The Books: “Scoop” (Evelyn Waugh)

51CQT25SBDL.jpgDaily Book Excerpt: Adult fiction:

Scoop, by Evelyn Waugh

I read this book because of Christopher Hitchens’ review of it, I think in The Atlantic. Hitchens’ review made me laugh out loud, so I immediately went out and bought a copy and read the book last year. To say this is a funny book is to completely under-state the situation. It is so funny that I found myself on the bus one night, reading it, and my face was literally frozen in a comedy mask of laughter for the entire ride, tears streaming down my face. It was unbearably funny. It’s hard to describe why something is funny – and humor, of course, is a subjective thing. What’s funny to me may be just “silly” to someone else. To me, Scoop is in the top 5 funniest books I have ever read in my life. Some books are amusing, they have a light and hilarious tone, that puts you into an easygoing comedic mood. But Scoop is beyond that. I GUFFAWED reading this book. I had to put it down occasionally, because I just needed a break from the laughter. I couldn’t breathe. I probably scared my neighbors. “Why is she whooping and guffawing all by herself over there?” It’s not always comfortable to have your face literally FROZEN into a Greek comedy mask!! It makes you look like a lunatic!

Scoop is the best lampoon of journalism (especially foreign correspondents) I have ever read. It is 100% absurd, from beginning to end, but at the same time (and this is Waugh’s genius), all you can do is see how right ON his observations are … how true the whole thing is, and that he seems to be only exaggerating a little bit. It is not a book for idealists. It is a book for those of us who look around, see craziness, and wonder if we are all alone. Does anyone else see how INSANE this all is?? There’s a sort of Wag the Dog thing going on here – Scoop reminded me quite a bit of that film, only it took as its target journalism. But you get into the realm in Scoop where “truth” is the LAST thing anyone cares about. If it’s in print, it’s true. And so the foreign correspondents race around trying to beat each other to the punch – but it’s all bogus anyway, and what on earth is the point?

The best part about this book is its protagonist. Scoop flat out would not work if the lead character was fully ensconced in that kind of journalism, and knew the rules, and accepted them. No. We need the outsider. We need the baffled “nature writer” who has never been outside of England to suddenly find himself in a foreign country in the middle of a civil war, surrounded by INSANE foreign correspondents … in order for the book to work. He’s sort of like Paul Pennyfeather, in Waugh’s Decline and Fall, a guy who doesn’t have a lot of ego, he’s not running around trying to prove himself, or defend himself … He just quietly negotiates the insane world he is in, and tries to behave like everyone else does. But because he doesn’t understand the WHYS of all of the rules, he just mindlessly imitates what he sees … and so the misunderstandings that come about because of that are hilarious.

William Boot lives with his family on a rambling old estate called Boot Magna. He rarely leaves. He is not married. He writes occasional pieces about otters and flowers and such for London papers. And through a grave misunderstanding – there’s another Boot afoot in London journalism, a young glittering up-and-coming star … William Boot is assigned to go cover the civil war in Ishmaelia, a fictional country in Africa. So just imagine the mix-up (which is never ever discovered): William Boot sits at his moldy desk in the country, painstakingly writing about how the flowers are coming out in the country, and how the birds are flying south. And suddenly, with no explanation, it is demanded of him by his newspaper that he drop everything and go to get the “scoop” on what is happening in Ishmaelia, a place he has never even heard of. It would be like someone who writes about fashion suddenly having to go to Chechnya and figure out what’s happening. William Boot never questions the assignment. He doesn’t say, ‘Are you sure it’s me you want? Could there be another Boot running around that you are thinking of??” He just starts to prepare for his trip.

Hijinx ensue at every stage of the way. He packs enough stuff that he needs to have servants trailing behind him. He doesn’t know how to file a dispatch. You have to pay by the word – but he doesn’t know that, and sends NOVELS of words back to the main office … none of which have anythign to do with NEWS. Scoop is a deeply cynical book.

William Boot has NO IDEA what he is doing. He is tossed into the thick of the world of foreign journalists, hanging around aimlessly in this godforsaken African country, waiting for something to happen. Boot meets a couple of people who realize very quickly, wow, this guy has no idea what he is doing – and show him the ropes. But of course it’s a very competitive atmosphere – everyone waiting for THE scoop that will put THEIR paper on top, make their paper be the first to report such and such. William Boot has no ambition. He doesn’t care about any of that. He misses his home. He misses the creek in his yard and his flower garden. And yet, through various coincidences and misunderstandings, William Boot ends up getting the scoop to end all scoops. But he doesn’t even realize it.

