policy. It is a world where virtually no one in power tells the truth. And nobody is what he seems. Through a mix-up the wrong Boot is sent to cover the war in Africa. Eventually "Boot of the Beast" gets the big headline. After you read this, the phrase "up to a point" will have new meaning.

Rating:
Summary: SATIRE AT ITS BEST
Review: Evelyn Waugh, one of the greatest satirists that ever lived, does it again in Scoop. With his brilliance, wit, and keen observational skills, he weaves together one unforgettable story of mistaken identities, colourful characters and superb irony. This book had me bursting out into uncontrollable peals of laughter (but then again, what Evelyn Waugh book doesn't?) time and time again. This is, simply put, a work of genius-- no doubt of that. Evelyn Waugh will forever remain one of my literary heroes. If I could only write half as good as he did....

Rating:
Summary: Required Reading
Review: Every "journalist" should be forced to read this book, at gunpoint if necessary. Scoop is a great book; I found myself laughing out loud every few pages. Waugh pokes fun at numerous targets, but I think that his jabs at the newspaper trade and the pretensions of its practitioners are especially scathing. It's a tremendously funny novel, and it rings true more than six decades later. I'd give it 100 stars if I could.

Rating:
Summary: Dated Satire
Review: Few would dispute that Waugh is a great writer with a memorable style. However, this book has a rather weak plot, and thin character development. The biggest disappointment is the much vaunted satire that comes across as dated and humorless. Read it quickly if you are interested in journalism. Otherwise, your time would better be spent watching an episode of the Gilmore Girls.

Rating:
Summary: The scoop on Scoop (I know it's a cheesy title for a review)
Review: Funny as hades. If you know anything about the newspaper business, yellow journalism, or even if you know nothing at all you'll love this book. Waugh pokes fun at everything from imperialism to the British upperclass in this satire of early 20th century journalism. A London newspaper mistakenly sends a garden columnist to cover a foreign war and the series of screwups that follows result in the story of his career. I highly recommend this one to anyone who likes a nice, light, and intelligent laugh.

Rating:
Summary: One of the best books of the 20th-century
Review: Funny, wicked, devastating. Only a Washington airhead hustler journalist would be displeased.

Rating:
Summary: A fun romp through the newspaper business
Review: Having come to Scoop right after reading a collection of Waugh's stories and within six months of reading Brideshead Revisited, I was rather surprised by this very funny book. It is nothing like Brideshead in that regard, much lighter in tone and content, and a quicker read. Compared to Charles Ryder's Schooldays, a collection of short stories from the '30s, it instilled a renewed belief in Waugh's literary powers in this reader. This is a novel revolving around mistaken identity and a failed revolution in an obscure African nation. Into this plot are thrown a number of colourful characters and hilarious situations that make for a completely enjoyable read. Don't expect anything deep here; this is more along the lines of a literary confection but one of high quality.

Rating:
Summary: Half Scoop at best
Review: Having just read Waugh's "Sword Of Honour" and being familiar with his novelistic satire in "The Loved One," I expected more from Waugh than I got from "Scoop." Was he at fault, or me? It's clear he was writing a lark here, something dashed off between more substantial works. Maybe I shouldn't have expected more. But given his abiding interest in politics, travel, and social mores, I thought "Scoop" a desultory endeavor from someone who could have delivered much more.

His analysis of the newspaper trade is seen as pungent and jabbing by some, but it comes off as forced and fantastical. Was there ever a newspaper that sent off reporters with unlimited expense accounts, allowing them to buy hollowed out sticks and collapsible canoes on a lark? Rewrite desks transform barely-coherent telegrams from lazy, drunken scribes into five-column front page articles, while editors gleefully tear apart their front pages at the 11th and one-half hour to accommodate dispatches from their reporters the darkest corners of the Third World. Yes, barroom journalism is still practiced occasionally by the likes of Jayson Blair, but if life was ever really this good in the Fourth Estate, there wouldn't be so many ulcers in newsrooms. Even in the 1930s, reporters worked harder than this, and Waugh knew it. The shame is the real work of journalists can be made every bit as silly and tawdry within the realm of true parody, but Waugh opted to pretend they only could be bothered to leave their hotel rooms to yell at their servants that the ice on their head compresses needed refreshing.

