CHAPTER - 3

A SCINTILLATING SCOOP

Abyssinia (Ethiopia) was once again in the news in the

summer of 1935, though the scenario this time was vastly

different. There was the threat of an imminent invasion of the

country by Italy looming large at this juncture. The Italians,

who had set up some kind of hegemony over Abyssinia during the

latter half of the nineteenth century, had been compelled after

a decisive battle in 1895 to recognize its independence. They,

however, did not appear to have reconciled themselves to

Ethiopia's independence, as Emperor Haile Selassie continued to

face Italian threats right from the time of his coronation in

1930. Mussolini, the Italian dictator, having consolidated his position at home by 1934, decided to launch offensives abroad, and Ethiopia was to become the first casualty of this power- hungry imperialist. In early 1935 it became quite obvious that a full-scale invasion of the country was imminent.

Fleet Street, the nerve-centre of the British Press, got busy straightway and “saw, heard and spoke no other subject"

(MGG 247). People started cashing in on their African experience, however insubstantial it might have been. Most of them made a bee-line for Ethiopia, as representatives of this paper or that, to cover the ensuing war. Evelyn Waugh, too, decided to help himself of this opportunity. After all, unlike many others, he had actually been to Ethiopia earlier and had also written a book

{Remote People) about his travel experiences in that country.

56 However, his "unfashionable political attitude and complete

inexperience in war reporting"* made it somewhat difficult for

him to get an assignment as a war correspondent. This

"unfashionable political attitude,” referred to Waugh's extreme views on the question of the impending Italian action in

Ethiopia. He had fully justified the action and, in fact, had

been quite critical of "Britain's failure to support Italy over

Abyssinia."^ A.D. Peters, Waugh's astute literary agent, proved quite resourceful, though, and managed to get an assignment for him as a correspondent for the Daily Mail, "one of the few newspapers in Britain sympathetic to the Fascist cause" (Diaries

391). Waugh's pro-Fascist stance suited the paper quite well.

Waugh left for Ethiopia in August 1935, and covered the opening stages of the war. He returned to England in January

1936. On his way back home he interviewed Mussolini in Rome. He paid a return visit to Ethiopia in the summer of 1936. The purpose of this visit was to up-date the travel book Waxtgh in

Abyssinia, based on his latest experiences in Ethiopia, which he was engaged in writing then. He was back home in September 1936.

Waugh does not seem to have taken this assignment of his as a war correspondent to Ethiopia seriously. Sykes is of the view that though Waugh was a good journalist, he was "not a successful war correspondent in 1935" (Sykes 219). His performance, Sykes

^Martin Stannard, Eu&lyn WaxLgh ; Th& Early Years (London J.H. Dent, 1986) 397.

^Stannard 396.

57 thinks, was far better when he later covered the war in Europe.

Also, possibly, this trip to Ethiopia was not as enjoying as the

first one had been in 1930. In a letter to Laura Herbert, his

wife-to-be, whon he married in 1937, he wrote from Addis Ababa,

the capital of Ethiopia, that he was "universally regarded as an

Italian spy... ny name is mud all round— with the British

Legation because of a novel I wrote... with the Ethiopians

because of the [ Daily ] Mail's policy, with the other

journalists because I am not really a journalist " (Sykes 220).

The novel referred to is, of course, Bloch. Mischief, which had

greatly antagonized the local British population, as mentioned

already in Chapter-1 [See page 26]. The Daily Mail's policy

referred to its pro-Fascist stance.

The war itself took a long time to start, though at

one stage it had seemed imminent. War correspondents, nevertheless, kept on filing their reports, most of which were

simply cooked-up yarns. Waugh preferred to keep a low profile which greatly exasperated his paper as it was not getting

anything to match the reports being published by other papers.

However, some time later, he chanced to seize upon an item which could have proved a real scoop. He composed the message in Latin so that it could not be 'sold' to other correspondents by the

Post Office officials. The sub-editor in London, who received the message, did not know Latin and thought that it was some kind of a joke. Consequently, what might have been an exclusive news item for the Daily Mail was published much later when it had become

"common property" (Sykes 222).

58 The failure on this front, however, was to be made up on another. His experiences as a war correspondent, the vagaries of war-reportings, and the journalistic world itself, supplied hin with such a wealth of material which, as he put it in another letter to Laura Herbert, would "make a funny novel" (Sykes

224). The novel did materialize eventually and was entitled, so very appropriately, Scoop. It was published in 1938. Waugh also recorded his experiences and adventures in Ethiopia in a travel book entitled Waugh in Abyssinia, published earlier in 1936.

These two books, thus, were the real gains of Waugh's second visit to Ethiopia.

Ethiopia, it appeared, greatly excited the artist in

Waugh. There was something in that country's air which strangely aroused his literary sensibilities. It must be a rare instance in the history of British fiction that a novelist's visits to a country resulted in the writing of two travel books and two novels, as happened in the case of Evelyn Waugh's two visits to

Ethiopia, in 1930 and 1935. Like Black Mischi&f, Scoop is also a direct off-shoot of Waugh's travel experiences in Ethiopia— experiences mainly as a war correspondent. It was quite natural for a keen observer like Waugh, who also possessed a fine sense of the comic, to visualize the immense possibility of exploiting the vagaries of journalism. As noted earlier, his mind had already started working on such a possibility when he wrote to his future wife that he had collected enough material to "make a funny novel". The manner in which the whole exercise of reporting a war was being conducted, could not escape Waugh's exuberant sense of satire. Here again, thus, was an encounter, this time

59 with the topsy-turvy world of modern- day oournalisn, which could be deftly transformed into a metaphor that stood for the very topsy-turvy nature of human affairs.

