When the Going Was Good.

Rating:
Summary: A Plod with Waugh
Review: In his introduction to this book, Waugh confesses that the four travel books he wrote between 1929 and 1935 "were pedestrian, day-to-day accounts of things seen and people met". "When the Going Was Good" comprises of excerpts from those books, and I wouldn't quibble with Waugh's analysis.

The accounts should be interesting, as they cover Waugh's travels in the Mediterranean, Africa, South America and include descriptions of Ethiopia at the time of Haile Selassie's coronation and, later on, of his downfall. But, I found Waugh's writing very patchy, only rarely rising above the mundane. For example, he pays little attention to the topography of the places he visits - as a result I found it difficult to appreciate how the locations might have looked.

Waugh's observations, it might be argued, are "typical of the era" - his views of the "natives" he encountered seem outmoded to modern eyes. Nothing one can do about this of course, and it would be unrealistic to demand anything radically different given the time in which Waugh was living, but it can make for some discomfort when reading bits of his writing now.

Waugh's travels appeared to me to be mostly an aimless drift, fuelled by alcohol ("... we sat down to a breakfast of tinned partridge and Chianti"). In all, not an enthralling volume.

Rating:
Summary: A Plod with Waugh
Review: In his introduction to this book, Waugh confesses that the four travel books he wrote between 1929 and 1935 "were pedestrian, day-to-day accounts of things seen and people met". "When the Going Was Good" comprises of excerpts from those books, and I wouldn't quibble with Waugh's analysis.

The accounts should be interesting, as they cover Waugh's travels in the Mediterranean, Africa, South America and include descriptions of Ethiopia at the time of Haile Selassie's coronation and, later on, of his downfall. But, I found Waugh's writing very patchy, only rarely rising above the mundane. For example, he pays little attention to the topography of the places he visits - as a result I found it difficult to appreciate how the locations might have looked.

Waugh's observations, it might be argued, are "typical of the era" - his views of the "natives" he encountered seem outmoded to modern eyes. Nothing one can do about this of course, and it would be unrealistic to demand anything radically different given the time in which Waugh was living, but it can make for some discomfort when reading bits of his writing now.

Waugh's travels appeared to me to be mostly an aimless drift, fuelled by alcohol ("... we sat down to a breakfast of tinned partridge and Chianti"). In all, not an enthralling volume.

Rating:
Summary: Seminal Waugh + adventure travel = top flight period piece
Review: This book is a 'Must Read' for the following lot of people:
1) Those who have an appreciation for Waugh's fiction.
2) Those who have an interest in colonial Great Britain just before the fall of the British Empire when, arguably, it was at its height.
3) Those who have traveled well beyond the "It is Tuesday, this must be Bangkok" scheme of things.
4) Those who enjoy social satire mixed with dry wit, and enlivened by a wonderful sense of the absurd.
5) Connoisseurs of the English language in its written form.

'When the Going was Good' is five travel episodes written in a period from 1929 to 1935, as abridged by the author for inclusion in this book. These episodes range from a casual, meandering cruise of the Mediterranean Sea in 1929 to reportage on the invasion of Ethiopia by Italy in 1935 presaging the Second World War. In between are the coronation of Emperor Haille Salasie Ras Tafare(the first Rastafarian), some random "Globe-trotting" beginning in Aden running through the Zanzibar coast and then down to the Congo, and finally an attempted trip from British Guyana down through Brazil.
Obviously, the really beautiful thing about any book by Evelyn Waugh is the concise, incisive, succint and often surgically precise use of the Queen's English. What makes these gems particularly precious is that they are set in conditions that were considered laughably backward and dangerously primitive even for the standards of the early part of the 20th century. Any such journey into the Dark Continent, and into the New World promises to be fraught with dangers and difficulties almost beyond description. Fortunately for the world of literature these were met by an author who was up to the task of describing these incidents in a way that makes them interesting, funny, and illuminating. Waugh has an uncanny ablity to use the slings and arrows that life sends one's way as weapons of satire and delight. Perhaps the most delightful vignette in this book filled with delightful vignettes is his description of his adventures with the well-meaning but misinformed American theological professor who is the leading authority on the Ethiopian form of Christiantiy, and who meanwhile is totally confused by its religous rites. Their time together takes them from the midst of the royal coronation to a field trip trek through wilderness to that church's holiest shrine in the company of a multi-talented fly by the seat of the pants Armenian chauffeur and an Ethipioan urchin whom they pick up along the way. Suffice it to say that the material Waugh got in that one trip was of the sort that one could write an entire short book from, and indeed this is just what he did in the novella titled 'Black Mischief.' Yes, that's correct, Waugh fans, the stuff of some of his books was captured right here on these pages during these travels and herein lies a treasure trove of details that one finds later played out in the novella mentioned above, in 'A Handful of Dust' and even 'Brideshead Revisited.' Thus, reading these accounts of his travels really helps to bring alive those other stories which you have probably read and wondered about where he got his inspiration. Finally, for history buffs, one gets to literally live the life of the colonial gentleman in the midst of these pages because Waugh, afterall belonged to the smart set and the smart set made up a significant portion, however small, of the colonial population that ran the British Empire. So, when Evelyn goes travelling, he doesn't necessarily do it with a backback upon his back trudging to and fro. No, he has a set of trunks and helpers, and old school ties that lead to introductions which in turn lead to social sitauations that develop into adventures and eventually become fodder for his travelogues. The point being that because this was the author's life, we get to witness firsthand the life of Imperial Britain as it existed in the African colonies and British spheres of influence. This is heady stuff and really a wonderful kind of social history that anyone from the avid social voyeur-ethnographic tourist to the fan of the British colonial empire should appreciate.
'When the Going was Good" is a book that I can heartily recommend, and one that I took much pleasure from reading.