Waugh can write, he crafts amazing sentences, and he is capable of developing some probing lines of analysis around his myriad of characters. The middle part of this book is pretty good, not great but energetic, but it takes 100 pages to get there, and 50 more pages of denouement after its over to find out how everyone turned out. The lead character, the rustic rube William Boot, is no different upon leaving the strange country of Ishmaelia than before arriving, except for being taken for a bit of a ride by a shadowy German woman in one of several subplots that taper off into nothingness before the 321 pages run out. Boot seems a tribute to the complacency of the landed class, and like Waugh's ethnic epithets at the natives and others sprinkled liberally in the book, this leaves an unnecessarily sour taste. Waugh had a narrow perspective at times, but as a writer was usually more reflective, and less reflexive, than this.

Even the main business of the novel, Boot's big story that gives the book its name, is handled perfunctorily. It's neither great comedy or very dramatic. From what I gathered, the revolution was snuffed out in less than half a page when some angry Swede bulled through a porch of pinko grandees. Please tell me if I missed something here, but I don't think so.

"News is what a chap who doesn't care much about anything wants to read," Boot is told by a companion, Corker, who makes a brief turn in the narrative before melting away like so many others in this maddeningly inconsistent book. It's a funny line, but it doesn't hold up to any deeper analysis. Nor, sorry to say, does "Scoop."

Rating:
Summary: Half Scoop at best
Review: Having just read Waugh's "Sword Of Honour" and being familiar with his novelistic satire in "The Loved One," I expected more from Waugh than I got from "Scoop." Was he at fault, or me? It's clear he was writing a lark here, something dashed off between more substantial works. Maybe I shouldn't have expected more. But given his abiding interest in politics, travel, and social mores, I thought "Scoop" a desultory endeavor from someone who could have delivered much more.

His analysis of the newspaper trade is seen as pungent and jabbing by some, but it comes off as forced and fantastical. Was there ever a newspaper that sent off reporters with unlimited expense accounts, allowing them to buy hollowed out sticks and collapsible canoes on a lark? Rewrite desks transform barely-coherent telegrams from lazy, drunken scribes into five-column front page articles, while editors gleefully tear apart their front pages at the 11th and one-half hour to accommodate dispatches from their reporters the darkest corners of the Third World. Yes, barroom journalism is still practiced occasionally by the likes of Jayson Blair, but if life was ever really this good in the Fourth Estate, there wouldn't be so many ulcers in newsrooms. Even in the 1930s, reporters worked harder than this, and Waugh knew it. The shame is the real work of journalists can be made every bit as silly and tawdry within the realm of true parody, but Waugh opted to pretend they only could be bothered to leave their hotel rooms to yell at their servants that the ice on their head compresses needed refreshing.

Waugh can write, he crafts amazing sentences, and he is capable of developing some probing lines of analysis around his myriad of characters. The middle part of this book is pretty good, not great but energetic, but it takes 100 pages to get there, and 50 more pages of denouement after its over to find out how everyone turned out. The lead character, the rustic rube William Boot, is no different upon leaving the strange country of Ishmaelia than before arriving, except for being taken for a bit of a ride by a shadowy German woman in one of several subplots that taper off into nothingness before the 321 pages run out. Boot seems a tribute to the complacency of the landed class, and like Waugh's ethnic epithets at the natives and others sprinkled liberally in the book, this leaves an unnecessarily sour taste. Waugh had a narrow perspective at times, but as a writer was usually more reflective, and less reflexive, than this.

Even the main business of the novel, Boot's big story that gives the book its name, is handled perfunctorily. It's neither great comedy or very dramatic. From what I gathered, the revolution was snuffed out in less than half a page when some angry Swede bulled through a porch of pinko grandees. Please tell me if I missed something here, but I don't think so.

"News is what a chap who doesn't care much about anything wants to read," Boot is told by a companion, Corker, who makes a brief turn in the narrative before melting away like so many others in this maddeningly inconsistent book. It's a funny line, but it doesn't hold up to any deeper analysis. Nor, sorry to say, does "Scoop."

Rating:
Summary: Pleasant Surprise!
Review: I didn't know what to expect when I began Scoop, but I very much enjoyed the book! This book gives a funny insight to the news business back when cell phones and satellite feeds were non-existent. This is a classic tale of mistaken identity!