The story of Scoop goes like this : John Boot, a novelist, finding himself in some trouble over a girlfriend, approaches Mrs Julia Stitch, the wife of a cabinet minister and the driving-force behind London's social circle, to help him get away. Mrs Stitch prevails upon Lord Copper, press magnate and owner of the Daily B&ast, to send Boot as a war correspondent to

Ishmaelia, where a civil war seems imminent. Owing to some confusion, instead of John Boot, one William Boot, who writes a bi-weekly half-column on Nature entitled "Lush Places" for the

Daily B&ast , is despatched to Ishmaelia where he finds himself amongst a swarm of other war correspondents. The situation is somewhat fluid at Jacksonburg, the capital of Ishmaelia, and there is a lot of uncertainty in the air with all kinds of rumours afloat. Dr Benito, the Director of the Press Bureau of

Ishmaelia. is also not very helpful to the correspondents. It is then given out that fighting has started at a place called Laku.

All the correspondents, except William, make a hurried departure for Laku which later turns out to be a non-existent place. It is all a ruse to make the correspondents leave Jacksonburg which is in the throes of a coup. Meanwhile. William has found a new interest— a German woman named Katchen, whose husband has gone out on some business. She makes William buy some stones collected by her husband. These stones later prove to be gold ores. It is through Katchen that William unknowingly chances upon a scoop about the President of Ishmaelia being imprisoned in his palace

60 by a junta headed by none else than Dr Benito. William's despatch hits the headlines in London which, in turn, turns the table on the junta. One Mr Baldwin, an English businessman whom William had met on his way to Ishnaelia. takes control of the situation and helps in reinstating the President. This he does in return for huge gold concessions for his principals. William. on his return to London, is recommended for a knighthood, but it is John

Boot the novelist who gets it now. Lord Copper holds a banquet in William's honour. William declines the invitation but his uncle, posing as William Boot, attends it; Lord Copper being none the wiser.

It is quite obvious from a study of Waugh's travel book

Waugh in Abyssinia and the diary entries pertaining to the period when Waugh was in Ethiopia as a war correspondent.that Scoop not only owes its origin to Waugh's experiences there but the degree of its dependence on these experiences is also quite heavy. The imaginary country in the novel that corresponds with Ethiopia is

Ishmaelia this time. The situation in Ishmaelia, as we find it described in the novel, is not very different from the one that existed in Ethiopia in 1935. The only difference is that whereas

Ethiopia faced foreign aggression, Ishmaelia is being threatened by a civil war. We have the same concourse of war correspondents converging on the capital, Jacksonburg. There is the same uncertainty about the start of the war and the same mystery shrouding the war preparations. The journey details of both Waugh and William Boot from London to their respective destinations are also identical. They have the same kind of passengers, too. The arrangements that William makes before leaving for Ishmaelia and

61 the purchases made by him are also more or less the same as

Waugh's own before he started for Ethiopia. Waugh did not know

anything about being a war correspondent. Neither does William

Boot .

Waugh, actually, seems to have borrowed from a couple

of other sources too, apart from his own experiences, while

providing some of the details about William Boot's experiences

and his assignment. William's being sent to Ishmaelia, for

example, was an instance of mistaken identity. It is worth noting

that in his diary Waugh has narrated an amusing incident

involving a case of mistaken identity in which one John Pennell,

/ assumed to be one Joseph Pennell, was sent a letter of thanks

from the Royalty ^Diaries 176-77). It is also pointed out that

the enormity of the kit items that William Boot carried along

with him to Ishmaelia was parodied by Waugh from the kit brought

to Ethiopia by one of his fellow correspondents.^ Yet another of

his fellow correspondents, namely, Patrick Balfour (later Lord

Kinross), also appears to have contributed a lot. Balfour, a

friend of Waugh, has described how he had been "misguidedly sent

as a correspondent" to Ethiopia and had mostly been "in the wrong

place at the wrong time...,"* often exasperating his editors in

London by not sending them any newsworthy items. (Waugh, too, as

noted earlier, had also irritated his paper in the same manner:

actually, most of the time both Waugh and Balfour moved together

^ Stannard 406. * Patrick Balfour (Lord Kinross), "The Years with Kinross," PxiTxch, 23 Aug. 1961 : 283.

62 in Ethiopia).'^ Willian Boot also has to face the wrath of his

enployers for the same offence. While other correspondents are sending cooked-up accounts of the disturbances in Ishuaelia, and nake a dash to Laku in the hope of sone action, William takes things coolly, the way Waugh and Balfour did, enjoying himself in the company of his German girlfriend. In fact, the London office

is so much annoyed by William’s failure to supply them any worthwhile news that his contract is terminated at one stage (S.