Scenes upon scenes of correspondents racing about Ishmaelia, in a long lunatic caravan, trying to beat each other to the story. But the best thing is: the entire thing, you can tell, is pretty much being invented by the journalists. It’s wag the dog. What is really happening in Ishmaelia? Well, by the end of reading Scoop, you know that that is the most irrelevant question of all.

The characters are awesome. There’s one renegade journalist, a star, who doesn’t run with the pack. He gets amazing scoops and no one quite knows how he does it. William Boot does not understand the rules – and he NEVER understands the rules. He continues to send back novel-length dispatches – which all basically say, “Nothing happening here!” which, of course, is not what his paper wants to hear. If nothing is happening in Ishmaelia, then why are we paying for you to be there? Something BETTER happen in Ishmaelia. But William Boot is a true innocent. Guileless. He has no scheming or wheeling or dealing in him. He just follows events. He reports on things he does not understand. He interviews people and writes what they say – but you can tell – by both his questions and the answers – that William Boot has no idea what is going on. He has ZERO context.

To imagine his hardened Fleet Street editors reading those ridiculous reports back in London … to picture all of them looking at each other like, “Huh?” is one of the funniest images in the book. ESPECIALLY because they all still think that William Boot is the OTHER Boot, the genius journalist Boot – so they are predisposed to give him the benefit of the doubt, and to think to themselves, “Well, maybe this is just how he works … maybe we need to just hang back and let him do his thing … everyone says he is the best in the business …” So everyone is basically in a torment of confusion and misunderstanding.

Even just writing about the book makes it sound less funny. All I can say is; for one of the most insightful cynical relevant angry hilarious books about journalism ever. I laughed from beginning to end.

There’s one chapter which describes a Communist Revolution that occurs in Ishmaelia – but it only lasts for one night. That chapter was like a Benny Hill episode.

Here’s an excerpt from the first part of the book – William Boot finds himself in a whirlwind. He is a simple country farmer, and suddenly he has to go report on a war. He has to go request Visas from two separate embassies (one of the recognized government of Ishmaelia, and one of the revolutionary government). William Boot has never even heard of Ishmaelia. He doesn’t even care, frankly. He’s not openly bitter or skeptical – but he honestly has no curiousity about African wars or any other wars. He doesnt’ understand why he has been chosen, a man who writes about his own flower garden, to sail off to Africa and report on a war, but he moves ahead with the plans. This is smart smart humor. Waugh has a slam-dunk ending to each of these chapters. It’s the “ba-dum-ching” of all great comedy. There is no escape from his absurdist worldview. So don’t even try.

Please notice the blunt incomprehension of all of William Boot’s replies.


EXCERPT FROM Scoop, by Evelyn Waugh

2.

William then noticed, for the first time, that a little flag was flying from the area railings. It bore a red hammer and sickle on a black ground. He descended to the basement where, over a door between two dustbins, a notice proclaimed: —

REPUBLIC OF ISHMAELIA
LEGATION AND CONSULATE-GENERAL
If away leave letters with tobacconist at No. 162b

William knocked and the door was opened by the Negro whom he had seen the evening before in Hyde Park. The features, to William’s undiscriminating eye, were not much different from those of any other Negro, but the clothes were unfrogettable.

‘Can I see the Ishmaelite Consul-General, please?”

“Are you from the Press?”

“Yes, I suppose in a way I am.”

“Come in. I’m him. As you see, we are a little understaffed at the moment.”

The Consul_general led him into what had once been the servants’ hall. Photographs of Negroes in uniform and ceremonial European dress hung on the walls. Samples of tropical produce were disposed on the table and along the bookshelves. There was a map of Ishmaelia, an eight-piece office suite and a radio. William sat down. The Consul-General turned off the music and began to talk.

“The patriotic cause of Ishmaelia,” he said, “is the cause of the coloured man and of the proletariat throughout the world. The Ishmaelite worker is threatened by corrupt and foreign coalition of capitalistic exploiters, priests and imperialists. As the great negro Karl Marx has so nobly written …” He talked for about twenty minutes. The black-backed, pink-palmed, finlike hands beneath the violet cuffs flapped and slapped. “Who built the Pyramids?” he asked. “Who invented the circulation of the blood? … Africa for the African worker, Europe for the African worker, Asia, Oceania, America, Arctic and Antarctic for the African worker.”

At length he paused and wiped the line of froth from his lips.

“I came about a visa,” said William diffidently.

“Oh,” said the Consul-General, turning on the radio once more. “There’s fifty pounds deposit and a form to fill in.”

