Scoop
by Evelyn Waugh · first published 1933
5mentions
2recommended by
4HN commenters
2011–2026first – last mentioned
50% recommend50% neutral
Lord Copper, newspaper magnate and proprietor of the Daily Beast, has always prided himself on his intuitive flair for spotting ace reporters. That is not to say he has not made the odd blunder, however, and may in a moment of weakness make another. Acting on a dinner party tip from Mrs. Algernon Stitch, Lord Copper feels convinced that he has hit on just the chap to cover a promising war in the African Republic of Ishmaelia. So begins Scoop, Waugh's exuberant comedy of mistaken identity and brilliantly irreverent satire of the hectic pursuit of hot news.
Affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
…the spy novel with his Ashenden stories. Hemmingway was a short story writer, but somehow he is remembered for the fawning reception of Farewell to Arms. Evelyn Waugh was savagely funny if you have read Scoop, Decline and Fall or Black Mischief, but Brideshead Revisited was the critical success that got made into a sappy miniseries. It's like critics take your least spectacular and most vulnerable work and…
on “H.L. Mencken Reviews the Great Gatsby (1925)” ↗…always, you have to choose sides. Draw the line between the sides yourself if necessary. It's Hitchens' writings that introduced me to the early, dry, humorous works of Evelyn Waugh (best known is "Scoop", but also Decline and Fall, and the Sword of Honour trilogy). Some of Hitchens' best writing was literary appreciation, not polemics.
on “In Memoriam: Christopher Hitchens, 1949–2011” ↗…like I have a new favourite author without ever having read anything by him. Deep, blistering satire that bordered on the kind of cruelty that could only have started as love, for me, was Evelyn Waugh's "Scoop," and W. Sommerset Maughm's "The Magician," but Gaddis sounds like someone to take a week off and rent a cottage somewhere to read it. I read a couple of Pynchon books but the thing about post modern…
on “William Gaddis: Below Deck on the Ship of Fools” ↗"Feather-footed through the plashy fen passes the questing vole"," is Evelyn Waugh's take on the gentleman naturalist in "Scoop" (1938) a role which Peter Matthiessen seems to have taken to heart. It's a job. Somebody has to note the first cookoo of spring.
on “I'm Always in the Club” ↗Up to a point, Lord Copper. [Scoop, by Evelyn Waugh]
on “How to Tell Your Boss They're Wrong–Tactfully” ↗