Rating: 
Summary: Hilarious!
Review: I didn't quite know what to expect when I read this novel because I had not ever read any book by Evelyn Waugh. I was very pleased with it. The fast pace and comedy of this book made good, light reading.
Rating: 
Summary: Still funny
Review: I had forgotten how funny Evelyn Waugh was. These days he is getting canonized as a serious novelist and the critics look down on his farcical romps. I re-read rhis. remembering that it had seemed funny at the time, but wondering how funny something written in 1937 could be.
Its political incorrectness jars on me less than it did when I first read it fifty years ago. Non-white people are referred to by obsolete terms based on the color of their skins, but no racial group is held up as wiser or superior. All are skewered.
Rating:
Summary: genuinely and consistantly funny
Review: I throughly enjoyed Scoop. It isn't that this book is some sort of hallowed masterpiece nor one of those brilliant, brutal satires that summarizes the absurd actuality of a particular state of being or belief. No, Scoop is just, quite simply, pure fun. The story becomes rather obvious after a while, but 'obvious' not in a cliched or predictable manner, but in keeping within the consistant vein of Waugh's narrative voice here. Oh, sure, there are some still relevent statements made regarding the incompetence and petty biases of newspaper men and their dictatorial bosses and there is a clearly put case to be made about how newspapers are run by wealthy industrialists who use their ownership of the media to advance their own selfish agendas, but all of this ultimately falls by the wayside as we follow the adventures of Boot, a disinterested chronicler of seemingly important events he finds himself unable to even bother trying to understand.
This is a very good book, more like 4 and a half stars, rounded up, in this rare instance, just because it made me laugh out loud more than a few times. Enjoy--
Rating: 
Summary: Scoop - A letdown
Review: I was eager to read Scoop, it has great adjectives attached to it: Intriguing, ebullient, witty, etc. I did not find it to be so. This book is in no way a classic. I realize that it was written in what? 1937, so the social mores have changed. The casual rascism was jarring to say the least, and it took me out of the book often. It was no Huckleberry Finn, where the character was doing the talking, it was text, straight from the author's head. It doesn't hold up well to modern eyes. There was one laugh out loud funny part, and it occured near the end. In no way did that joke make up for the pages gone before. Overall, I felt that it was a one joke book, from which perhaps Saturday Night Live could perform an unfunny skit.
Rating:
Summary: Waugh and rumor of war
Review: If you've ever worked as a journalist it doesn't take long to realize what an idiotic and yet strangely necessary profession it is. For every worthwhile story you write there are ten that belong in the trash. Sixty years ago Waugh brought all this to life hilariously and the basic premise hasn't changed.
Rating:
Summary: Waugh's Comic Assault on Wartime Journalism
Review: In October 1935, Italy invaded the independent African nation of Ethiopia. The Italo-Ethiopian War lasted less than eight months, Emperor Haile Selassie's kingdom falling quickly before Italy's modern weaponry. It was a little war that, nonetheless, implicated the great powers of Europe and foreshadowed the much bigger war to follow. Evelyn Waugh was in his early 30s, already the author of four remarkable comic novels, when he accepted an assignment to cover the Italo-Ethiopian War for a London newspaper. The enduring result of that assignment was Waugh's fifth novel, "Scoop," a scathing satirical assault on the ethos of Fleet Street and its war correspondents, as well as on Waugh's usual suspects, the British upper classes. The time is the 1930s. There is a civil war in the obscure country of Ishmaelia and Lord Copper, the publisher of the Beast newspaper, a newspaper that "stands for strong, mutually antagonistic governments everywhere," believes coverage of the war is imperative: "I am in consultation