William declared that he had not been imprisoned, that he was not suffering from any contagious or outrageous disease, that he was not seeking employment in Ishmaelia or the overthrow of its political institutions, paid his deposit and was rewarded with a rubber stamp on the first page of his new passport.

“I hope you have a pleasant trip,” said the Consul-General. “I’m told it’s a very interesting country.”

“But aren’t you an Ishmaelite?”

Me? Certainly not. I’m a graduate of the Baptist College of Antigua. But the cause of the Ishmaelite worker is the cause of the Negro worker of the world.”

“Yes,” said William. “Yes. I suppose it is. Thank you very much.”

“Who discovered America?” demanded the Consul-General to his retreating back, in tones that rang high above the sound of the wireless concert. “Who won the Great War?”

3.

The rival legation had more spacious quarters, in a hotel in South Kensington. A gold swastika on a white ground hung proudly from the window. The door of the suite was opened by a Negro clad in a white silk shirt, buckskin breeches and hunting boots, who clicked his spurs and gave William a Roman salute.

“I’ve come for a visa.”

The pseudo-consul led him to the office. “I shall have to delay you for a few minutes. You see the Legation is only just open and we have not yet got our full equipment. We are expecting the rubber stamp any minute now. In the meantime let me explain the Ishmaelite situation to you. There are many misconceptions. For instance, the Jews of Geneva, subsidized by Russian gold, have spread the story that we are a black race. Such is the ignorance, credulity and prejudice of the tainted European states that the absurd story has been repeated in the press. I must ask you to deny it. As you will see for yourself, we are pure Aryans. In fact we were the first white colonizers of Central Africa. What Stanley and Livingstone did in the last century, our Ishmaelite ancestors did in the stone age. In the course of the years the tropical sun has given to some of us a healthy, in some cases almost a swarthy, tan. But all responsible anthropologists …”

William fingered his passport and became anxious about luncheon. It was already past one.

” … The present so-called Government bent on the destruction of our great heritage …” There was an interruption. The pseudo-consul went to the door. “From the stationer’s,” said a cockney voice. “Four and eight to pay.”

“Thank you, that is all.”

“Four and eight to pay or else I takes it away again.”

There was a pause. The pseudo-consul returned.

“There is a fee of five shillings for the visa,” he said.

William paid. The pseudo-consul returned with the rubber stamp, jingling four pennies in his breeches pocket.

“You will see the monuments of our glorious past in Ishmaelia,” he said, taking the passport. “I envy you very much.”

“But are you not an Ishmaelite?”

“Of course; by descent. My parents migrated some generations ago. I was brought up in Sierra Leone.”

Then he opened the passport.

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10 Responses to The Books: “Scoop” (Evelyn Waugh)

  1. Ted says:

    I so have to read this book….later. Happy Jefferson & Adams – it’s the perfect ending. Happy 4th!

  2. red says:

    Ted – I love your “….. later” Ha! Yes, with a To Be Read list of books a mile long, I totally understand that!

    Happy 4th!

  3. tracey says:

    /It’s not always comfortable to have your face literally FROZEN into a Greek comedy mask!!/

    No. No, it’s not. Hahahahahaha.

  4. Bernard says:

    Can’t remember the details, but didn’t Waugh actually go on such an escapade himself? I seem to remember he managed to get some big scoop (Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia?) and, fearful of journalistic espionage, sent out the dispatch coded in Latin. His editors of course thought it was just so much gibberish and relegated the big story to the circular file.

  5. Bernard says:

    As the great negro Karl Marx has nobly written…

    Hahaha

  6. red says:

    Bernard – I love that story about Waugh’s scoop! I really don’t know anything about the man – I should read a biography. I love his stuff so much!

  7. The Books: “Winner Of The National Book Award: A Novel of Fame, Honor, and Really Bad Weather” (Jincy Willett)

    Next book on my adult fiction bookshelf for the Daily Book Excerpt: Winner of the National Book Award: A Novel of Fame, Honor, and Really Bad Weather, by Jincy Willett I am so glad I discovered this book. And Jincy…

  8. The new Brideshead and the whole Waugh thing in general

    Really interesting article about the so-far-unsuccessful attempts to bring Evelyn Waugh’s various books to the screen (big and small). I remember the Brideshead miniseries – anyone who was alive at that time HAD to be aware of it – it…

  9. Waugh’s scoop was about the oil concessions in Ethiopia. I re-read Waugh all the time; diaries, novels, letters. Can anyone give me the name of a contemporary writer who comes anywhere near his genius? I would seriously like to know. I suppose political correctness makes his sort of writing impossible now.

  10. Neil M U Phelps says:

    A true masterpiece – try it and see!

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