Evelyn Waugh's Scoop and Put out more Flags.

I picked up a nice little paper back at the book fair that had both these stories in. Put out more Flags is currently tied, perhaps even beating, vile bodies as my favorite book of his so far. It seems to be one of the less popular though, at least if it's presence in used book stores in any indication. But the prose was very striking, and the characterization was much deeper. It was also pretty interesting to read after the HG Wells as it was also about posh people in England at the start of the secound world war. It was funny, but in a tragic kinda way. There were many more characters than a Waugh's other novels, more than simple a main character and his would be finance. A lot were characters who'd been in previous novels, now older wiser, poorer and more pathetic. It was a really interesting view on the war, and a really interesting contrast to Wells' view on the war. Waugh wrote it in 1942 which kinda made for a extra depressing end.

Scoop on the other hand was written in the early to mid 30's. It was ostensibly a book about the ridiculousness of journalism, and also a prelude to the war, capturing the tension everyone was feeling quite nicely. It was prey to the Waugh charm of having characters who simply let events happen to them and don't take an active role in anyway. Something I'm pleased to say was missing in Put out more Flags. But it did have some genuinely amusing bits, though not quite as entertaining as Waugh's other books that I've read.