I've read a number of Waugh's books and find them very amusing, as he has fun exposing the mishmash of mid-20th century British Society's civilian and military standards. However, Black Mischief is only his third novel and it shows it. While still entertaining reading, there are obvious lapses in the style he later developed as he improved on this genre. I especially enjoy his writing as I feel he has the same outlook on life I have, i.e., Life is too short to be taken seriously.
Still, you have to admire what the Armenian Mr. Youkoumian gets away with.
Still, you have to admire what the Armenian Mr. Youkoumian gets away with.
Ostensibly a spoof on modernization in Africa, this novel would probably be criticized, or even banned, as being politically in appropriate. It gets off to a slow start while the author introduces characters and sets the stage for this bureaucratic farce: the modernization of an African kingdom. By mid point he is under full throttle with absurdities rivaled by few. A progenitor of Catch 22? Several satirical episodes are exceptionally biting: the organization of the Ministry of Modernization, boots for the Army, the national museum, handspun currency, the birth control fiasco, animal cruelty, and the vitamin banquet. This is a kingdom won by revolution and finally lost through it.
