Scoop

Last week I went on an Amazon shopping binge and bought lots of books Chris Blattman has recommended on his blog over the past year.  I just finished one of them, Scoop, by Evelyn Waugh.  (Blattman’s comments here.)

Hilarious.   I was that person on the airplane who keeps laughing out loud while watching a movie with headphones, except I was reading.

Scoop is a satire of foreign reporting.  It tells the story of William Boot, a nature correspondent for a British paper called the Beast.  He’s mistaken for a nationally-known writer with the same last name, and sent to Ishmaelia, an African country in the midst of civil war.

Most of the book takes place in a hotel in Jacksonville where all of the foreign correspondents are staying–and quite rightly, as rarely do they leave the hotel.  They file mostly made-up news, which gets exaggerated further by British editors.

Here’s a quote from an editor briefing Boot before he departs for Ishmaelia:

I never hamper my correspondents in any way.  What the British public wants first, last, and all the time is News.  Remember that the Patriots are in the right and are going to win.  The Beast stands by them four-square.  But they must win quickly.  The British public has no interest in a war which drags on decisively.  A few sharp victories, some conspicuous acts of personal bravery on the Patriot side, and a colorful entry into the capital.  That is the Beast Policy for the war.

And here’s a scene where Boot selects items to bring with him to Ishmaelia.  Clearly he could have made some great contributions to the blog posts that popped up a few months ago about must-bring items for Africa trips.

William, hesitating between polo sticks and hockey sticks, chose six of each; they were removed to the workshop…William had acquired a well, perhaps rather overfurnished tent, three months’ rations, a collapsible canoe, a jointed flagstaff and Union Jack, a hand-pump and sterilizing plant, an astrolabe, six suits of tropical linen and a sou’wester, a camp operating table and set of surgical isntruments, a portable humidor, guaranteed to preserve cigars in condition in the Red Sea, and a Christmas hamper complete with Santa Claus costume and tripod mistletoe stand, and a cane for wacking snakes.