Scoop by Evelyn Waugh — a dated Classics Club novel #10booksofsummer
“I doubt you’ll enjoy it,” was Mr Booker Talk’s reaction as I embarked on reading Scoop by Evelyn Waugh for the Classics Club spin.
He was so right.
Published in 1938, Scoop was written at a time when Waugh was gaining a name as a satirical novelist. He wrote the novel as a critique of newspaper journalism, particularly its propensity to manufacture and sensationalise “news” in order to make it more entertaining.
Scoop follows the misadventures of William Boot, a gentle soul who lives with an odd concoction of relatives in the family’s crumbly manor house. He writes a regular nature column for the Beast, conveying in florid style the wonders of badgers and water voles.
As a result of mistaken identity, he becomes a foreign correspondent for the newspaper, despatched to Africa to report on a civil war in Ishmaelia. He’s hopelessly ill-prepared for such an assignment. He doesn’t know anything about Ishmaelia, why there is a war or who is fighting whom.
Media incompetence and sensationalism are a running theme of this novel. Waugh’s cast of foreign correspondents in Ishmaelia are cynical, lazy, and more interested in filing dramatic copy than understanding the actual situation on the ground. Their number one goal is to keep one step ahead of the competition, so stealing cables sent to their competitors’ cables and lying about anything they think will give them an advantage, is fair game.
Boot’s eyes are opened when a fellow journalist tells him about some Fleet Street legends.
… how Wenlock Jakes, highest-paid journalist of the United States, scooped the world with an eye-witness story of the sinking of the Lusitania four hours before she was hit; how Hitchcock, the English Jakes, straddling over his desk in London, had chronicled day by day the horrors of the Messina earthquake…
Waugh’s treatment of class and social mobility provides another opportunity for satire. William Boot’s accidental success as a war correspondent, despite his complete incompetence and naivety, serves as a commentary on how the upper classes stumble into positions of influence. In this world, connections, luck, and the ability to project confidence, count for more than expertise and ability.
Maybe in the 1930s, readers had a different idea of what is and isn’t funny because this novel was for me at best faintly amusing but nothing more.
True there are some delightfully rich characters The stand-outs for me were the megalomaniac press baron Lord Copper who has an over-inflated sense of his own importance and knowledge and the innocent-abroad William Booth who is completely out of his depth but somehow manages to beat the competition to a scoop.
I did enjoy his exchange of telegrams with the Beast news desk in London. There’s a note of escalating desperation in the messages they send Boot, urgently pressing him to send news — of any kind. To which Boot replies firstly:
“All rot about Bolshevik he is only ticket collector ass called Shumble thought his beard false but its perfectly all right really will cable again if there is any news very wet here yours William Boot. “
Even a telegram advising “hard news essential’ doesn’t do the trick. Boot simply replies: “raining hard hope all well England will cable again if any news.” He goes off to play ping pong while the entire media pack head to the front in search of stories.
I can imagine steam coming out of the ears of the news desk in London when they open those cables. Weather conditions in Africa are hardly the stuff of front page headlines.
Scoop was a mixed bag for me. Amusing enough to keep me reading though the humour was rather too gentle. I much prefer cutting edge wit.
Also I found Waugh’s representation of non-British characters uncomfortable. His African characters in particular were over-simplified and portrayed merely as simpletons and buffoons. Even accepting that patronising attitudes towards Africans were commonplace among Europeans in the 1930s, it still jarred.
Scoop was the book I landed as a result of the Classics Club #41 Spin. I’ve not had a good track record with these spins but amazingly I read this one ahead of the “deadline” of August 24.
I’m counting this as book number 6 in my #10booksofsummer reading project.
The Classics Club: Spin#42 : BookerTalk
[…] the latest round of the Classics Club spin. I did so well last time, reading the selected book, Scoop by Evelyn Waugh, ahead of the “deadline”. Can I be lucky […]
Anne Bennett
I loved Brideshead Revisited when I read it years ago and I’ve heard good things about Scoop so I am surprised it seemed too dated to really remain a classic. If it doesn’t speak to us now then it really isn’t a classic, right? I’ve noticed that about a lot of books I’ve read for Classics Club. I guess just because they are old doesn’t make them good, or good for now.
My spin book Candide Well, actually my spin book was Tess of the D’Urbervilles but I had time to read both during this long Spin period and I like my review of Candide better. Ha!
BookerTalk
Good question Anne. Age certainly doesn’t make something a classic. For me, a classic has to stand the test of time in the sense that its “message”or theme can still speak to us today
FictionFan
I read this when I was young and really didn’t enjoy it, although I don’t remember much about it now. Despite your reservations, I actually think I might enjoy it more now because I’m slightly better at making allowances for outdated attitudes, or at least recognising them as that. I do remember though that it was described as hilarious and I certainly didn’t find it any more than mildly amusing, if that.
kimbofo
I read this one years ago and loved it. Quite like that it name checks a magazine I used to freelance for! But yea, I suspect it probably hasn’t aged well…
BookerTalk
As I commented to Lisa, our tastes have also matured so maybe we shouldn’t be surprised if a book we once enjoyed no longer has the same appeal
hopewellslibraryoflife
As always, an excellent review. I cringed a few times reading Vile Bodies. I get it. Brideshead Revisited though has weathered the storm of years–at least to me. Not sure about the others he wrote.
BookerTalk
I read Vile Bodies and also Decline and Fall in my final year at uni so rushed them and now I can’t recall a thing about them. I’m interested in reading his later work though – it probably has more depth. The Sword of Honour trilogy has been recommended by Mr BT – have you read those?
Brideshead is one of my all time favourite novels!
hopewellslibraryoflife
I read the first one back in 1977 as a high school Freshman who needed a dictionary. LOL. I can’t comment on it. I’d say give it the 60 page test.
Calmgrove
I’m determined to tackle this, taking your reservations into account, because it’s sometimes good to give an outdated novel the initial benefit of the doubt. I may still come to the same conclusion as you nevertheless!
BookerTalk
I bet you’ll find a lot more in it than I did
Calmgrove
Maybe, or maybe not – but we’ll see!
margaret21
I remember loving this in simpler tmes, while I was still at school. You’ve said enough to persuade me that I should leave it at that, and not expect to feel the same about it this time round.
Lisa Hill
Me too, I read it in my younger days and enjoyed it. But my expectations were different then.
BookerTalk
Well that’s the thing isn’t it – our tastes change as do our attitudes. I went through a phase of reading Denis Wheatley novels when I was in my teens. They’re the kind of books you’d never see me even thinking of reading these days.
BookerTalk
It’s tricky isn’t it with books you really love. I’m often wary of re-reading in case I don’t enjoy the book second time around and then my enjoyment of the first experience is marred by the second
margaret21
Exactly. With so much else waiting to be read, why take the risk?