146). Waugh also received his dismissal order when, like many other papers, his paper also felt that it "had spent large sums of money on Abyssinian war and were getting very little in return" (WGG 297). William's amateurishness as a war correspondent, as mentioned earlier, matches that of Waugh

himself, and just as Waugh got his scoop' unknowingly and by chance, so does William get his exclusive story that turned him into a hero overnight. Balfour, presumably, also inspired the sketch of another correspondent in the novel, namely, Corker. The manner in which Waugh and Balfour moved together in Addis Ababa and elsewhere in Ethiopia, in the same way William and Corker, too, move together in Jacksonburg. Balfour had preceded Waugh to

Ethiopia; Corker also precedes William to Ishmaelia. Lastly,

Corker initiates William into the subtle nuances of war reportage in the same way as Balfour had initiated Waugh.

Apart from the close resemblance that we find between the Ethiopia of 1935 and Ishmaelia in Scoop, there are many other areas which show Waugh making use of his experiences in the

^ Balfour : 283.

63 novel. Hotel Liberty, Jacksonburg's chief hotel, for instance, is similar to Kakophilos's. a hotel in Addis Ababa, and Mrs Earl

Russell Jackson, the proprietress of the former, is as inhospitable and irritable as was Mr Kakophilos. The hotel is described as crowded with correspondents of all shades. William, who is already sharing a room with another correspondent, finds two photographers forcing themselves on them (S. 107). Waugh had also found Kakophilos's "completely full with journalists and photographers living in hideous proximity, two or three to a room. . ." (KiiG. 253).

Waugh himself had stayed at another hotel, the

Deutsches Haus, later known as Pensione Germanica, "the headquarters of most of the press during the early stages of war”

(Diaries 400 n.). This place served as a model for the Pension

Dressier, the hotel to which William shifts after finding things overcrowded at Hotel Liberty. The proprietress of Deutsches Haus is one Mrs Heft, a German "who had drifted to Abyssinia from

Tanganyika when it was confiscated by the British Government after the war" (WGG 255). Frau Dressier, the proprietress of

Pension Dressier in Scoop, is also a German who "had drifted here from Tanganyika after the war" (S 110). Mrs Heft, "a housewife of formidable efficiency" (WGG 255), is described bargaining with native hawkers throughout the morning over the prices of meat, eggs and vegetables, buying only "when it was time to start cooking luncheon" (WGG 255). Frau Dressier, "a large... woman of unbounded energy," (S. Ill) is also shown going through a similar routine every morning (S. 111). Both women store everything of value under their beds (ttiiG, 256; S. 110). There is a pig roaming

64 the yard of both the hotels and while Mrs Heft had "two geese

loose in the yard who attacked all coners" (WGG 255), Frau

Dressier has a gander, and a inilch-goat which "essayed a series

of meteoric onslaughts on the passers- by" (S. 109). And, finally,

both the places serve as rendezvous for the local German

population

The meetings of the Foreign Press Association, both in

the novel and the travel book, appear so very similar— chaotic

and disorderly, marked by repeated interruptions (iifiii 275; S.

117-118). The main objective of these meetings was to protest

against the authorities for not extending full cooperation to

the correspondents. They "protested unanimously and in the most

emphatic manner" (WGG 275), as Waugh noted in the travel book.

The minutes of the Association's last meeting, as read out in the novel, include the words resolution ... unanimously passed... protests in the most emphatic manner... " (2^ 117). The physical appearance of Doctor Lorenzo, Director of the Press

Bureau in Addis Ababa, and that of Doctor Benito, Doctor

Lorenzo's counterpart in the novel, is almost similar. There is a mention of spies being engaged by correspondents in both the books, most of whom double-cross their employers. The trip that

the correspondents make to Dessye, as described in the travel book, has a whiff of the one undertaken by their counterparts to

the non-existent Laku in the novel. They are shown undergoing, more or less, the same ordeal in the course of their .journey.

Some other details common to both the novel and Waugh's experiences, as recounted in the travel book H^avigh in Abyssinia.

65 include the mention of gutted sites which were the results of an epidemic of arson so as to claim insurance benefits, Goan tailors, trade being concentrated in alien hands, Armenian bootmakers, and a Swedish doctor. The Swedish doctor, who does not get as exhaustive a treatment in the travel book as he gets in the novel, is in all probability, modelled after an American doctor belonging to the Ethiopian Red Cross. The American doctor's physical robustness and concern for the local people's welfare parallel those of the Swedish doctor in the novel who plays a crucial part in exposing the conspirators. Then there is the mysterious Mr Baldwin who plays a very significant role in the concluding part of the book. It is certain that in delineating Baldwin's character, Waugh was inspired by his impressions of one Mr F.W. Rickett, whom he has so vividly described in the travel book. Rickett was "the English negotiator for certain American oil interests for a large concession for mineral mine-working in Abyssinia” (Sykes 221 n.). Both Baldwin and Rickett are invested with some mystery right from the beginning. The name 'Baldwin' is also quite suggestive in that the then British Prime Minister also had the same name. and in

