Scoop (Heritage of Literature S.)

by Evelyn Waugh

"Evelyn Waugh was one of literature's great curmudgeons and a scathingly funny satirist. Scoop is a comedy of England's newspaper business of the 1930s and the story of William Boot, a innocent hick from the country who writes careful essays about the habits of the badger. Through a series of accidents and mistaken identity, Boot is hired as a war correspondent for a Fleet Street newspaper. The uncomprehending Boot is sent to the fictional African country of Ishmaelia to cover an expected revolution. Although he has no idea what he is doing and he can't understand the incomprehensible telegrams from his London editors, Boot eventually gets the big story."--Amazon.com.

• ISBN10: 0316926175
• ISBN13: 9780316926171
• Publish Date: 1 January 1977 (first published December 1964)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 9 November 2015
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Little Brown and Company
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 321
• Language: English

Reviews

[brokentune]

Review was first posted on BookLikes:
http://brokentune.booklikes.com/post/832451/scoop


For nearly two weeks now, the bent and creased copy of Scoop sitting on my desk has been staring at me. Patiently. Waiting whether I was going to write a review or not.

On finishing the book I had exactly two feelings about it:

1. As far as satire of the press goes, Waugh created the most delicious and entertaining spoof I could have imagined. However,

2. This book contained so many openly racist and chauvinist remarks that even Fleming's Live and Let Die (which I had finished just before Scoop) looks like an enlightened and unbiased work promoting intercultural understanding.

For the best part of the last two weeks, I have looked at my old copy of Scoop and wondered whether to chuck it onto the charity shop pile or straight into the bin. It's not a book I would recommend unreservedly. Even looking at Waugh as a representative of a time when sentiments of racial or cultural stereotyping were common and widely accepted, I wonder whether there was a need for it in Scoop because this was not a part of the book that was satirical. Or, if it was, this did not come across well.

So, while I am glad that I have read Scoop, I expected more. Much more.