Black Mischief By Evelyn Waugh [1932]
The most bitter and excoriating of Evelyn Waugh’s comic novels is also his most offensive. In just the first few pages, Waugh offends (by my count) three races, nine ethnicities, 11 religions and two sexual orientations. His language is hurtful, insensitive, privileged and exclusionary. We have progressed since Waugh’s time. All civilised people should condemn him. And being condemned by progress and civilisation is what the book is about. Great strides are being made in Azania—an imaginary benighted nation populated with hurtful, insensitive, privileged and exclusionary cannibals. Azania has a new strongman, Seth, an Oxford graduate. Seth appoints his classmate, Englishman Basil Seal, “Minister of Modernisation.”
Basil: “There’s not a single guards regiment in Europe without boots.”
Seth: “I’ll hang any man I see barefooted.”
In the end Azania does become civilised—when it’s declared a League of Nations protectorate and Europeans invade. But some of the novel’s protagonists get eaten first.
P.J. O’Rourke
