"Scoop" by Evelyn Waugh

What happens when the nature writer for a London newspaper is mistakenly sent to Africa as a foreign correspondent in the place of a fashionable novelist who shares his name? Scoop, by Evelyn Waugh, follows William Boot, who is torn from his quiet life on his family’s country estate to the fictional nation of Ishmaelia, where civil war threatens to break out. He meets other journalists, all anxiously crawling for news to wire back to their editors. In the mean time, they buy each other drinks as a comradely gesture (and charge them to the newspaper’s expenses).

Boot eventually gets the “scoop” the other more experienced journalists are scrambling for, and he goes back to London a hero and reluctant celebrity. Of course, the case of mistaken identity that sets the novel in motion cannot be ignored, and the newspaper’s editor must face the inconvenience of the two Boots, and avoid the wrath of newspaper magnate Lord Copper in the process.

There is much to enjoy when reading this novel. As a master of satire, Waugh’s biggest theme is the absurdity of human nature. Most of the novel’s humor comes from its very human characters. The newspaper’s editor is so afraid of his superior, that instead of answering questions with “yes” or “no,” he says, “Definitely, Lord Copper” and “Up to a point, Lord Copper.” There is humor in the names of the newspapers, like the appropriately named the Daily Beast and the Daily Brute. There is also pleasure in watching the hapless protagonist be dragged to another continent with little say in the matter. But because this novel is ultimately comedic, the characters end happily, no matter how much they sweat and worry between its covers.

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Reviewed by David.