Scoop Mr Baldwin is very much a part of the international power-game being played in Ishmaelia. Mention is also made in both the books of the setting in of the rainy season, the game of ping-pong being played, and the presence of a film company for location shooting in the novel (S. 83) and that of an American news-reel concern in the travel book (WGG 250-51). There is a flood of frantic cables from London asking for comprehensive and colourful stuff about the war (lifiifi. 257; S. 106) and most of the

6 8 telegrams for the correspondents are described as being

distributed in the nost casual and careless nanner (WGG 257 ;

S. 96).

A few other details, not directly related to Waugh's

experiences in Ethiopia but which have some bearing on his

personal impressions, also find their way into the novel. There

is, for instance, a close resemblance between Mrs Julia Stitch

^ and Lady Diana Cooper, Waugh's close friend at that time. Lady

Diana was eleven years older than Waugh and he had formed a

passionate friendship with her — "an intense amitie amoureuse.

Waugh has recorded in his diary that the opening passage of the

novel, which shows Mrs Stitch busy at her morning schedule —

telephoning, dictating letters, giving instructions to the

household staff— described Diana Cooper's early morning (Diaries

409). Waugh consulted her about Mrs Stitch's final action in the

book, asking her opinion about it and whether any changes were to

be made. She fully approved of what he had written, saying "'But

Evelyn, it is exactly what I would have done .. The portrait

of Algernon Stitch, Mrs Stitch's husband, resembles Lady Diana's

husband, Alfred Duff Cooper, who was also, like Mr Stitch, a

cabinet minister.

Lord Copper, the owner of the newspaper Th.e B&ast which

sends William Boot to Ishmaelia, is a faintly disguised

caricature of Lord Beaverbrook (1879-1964), who controlled a

** Jan Dailey, 'Evelyn Waugh's Letters," Times Lit&rary Suppl&ment 3-9 Nov. 1989 : 1212.

^ Qtd. in Jacqueline McDonnell, E-o&lyn Waxtgh (London ; Macmillan, 1988) 159.

67 chain of newspapers. Sykes, however, feels that "Copper's

megalonania bordering on insanity is more reniniscent of Lord

Northcliffe [1865-1922] than any other press-baron" (Sykes 247).

Christopher Hollis, another friend of Waugh, has stated that the

expression "up to a point" was “'pilfered for the employees of

Lord Copper in Scoop'" (Diaries 628 n.) by Evelyn Waugh fron two

eccentric retired majors who were in the habit of using this

expression whenever they did not agree on any point. The sketch

of the legendary war correspondent. Sir Jocelyn Hitchcock, is

presumably based on Sir Percival Phillips, "the ubiquitous

foreign correspondent" (Diaries 332 n.) who had covered the

Spanish-American War of 1898 and the revolution of China in 1927.

Waugh had met him during his first visit to Ethiopia in 1930 and

again in 1935. He had found Sir Percival "writing up the war from

the safety of his hotel bedroom with the assistance of a large

scale map and flags on pins."® Hitchcock is described doing

exactly the same thing in the novel (S 82, 102). Incidentally,

there was a scoop sent by Sir Percival Phillips from Addis Ababa

in 1935. It involved, what later came to be known as, the Rickett

Concession, and it “'was not only the war's biggest scoop, but one of the greatest in modern journalism'" (CH. 202). The portrait of yet another correspondent in the novel, that of Wenlock Jakes,

is supposedly based on one H.R. Knickerbocker.

So far as the character-delineation of Katchen, the

German girlfriend of William Boot, is concerned, it is suggested

® Stannard 414.

^ Stannard 474.

68 that "several prototypes fron real life — especially Waugh's

first wife...— may have contributed distinctive features...'**^

Jeffrey Heath, a well-known Waugh critic who is reported seeing

"something of Teresa Jungman... [in Katchen] also postulates

another original... — the attractive blonde wife of a German agent

in Abyssinia."** It is also suggested that Ibsen's Nora Helmer (A

Doll’s House) may also have been in Waugh's mind as each heroine

"confronts a similar problem and seeks an almost identical

solution.I . . ..12

Scoop, we find thus, is one of those travel-inspired

novels of Waugh in which the degree of dependence on his travel

experiences and other personal impressions is on the heavier

side. The novel certainly gives evidence of Waugh making a much

more extensive use of these experiences than he has done in his

earlier novels. However, as has been the case with his other

travel-inspired novels, Waugh has exploited his experiences only

to the extent that they serve as a broad frame-work for the story

he had in mind. The Jacksons of Ishmaelia, for example, are / purely imaginary and bear no resemblance to either Emperor Haile

Selassie or his family. As Eric Newby observes," one would have

to travel to the other side of the continent to find anything

remotely similar."*^ Waugh has given Scoop the subtitle "A Novel

about Journalists," and journalists and their maddening

Frederick L. Beaty, "Echoes of A Doll’s Hoxise in Waugh's Scoop," Evelyn Waxigh N&wsl&tter 21.3 ( 1987) ; 2.

** Beaty : 2.

Beaty : 1. "Lush Places, " Ev&lyn Wau^h and His World, ed . David Pryce-Jones (London : Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1973) 92.

