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Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966) was born in London and educated at Oxford. He quickly established a reputation with such social satirical novels as DECLINE AND FALL, VILE BODIES and SCOOP. Waugh became a Catholic in 1930, and his later books display a more serious attitude, as seen in the religious theme of BRIDESHEAD REVISITED, a nostalgic evocation of student days at Oxford. His diaries were published in 1976, and his letters in 1980.
Satire on foreign correspondents in a fantastic tale of one William Boot, accidentally thrust into the limelight as foreign correspondent to cover a reputed war in some imagined African country. It was all a matter of confusion of identity - but Boot thought himself elected, and went, a victim to every suggestion, and a success only through his own stubborn inertness, once on the spot, and his abortive love affair with a stranded tart. He makes the headlines on a fluke - is a nine day wonder - and then escapes into anonymity again, leaving another possessor of the name of Boot to take his cloak of glory. Absurd picture of an African village over - run with foreign correspondents, virtually forcing an unwanted civil war upon them, and a satiric commentary on the methods of English journalism. One expects some subtlety in the barbed pen of Evelyn Waugh. This seems dully obvious, a sort of forced and brittle cleverness, with passages of real humor almost lost in the heavy-farce of much of it. Seems to us limited in sales appeal. (Kirkus Reviews)