with my editors on the subject. We think it a very promising little war. A microcosm you might say of world drama. We propose to give it fullest publicity. We shall have our naval, military and air experts, our squad of photographers, our colour reporters, covering the war from every angle and on every front." Through the influence of Mrs. Algernon Stitch, Lord Copper soon identifies John Courteney Booth, a best selling popular author, as the right man to cover the war in Ishmaelia. Neither Lord Copper nor his inscrutable editorial staff, however, is especially well read or familiar with the current socially respectable literati. Amidst the confusion, Mr. Salter, the foreign editor, mistakenly identifies William Booth, country bumpkin and staff writer for the Beast, as the "Booth" to whom Lord Copper was referring: "At the back of the paper, ignominiously sandwiched between Pip and Pop, the Bedtime Pets, and the recipe for a dish named 'Waffle Scramble,' lay the bi-weekly column devoted to nature: -- Lush Places. Edited by William Boot, Countryman. " 'Do you suppose that's the right one?' " " 'Sure of it. The Prime Minister is nuts on rural England.' " " 'He's supposed to have a particularly high-class style: 'Feather-footed through the plashy fen passes the questing vole' . . . would that be it?' " " 'Yes,' said the Managing Editor. That must be good style. At least it doesn't sound like anything else to me.' " Thus, William Boot, Countryman, soon finds himself on his way to Ishmaelia to cover the civil war for the Beast. Boot hooks up with an experienced wire reporter named Corker along the way. Corker teachers Boot the ins and outs of covering the war, a war in which reportage comes from little more than the imagination of the journalists sent to cover it and the editorial policies of their papers. The real nature of the war correspondent's profession is suggested when Boot and Corker go to the Ishmaelia Press Bureau to obtain their credentials: "Dr. Benito, the director, was away but his clerk entered their names in his ledger and gave them cards of identity. They were small orange documents, originally printed for the registration of prostitutes. The space for thumb-print was now filled with a passport photograph and at the head the word 'journalist' substituted in neat Ishmaelite characters." Boot, despite his naivety and ignorance of the war correspondent's trade, inadvertently succeeds in trumping his more experienced journalistic competitors in reporting the war. Along the way, his adventures in Ishmaelia provide the perfect Waugh vehicle for a satiric dissection of the journalistic trade and of what passes as governance in the less developed parts of the world, where tribalism and nepotism more often than not underlie the veneer of ostensibly functioning political systems. Boot, of course, returns to England, where he is now a household name. But one Boot is just as good as another, or so it seems. In the confusion of Boots, William, the real war correspondent, thankfully returns to his country home while his doddering, half-senile Uncle Theodore fulfills his role as the center of attention at the Beast and the prominent author John Courteney Booth (the man who started all this) mistakenly ends up with a knighthood intended for William. "Scoop" is another brilliant Waugh comic send-up based on real-life experience, in this case his experience as a war correspondent in Ethiopia. It also is one of his best works, a little comic novel that will keep you in stitches from beginning to end.
Rating:
Summary: Hilarious, fast, and right on target.
Review: It would be a great mistake to think this is only a satirical look at 1930's English journalism and African politics. Nearly everything Waugh says is as true today as it was then. Only the names and technology have changed--and they haven't been changed to protect the innocent! As a journalist who's been to Africa, it seems right on target. "Scoop" is a very funny satire. Waugh's best, along with "The Loved One." Read it if you're interested in the media, humor, politics, history, or books that make fun of all of that and more. Talk about "Wag the Dog!"