69 world are indeed the butt of the satire. Though Waugh has himself admitted in his preface to the 1964 edition of Scoop that the

"geographical position of Ishmaelia, though not its political constitution, is identical with that of Abyssinia and the description of life among the journalists in Jacksonburg is very close to Addis Ababa in 1935,"** the book. by no stretch of interpretation, can be called anything except a work of pure fiction. Like many others of Waugh's novels. Scoop also is a compound mixture of fantasy, satire, and realism. Describing the novel as "a light satire on modern journalism,' Waugh, in a

Memorandum' about a film scenario of the novel, has added that the main theme of the novel “'is to expose the pretensions of foreign correspondents, popularised in countless novels, plays, autobiographies and films, to be heroes, statesmen and diplomats'".*^ And the novel achieves it admirably.

Actually, it can be presumed with a lot of certainty that a novel like Scoop was bound to have come out from Waugh's pen, sooner or later, his experiences as a war correspondent in

Ethiopia notwithstanding. As it had happened in the case of A

Handfxil of Cnist earlier, the writing of which was precipitated by

Waugh's encounter with Mr Christie, the writing of Scoop, too, could be said to have been hastened by Waugh's Ethiopian assignment as a war correspondent. The highly entertaining, almost comic, world of journalism and journalists could not have escaped, as mentioned earlier, Waugh's natural penchant for

Evelyn Waugh, preface. Scoop, Rev. ed. (London : Eyre Methuen, 1964) 9.

Qtd. in McDonnell 77.

70 exploiting such situations to his advantage. His association with

journalism and the journalists' world was such that "he could

write on it with great assurance" (Sykes 247). Some of his

earliest menories had been of book-reviewing. His elder brother,

Alec Waugh, himself a novelist, has recorded*'’ how their father

always came home either with a book for review or one that had

just been published by Chapman and Hall, the publishing firm

whose managing director he was. Both the brothers "were brought

up in an atmosphere not only of books but of professional

writing."*^ Their father used to read out to them reviews and

articles written by him for various papers. Waugh himself "began

his literary career in circumstances not unlike those of his

father at the same age, and occasional journalistic writing was

always a part of that career."*® It is also worth noting that as

a student he had edited a school magazine and later the Lancing

College magazine.

Evelyn Waugh started his journalistic career as a

reviewer for the Observer in the late 1920s. The success of his first two novels. Decline and Fall (1928) and Vile Bodies (1930).

had made him a spokesman of the younger generation. His travel books easily qualified him as a regular reviewer of such books

for the Spectator in the thirties. Most of his trips abroad were

Alec Waugh, hy Brother Ex>elyn and Other Profiles, 2nd ed . (London : Cassell, 1968) 17.

Alec Waugh 17.

David Lodge, "The Fugitive Art of Letters," Evelyn h^avtgh and His World, ed. David Pryce-Jones 184.

71 sponsored by some paper or the other, and he continued to get regular assignnents for writing short articles for various papers. In fact, he can be said to possess quite a flair for journalism. His diary gives plenty of evidence of his ability to write in the so-called 'familiar' style and of his knack for reporting things. He had made good use of these as the editor of the school magazine at Lancing. Fleet Street had also mercifully come to help him out during the time he was roughing it, after IP having been dismissed as a schoolmaster. He found his book- reviewing work most exhilarating. In fact, he did not hesitate to supplement his income by selling review copies of books (Diaries

289). Later, when he had published two novels, the Daily Mail engaged him to do a weekly article. When he went to the paper's office to settle the terms, the Chief Editor asked him about the minimum sum acceptable to him. "I would have been overjoyed with

£ 15," writes Waugh. "I said C 20. He was overjoyed with that"

(Diaries 309). A book like Scoop, thus, as an early reviewer of the book put it, "was... inevitable" (CH. 194). His experiences of the journalistic world during the course of his first trip to

Ethiopia to cover the coronation of Emperor Haile Selassie had already made him alive to the vagaries of reporting. Many correspondents, he had found then, had "invented the details of the ceremony and wired them before the event. The 1935 experience brought the whole thing to a most successful

Stannard 135. Stannard 241.

72 culmination in the forn of Scoop, described as "a hilarious guide

to the adrenaline world of journalisn.

Scoop, indeed, has become some sort of a classic, so

far as the whole gamut of war reporting is concerned. Like Joseph

Heller s Catch-22, which is regarded as a Bible by most men in

uniform, particularly the Air Force personnel, in that it catches

the very ambience of, what can be described as, the illogical

logicality of the strange goings-on in that kind of world, Scoop

also has acquired a similar status for journalists of all shades,

war correspondents in particular. No mention of either the

typical machinations in the world of journalism— the very ethos

of Fleet Street, that is— or of the highly preposterous nature

of war correspondence, is complete without making a reference to

this work of Evelyn Waugh which “as a satire on journalism... 22 remains a pungent and relevant document." It can even be said

that the last word has been said in Scoop about journalists and

journalism. One has only to go through the newspaper reports of

the two of the latest wars that have taken place, namely, the

Gulf War and the Afghan Civil War, to realize how many times a

reference has been made in these reports to Scoop. What is more,

» most of the scenes described in these reports "resembled an

episode straight out of Evelyn Waugh's Scoop.

