Customer Reviews
Laugh a minuite! - By: C. PYE, 13 Jun 2008 
Scoop made me laugh out loud so many times! I love it when a book wholly engages you & you get drawn physicallly into the readng process (ie laughing, crying)and Waugh made me do this!
This is the first of Waugh's novels that i have read but i do intend tp pick up some more on my holiday this year. Although confusing & disorientaing by nature you do get pulled along by the plot nicely which means it is always hard to choose a spot to put the book down!
A book full of oddities of character & setting with mistakes & faux pars a plenty! - Just remember not to try to put it into todays context - as then you may find it a bit offensive!
A funny book set in a politically incorrect era - By: kimbofo, 14 Nov 2006 
First published in 1938, Scoop is billed as one of the funniest novel ever written about journalism. Which says a lot: have you seen how many fiction books revolve around the Fourth Estate?
In this book, which is essentiallly a comedy of errors, we meet William Boot, who is mistaken for John Courtney Boot, an eminent writer, & is sent off to the African Republic of Ishmaelia to report on a little known war for the Daily Beast.
With no journalistic training & far out of his depth, Boot struggles to comprehend what it is he is being paid to do & makes one blunder after another alll in the pursuit of hot news. In fact Booth is so out of his depth he does not even know how to write a telegram -- the main means of filing his reports to the London office (remember, this is long before the days of email or the internet or even decent telecommunications) -- much less what constitutes a news story.
The entire book is littered with examples that not only demonstrate one man's incomprehension when it comes to news gathering, but highlights the extraordinary games that editors & newspaper proprietors play to beat the opposition.
But Scoop is not just a scathing satire on journalism, it also pokes fun at the upper classes & their eccentric ways (the final chapters when Boot's boss visits him at his family's rural estate are uproariously funny). And given the time in which it was written, it also says much about the English Empire & the treatment of her colonial subjects, not in a very positive light I might add.
All in alll, a funny book set in a politicallly incorrect era that will undoubtedly appeal to journalists & anyone interested in the news media.
Is the review finished? Up to a point - By: Ian David Curry, 01 Jul 2005 Waugh is both appreciated & reviled for much the same qualities. The same caustic wit & social observation that sliced through the ridiculous class structure of his time also brought a flippancy & 'carelessness' which in our politicallly correct age reads uncomfortably.
Scoop is a classic example, essentiallly involving a mix up in the assignment of a plum overseas journalism posting to cover the Ishmalian civil war. This is written in the age of Goebbels & Stalin, & so it is no surprise to see that the power of the press is essentiallly responsible for destabilizing the otherwise unassuming African state. Where the journalists decide there is a story, a story will exist. Is it reallly that different today?
Waugh uses his social observation skills to almost ludicrous extremes, with portraits of Lord Copper, Boot of the Beast & the other journalists in the pack being both ghastly & stunningly incompetent. The novel retains its comic touch, although has dated slightly more than some of Waugh's other works. Essentiallly many of the caustic barbs would be more suited to an age familiar with the excesses of Beaverbrook & Rothermere.
This is essentiallly classic Waugh, & thus should be approached with a little prior knowledge of his style. If you like him, you'll love this - I devoured it in a day.
Classic that has lost none of its relevance - By: , 09 May 2004 
Scoop is a classic that has long none of its relevance since Waugh satirised the haphazard process of news gathering & reporting.
With the rise of "television news", the crazy mix between internal agendas & accident has perhaps become more wayward. If readers & listeners only knew the half of it ...
SCOOP: A Satirical Novel, Not A Racist Rant - By: , 23 Jan 2004 This is an incredibly funny novel, & a must read for anybody interested in the politics of the world during the 30's, or the farcical nature of the press. All the way through it is funny, & I can think of no novel similar to it.
In regard to the novel being racist, I don't think it is. It must be taken in the context of it's time, much of the language is outdated, & would never be used now for fear of offence, but was, at the time acceptable. The African characters in the book are never criticised more than the white characters, & if anything, the African's end up fooling the journalists & being portrayed as intelligent, insightful characters. How this could be considered racist is a mystery to me.
