On "Out of Depth" by Evelyn Waugh (1699 words) ***

"Out of Depth" is a science fiction story of sorts, one that plays with ideas related to black magic. The main character meets a magician, wishes nothing to do with him, but then somehow ends up being pulled into his orbit. Said magician hurtles him into a future five hundred years hence in which London society has been turned upside down. We get the sense that some kind of devastating war has taken place and society has been propelled backward centuries in technological innovation. Read the story online here.

On "Men at Arms" by Evelyn Waugh ***

The first novel Waugh's trilogy Sword of Honor, this one essentially provides an account of Guy Crouchback's training in the military at the start of World War II. In many ways, the timeline matches that in Waugh's own life. Too young to fight in World War I and too old to fight in World War II, Waugh/Crouchback joined a untraditional group of soldiers for officer training.

Crouchback is divorced without kids. He suffers from a kind of feeling of worthlessness of life. The military, fighting for a cause, will give him something to live for. Alas, it doesn't want him. It is only after a relative tells him of this special brigade that he is able to get in.

What follows are a series of humorous little stories about training. Particularly funny scenes involve one in which Crouchback is about to get back with his former wife but keeps getting interrupted by phone calls from his best army buddy. Another involves the friend's thunder box, which the brigadier takes a liking to and which Crouchback and his friend constantly try to hide.

Overall, one gets the sense that the military is a rather funny place. This is the Bill Bailey type military, one that succeeds, when it does, despite incompetence. There didn't seem to be much in the way of angst here, except a tiny bit toward the very end--and that mostly personal rather the military/war related. As such, the book didn't seem as tied in to most of the other post-1900 war literature I've read.

On "Cruise: Letters from a Young Lady of Leisure" by Evelyn Waugh (2031 words) ***

"Cruise: Letters from a Young Lady of Leisure" is notable mostly for its voice, that of a young girl who falls in and out of love most ficklely, as people are wont to do on overseas cruises to Egypt. One gets the sense she is about twelve, at an age when understanding the viccisitudes of adult relationships is just beginning to don on her. Read the story here.

On "Scoop" by Evelyn Waugh ****

Another comic novel by the master, some say his best, this one focuses on skewering the profession of journalism. John Boot is a novelist who wants to escape a relationship with a gal by becoming a foreign correspondent and thus leaving the country. He calls up a connection of his, who promises to get him a position with a newspaper, which she then does.

Alas, the person in charge of hiring Boot mistakes the directive for a different Boot--William Boot--who writes a column for the paper on country living. And thus begins a novel of mistaken identity, a theme that is nearly dropped until the novel's end. William, thus, is presented with no choice but to go the Ishmaelia if he is to keep his job. Ishmaelia is an African country in the heat of civil war. And thus he packs--or buys the many things he is told that he'll need.

It's here, about a third into the novel, that the work loses steam for me. The jokes come furiously in the first third, somewhat less furiously thereafter, but more important, they become more and more easy jibes at the profession and at the characters involved. William Boot is something of a dolt who manages through incompetence and intransigence and even a little common sense (that other reporters seem to lack) to become a great foreign correspondent. Along the way he meets Katchen, a married woman whose husband has disappeared and with whom he falls in love. She promises to feed him news stories in exchange for various favors--mostly money. It becomes clear that she is primarily a gold digger (literally and metaphorically), but William, to all disadvantage, continues to support her in his grand love.

Waugh writes of one legendary journalist who tells great stories. This journalist, he notes, was sent to a country where nothing was going on and through the strength of his reports managed to get every nation to send troops to it to stop a civil war that until then had not even existed. For Waugh, news is in many ways not something that is reported but something that is created.

In this sense, this novel remains relevant in our day of "fake" news. What a media outlet chooses to report shapes what happens as much as it reflects what is really happening. Hence, one network's focus on the Trump campaign's Russian ties brings that prospect into a certain reality, while another network's almost complete ignoring of the story in favor of Clinton's botched e-mail server creates an alternate reality. Each in their own way shape and foster who holds power within the nation. Without reporting, Trump's indiscretions could never lead to whatever downfall might await us. The extent that those indiscretions are exaggerated or minimized--real or not--affects whether that downfall ever comes. If and when the downfall does come, it'll largely be at the hands of those reporting.