Gerald Clarke, "Waugh Stories," rev. of E-o&Lyn Wa-ugh. : A Biography, by Christopher Sykes, Time 8 Dec. 1975 : 51.

Stannard 473.

Ranesh Chandran, "Of Amitabh, Lamb Roast and Street Battles: Afghan Diary," S-unday Tim&s of India 3 May 1992 : 9.

73 The tempo is set very early in the novel when Lord

Copper makes the grandiloquent utterance about what his paper is

planning in order to cover the war in Ishmaelia, " W e shall have

our naval, military and air experts," he announces, "'our squad

of photographers, our colour reporters, covering the war from

every angle and on every front.'" (S. 13). It rings a bell. Sir

Winston Churchill, it appears, knew his Evelyn Waugh well,

because his famous speech "We shall fight them on the beaches"

etc.. has the same tone about it. (Incidentally, Churchill was a

great admirer of Waugh (Sykes 270), and his son, Randolph, was

one of Waugh's closest friends).

The dinner meeting that Lord Copper later has with his

Foreign Editor, Mr Salter, is sheer delight. It is here that we

encounter that gem of an expression — "up to a point" — which

Lord Copper's employees used whenever he made a wrong statement, so as not to offend him. Here is how it goes :

Mr Salter's side of the conversation was limited to expressions of assent. When Lord Copper was right he said, 'Definitely, Lord copper'; When he was wrong. 'Up to a point.

'Let me see, what's the name of the place I mean ? Capital of Japan ? Yokohama, isn't it ?'

'Up to a point. Lord Copper.

'And Hong Kong belongs to us. doesn't it ?'

'Definitely, Lord Copper.' ( S. 14 ).

The haphazardness of a newspaper's work-culture is illustrated by the confusion that takes place when William Boot is sent to Ishmaelia instead of John Boot. It is a rush-^ob and no one bothers to verify the facts. Lord Copper has been told by

74 Mrs Stitch that "Boot" is the man for the job, and "Boot" is what he wants to have at any price; John or Williairi, that is immaterial. Once he gets a certain thing into his head, there is no stopping him. A trick cyclist who had once attracted his attention "had been engaged to edit the Sports Page on a five years' contract at five thousand a year" (S. 15).

In fact, there is a rich Wodehousian scenario spread all over the novel which adds to the sheer comioalness of the journalists' world. And no wonder. Waugh was a great admirer of

P.G. Wodehouse whom he considered " a first rate craftsman.'

He had come out strongly in Wodehouse s defence when certain quarters were gunning for him on account of his Berlin

Broadcasts. We can easily notice the Wodehouse touch in many of

Waugh's works. His short story "On Guard," for instance, is in true Wodehousian vein — one which Mr Mulliner would have loved to recount over a hot Scotch and lemon at the Angler’s Rest. Colonel

Blount, in Vil& Bodi&s, is straight from the Wodehouse gallery.

In Scoop, Lord Copper, Mrs Stitch, and Mr Salter are also from the Wodehouse circus. Boot Magna, as rightly noted by an early reviewer, "is an exceedingly dilapidated counterpart of Mr

Wodehouse's Blandings Castle" (CR 196). The eccentric inhabitants of Boot Magna Hall. who include William Boot's invalid grandmother. Uncle Roderick, and Uncle Theodore, are easily the first cousins of those who dwelt at Blandings Castle. (In all probability, while describing some of the features of the run-down Boot Magna Hall, with most of the occupants being

Qtd. in Stannard 455.

75 invalids, Waugh might have at the back of his nind his grandfather's house described by him in his autobiography, A

Little' Learning. The decay that set in there later and the three maiden aunts of his who lived there, one of them as an invalid, growing poorer as the years went by, present somewhat similar atmosphere.) Uncle Theodore, of course, takes the cake for being

Waugh's funniest character. The account of the journey that Mr

Salter undertakes to Boot Magna, in order to invite William to

Lord Copper's banquet, and of his stay there during the night, with Uncle Theodore narrating to him his escapades in London when he was young, is of real Wodehouse vintage. It is these touches which have made Scoop so "uproariously funny, and the most loudly laughing of all Mr Waugh's novels.

“'War is all commerce,'" says one of William's co-passengers on the ship that is taking him to Ishmaelia (S. 60), and the trade of war reporting takes off from that premise. It involves the same kind of cut-throat competition that one encounters in big business, "'getting your story in time for the first edition," as Corker, a fellow- correspondent, explains to

William (S. 66). "'We re paid to supply news, " he tells him. "'If someone else has sent a story before us, our story isn't news,'"

(S. 66). There follows an excellent account concerning the exploits of "the fabulous Wenlock Jakes" (S. 67) which can go well as a fine illustration for an essay on the power of the press, in

Haughian style, of course. Jakes, sent to cover a revolution in one of the Balkan capitals, had overslept in his carriage. Waking

Eric Linklater, "Evelyn Waugh," The Art of Aduentxire (London Macmillan, 1947) 54.