Rating:
Summary: A Satirical Tour de Force
Review: It's London in the 1930s and novelist John Boot thinks he'd be the best writer for a special correspondent's job in Ishmaelia, East Africa, where revolution is in the air. He very well may be, but no one will find out because the powers that be at the great London newspaper, "The Beast" (heated rival of "The Brute"), mistakenly send his distant cousin William Boot instead. Poor William, who works for the paper already and was perfectly happy sending in his two essays a month on "Lush Places," is pulled out of his comfortable country lifestyle and thrust toward a greatness so great he could only stumble upon it by accident. "Scoop" is an unrelenting satire of the tabloid press of Waugh's day. While it's arguably the most clever and well structured of the six of his novels I have read, imagine how much funnier it would be today if the general public didn't know so much about how journalists (even at the most respectable, unjaundiced papers) gather their stories. William quickly learns how the Special Correspondents submit their "eyewitness accounts" of battle from cushy hotel rooms fifty miles from the fighting, how a telegram of ten words will get turned into three hundred and splashed on the front page. And if the paper isn't happy with one writer, they can't send another because the journey from England to Africa takes three weeks! As he does in "Decline and Fall" and "A Handful of Dust," Waugh once again shows us an Englishman thrown into absurd circumstances beyond his control who won't or can't speak up to save himself the trouble. Where "Scoop" improves, or at least differs, from the earlier works, is that William Boot does speak up for himself and it still doesn't help. He's no fool, however, and at least ends up in a better place than several of Waugh's earlier protagonists. It's probable that "Scoop" doesn't get read much by students anymore because of it's racist undertones (and epithets) and seemingly casual treatment of revolutions in post-colonial Africa. Racist or not, what Waugh is really doing is making fun of the human race in all its varied colors and idiosyncrasies. As always, he saves his most biting satire for his fellow English. An extremely well constructed book, "Scoop" displays layer upon layer of absurd characters and situations that Waugh pulls expertly together in a most satisfying manner. I thought he had really outdone himself with "A Handful of Dust," but I find that "Scoop" is now my favorite. Enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: A Satirical Tour de Force
Review: It's London in the 1930s and novelist John Boot thinks he'd be the best writer for a special correspondent's job in Ishmaelia, East Africa, where revolution is in the air. He very well may be, but no one will find out because the powers that be at the great London newspaper, "The Beast" (heated rival of "The Brute"), mistakenly send his distant cousin William Boot instead. Poor William, who works for the paper already and was perfectly happy sending in his two essays a month on "Lush Places," is pulled out of his comfortable country lifestyle and thrust toward a greatness so great he could only stumble upon it by accident. "Scoop" is an unrelenting satire of the tabloid press of Waugh's day. While it's arguably the most clever and well structured of the six of his novels I have read, imagine how much funnier it would be today if the general public didn't know so much about how journalists (even at the most respectable, unjaundiced papers) gather their stories. William quickly learns how the Special Correspondents submit their "eyewitness accounts" of battle from cushy hotel rooms fifty miles from the fighting, how a telegram of ten words will get turned into three hundred and splashed on the front page. And if the paper isn't happy with one writer, they can't send another because the journey from England to Africa takes three weeks! As he does in "Decline and Fall" and "A Handful of Dust," Waugh once again shows us an Englishman thrown into absurd circumstances beyond his control who won't or can't speak up to save himself the trouble. Where "Scoop" improves, or at least differs, from the earlier works, is that William Boot does speak up for himself and it still doesn't help. He's no fool, however, and at least ends up in a better place than several of Waugh's earlier protagonists. It's probable that "Scoop" doesn't get read much by students anymore because of it's racist undertones (and epithets) and seemingly casual treatment of revolutions in post-colonial Africa. Racist or not, what Waugh is really doing is making fun of the human race in all its varied colors and idiosyncrasies. As always, he saves his most biting satire for his fellow English. An extremely well constructed book, "Scoop" displays layer upon layer of absurd characters and situations that Waugh pulls expertly together in a most satisfying manner. I thought he had really outdone himself with "A Handful of Dust," but I find that "Scoop" is now my favorite. Enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: read The Loved One too
Review: John Courteney Boot is a rising young British novelist, but after an affair gone sour he wants to get out of England for awhile. He approaches the well-connected Mrs. Algernon Stitch for assistance & she in turn recommends to Lord Copper, publisher of the Beast newspaper, that he send Boot to cover the war in Ishmaelia, Africa. Copper in turn orders Mr. Salter, his Foreign Editor, to get Boot and in short order a series of mix-ups leads to the Beast sending William Boot, their nature columnist and a man who loathes leaving his ancestral home, Boot Magna Hall, to Africa. In Ishmaelia, Boot stumbles into a couple of scoops and returns home a hero, "Boot of the Beast". Evelyn Waugh is one of the great satirists of the century and he has never been funnier than he is here, skewering the Press. GRADE: B+
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