76 up at the wrong station, he cabled off a thousand-word story from his hotel rooii about an imaginary war taking place there. Though his London office was surprised, "'getting a story like that from the wrong country,... they trusted Jakes and splashed it in six national newspapers'" (S. 67). Other papers followed suit. Soon

"'Government stocks dropped... emergency declared, army mobilized... and in less than a week there u>as an honest to God revolution under way, just as Jakes had said,'" (S. 67). While educating William on the "craft of journalism" (S. 66), Corker also tells him about what is called "colour" stuff. "'colour is just a lot of bull's- eyes about nothing'" he says (S. 66), and that is what William finds the correspondents filing for their papers when he reaches Ishmaelia.

Of course, the correspondents will go to any length to get news. They engage spies, watch each other's movements with suspicion and accuse each other of receiving "secret information from the Government'" (S. 87). When a correspondent is believed to have laid his hand upon something special and the others can't get it out of him, they plan to "'stay awake in shifts'" at night hoping that "'He may talk in his sleep " (S. 86). Some kind of an ironic twist is provided when it is mentioned that the identity cards issued by the Ishmaelian Press Bureau to correspondents

“were small orange documents, originally printed for the registration of prostitutes" (S. 95). Then there is the punch line when William is told that a baseless story sent by one Shumble, which had hit the headlines as some sort of scoop, about a

Russian envoy coming to Ishmaelia disguised as a railway

77 official, could not be denied by papers because it ‘“Shakes public confidence in the press'" (£ 97).

Some of the brightest spots in the novel are provided by the nunerous telegrans that are either sent or received by the correspondents. William's first press nessage from Ishnaelia reads :

ALL ROT ABOUT BOLSHEVIK HE IS ONLY TICKET COLLECTOR ASS CALLED SHUHBLE THOUGHT HIS BEARD FALSE BUT IT'S PERFECTLY ALL RIGHT REALLY WILL CABLE AGAIN IF THERE IS ANY NEWS VERY WET HERE YOURS WILLIAM BOOT. 98)

Willian Boot did not know nuch about war reporting; he knew still less about sending his cables. While Corker's message to London, after permission was granted by the Ishmaelian authorities to the correspondents to go to Laku where fight is presumed to have started, has dust three words PERMISSION GRANTED LAKUWARD,

William's cable goes as follows :

THEY HAVE GIVEN US PERMISSION TO GO TO LAKU AND EVERYONE IS GOING BUT THERE IS NO SUCH PLACE AM I TO GO TOO SORRY TO BE A BORE BOOT (S. 120)

When his paper cautions him to be economical while sending his messages, William cables back :

NO NEWS AT PRESENT THANKS WARNING ABOUT CABLING PRICES BUT IVE PLENTY MONEY LEFT AND ANYWAY WHEN I OFFERED TO PAY WIRELESS MAN SAID IT WAS ALL RIGHT PAID OTHER END RAINING HARD HOPE ALL WELL ENGLAND WILL CABLE AGAIN IF ANY NEWS

(S. 121)

78 No wonder, he gets the sack. Ironically enough, though, his scoop,

which also is couched in similar fashion, is later held up as a

"legend to be handed down among the great traditions of his trade,

told and retold over the milk-bars of Fleet Street... held up as a

model to aspiring pupils of Correspondence Schools of Profitable

Writing..." (S. 146). To top it all, we have Mr Salter marvelling

at Lord Copper's genius in having spotted Boot. "It's a sixth

sense...,'" he says, " real genius'" (S. 157). Later, when he

compliments Lord Copper on having discovered William Boot,

Copper's answer is, "' Of course,... had my eye on him for some

time... There's always a chance for real talent on the B&ast..."

(Sl 180). Some eye, some talent.

Scoop, thus, possesses all those ingredients which

qualify it to be described as "an irreverent novel about Fleet

Street and its hectic pursuit of hot news" (as stated in the blurb

on the jacket of the Penguin Modern Classics edition (1943) of the

book). The novel certainly opens up before us an exciting vista of

the journalistic arena. At the same time, though, the book. like

his earlier trave1-inspired novels, has something else also to offer. This funny novel took shape, no doubt, as a result of

Waugh's unique experiences as a war correspondent in Ethiopia, to which he added his own observations of the working of the

Beaverbrook Press. But it also provided him a sort of platform to project a few of the recurrent themes that characterize his novels.

An important strand in the narrative, for instance. is the pre-dominance of confusion which reigns supreme throughout—

7 9 and confusion is what Waugh believes to be the presiding deity in human scheme of things. The novel takes off, as one might put it, from an instance which is the outcome of a confusion, namely,

William Boot confused with John Boot by the staff of The B&ast , the paper for which William contributed his bi-weekly half-column devoted to Nature. When William gets the telegram asking him to meet Lord Copper, there is another confusion. He thinks that he is being called to be reprimanded because in one of his previous columns in which he had written about the habits of the badger, his sister, Priscilla, "in a playful mood had found the manuscript and altered it, substituting for badger' throughout the crested grebe' " (S. 20) and the article had been published as such. During his journey to London, William gives a sovereign, mistaking it for a shilling, to the steward of the dining-car. Later, when he is waiting to be interviewed by Lord Copper, a staffer confuses him with someone else and despatches him post-haste to cover the story of an accident in which Mrs Stitch had rammed her car into the

Gentlemen's Lavatory in Sloane Street. This accident itself, as we come to know, was "'simply a case of mistaken identity'" 40), as Mrs Stitch had thought that the man she was following was one she had been wanting to speak to for weeks. William goes to collect a visa for Ishmaelia and knocks at the wrong door.

Corker's being sent to Ishmaelia was some kind of a punishment posting as he too had confused things ---“ breaking the news to a widow of her husband's death leap... the wrong widow as it turned out; the husband came back from business while I was there and cut up very nasty " (S. 64). When Corker explains that each paper takes in reports from three or four agencies whose versions often

80 nay not natch, William says, "'But isn't it very confusing if we all send different news ?' ” (S. 65). Corker 's answer is " It gives them a choice. They all have different policies, so of course, they have to give different news'" (S. 65). Again, confusion is playing a key role in disseminating information.

William is made to buy,what he thinks them to be, some stone specimens. They later turn out to be gold ores. And, here, we come across the only instance where William is economical in his words. Entering the purchase of this item in his expense sheet,

William just writes : "'Stones... € 20'" (S. 116). The confusion created by a correspondent, named Shumble, who gave it out that a railway official was actually a Russian agent, has already been mentioned. When Salter goes to Boot Magna to invite William for

Lord Copper's banquet, Nannie Price mistakes him to be

Priscilla's suitor and considers him "'Too old'" (S. 211). It all is crowned with, firstly, John Boot the novelist getting the knighthood meant for William and, then, Uncle Theodore attending the banquet which was supposed to be attended by William.

William Boot himself is no different from Waugh's other heroes. He is a prototype of the sort of heroes Waugh specialized i n — the hero as the victim. He is a simple soul, happy in his own ancient world of Boot Magna Hall, with his grandmother, mother, uncles, aunts and nannies, and quite content with his bi-weekly half-column, "Lush Places," for the Daily Beast. All of a sudden, he finds himself removed from his natural habitat and catapulted into an arbitrary world where things happen without any rhyme or reason. Though, unlike most other Waugh heroes, William escapes unscathed, he is shown, as the others had been, to be quite

81 unsuccessful in coping with such a disorderly world. Boot Hagna

Hall, itself, represents one of the two worlds, synbolizing

opposing forces, that we come across in Waugh s novels, and we are

told that the ooment Willian "left the confines of Boot Magna he

found himself in a foreign and hostile world" (S. 24). The

leisurely and sedate world of this quite dull and unexciting

country- house, a somewhat dilapidated version of Hetton Abbey in

A Hand/uL of Dust, is set against the world of international

journalism, finance, and intrigue, and the latter, as always,

triumphs over the former.

Waugh, in his preface to the Revised 1964 Edition of

Scoop, referred to earlier, has called it 'a light-hearted tale,'

a definition which, according to Alain Blayac, may be improved

upon to call the novel a modern fairy tale'— 'fairy tale'

"because of the incredible number of supernatural interventions,"

and "a modern one because some fairy tale characters and episodes

are deftly transformed into the modern heroes or stock situations

to be found in current spy-novels. In fact, V.S. Pritchett,

too, had categorized the novel as a "genial fairy tale,"^^ way back in 1949. This view gained strength mainly because the book is a little farcical in nature, abounding in "burlesque passages, mistaken identities and stylised misunderstandings. Blayac is,

however, probably more to the point when he places Scoop in the

“Technique and Meaning in Scoop : Is Scoop a Modern Fairy- Tale ? " Ex>elyn Wa-ugh Neii>slett&r 6.3 (1972) : 1.

"Cleverest English Novelist Alive," N&w Statesman and Nation 7 May 1949 ; 473. 20 Malcolm Bradbury, Evelyn Wavtgh. (Edinburgh : Oliver and Boyd, 1964) 68.

82 same class as Graham Greene's entertainments', since it contains 2P some features of the contemporary spy-novel. The intrigues in

Ishmaelia, international involvement, rumours about Russian and

German agents, Mr Baldwin being parachuted in the capital— all these do give the book the air of a thriller.

Scoop has another characteristic, not to be found in

Waugh's earlier novels. There is a certain gaiety about it, a kind of lightness. Rose Macaulay, writing in Horizon (December 1946), rightly described Scoop as \ completely light-hearted jeu d'esprit*’

(CH 202). The only other novel of Waugh which exhibits similar spirit is Put Out More Flags (1942). Waugh's black humour is totally absent here. There is no death (the coup in Ishmaelia, as well as the counter-coup, are both bloodless), no morbidity, and nothing that can be called macabre. Probably it can be easily explained. Waugh's traumatic first marriage, which had broken down in 1929, was annulled in 1936,and he remarried Laura, Herbert in

1937. Scoop was published in 1938. This marriage had, apparently, a fairy-tale ending about it, for Waugh and his second wife lived happily ever after. Whatever may be the reason, Waugh in Scoop, undoubtedly, "sets a new standard for comic extravaganza" which makes the book "thoroughly enjoyable, uproariously funny.

"Technique and Meaning in Scoop" : 6 . Robert Van Gelden, "A New Standard for Comic Extravaganza," rev. of Scoop, N&w York. Times Book Reuieu> 24 July 1938 : 6

83