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Ninety-Two Days: Travels in Guiana and Brazil: A Journey in Guiana and Brazil, 1932

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Ninety-two Days The great author's account of the journey that gave birth to his novel 'A Handful of Dust' makes gripping and often hilarious he travels through Guyana and northern Brazil on foot, horseback and by boat in 1932. The Guardian's reviewer found it 'exquisitely miserable'. Full description

216 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1934

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About the author

Evelyn Waugh

358 books2,964 followers
Evelyn Waugh's father Arthur was a noted editor and publisher. His only sibling Alec also became a writer of note. In fact, his book “The Loom of Youth” (1917) a novel about his old boarding school Sherborne caused Evelyn to be expelled from there and placed at Lancing College. He said of his time there, “…the whole of English education when I was brought up was to produce prose writers; it was all we were taught, really.” He went on to Hertford College, Oxford, where he read History. When asked if he took up any sports there he quipped, “I drank for Hertford.”

In 1924 Waugh left Oxford without taking his degree. After inglorious stints as a school teacher (he was dismissed for trying to seduce a school matron and/or inebriation), an apprentice cabinet maker and journalist, he wrote and had published his first novel, “Decline and Fall” in 1928.

In 1928 he married Evelyn Gardiner. She proved unfaithful, and the marriage ended in divorce in 1930. Waugh would derive parts of “A Handful of Dust” from this unhappy time. His second marriage to Audrey Herbert lasted the rest of his life and begat seven children. It was during this time that he converted to Catholicism.

During the thirties Waugh produced one gem after another. From this decade come: “Vile Bodies” (1930), “Black Mischief” (1932), the incomparable “A Handful of Dust” (1934) and “Scoop” (1938). After the Second World War he published what is for many his masterpiece, “Brideshead Revisited,” in which his Catholicism took centre stage. “The Loved One” a scathing satire of the American death industry followed in 1947. After publishing his “Sword of Honour Trilogy” about his experiences in World War II - “Men at Arms” (1952), “Officers and Gentlemen” (1955), “Unconditional Surrender" (1961) - his career was seen to be on the wane. In fact, “Basil Seal Rides Again” (1963) - his last published novel - received little critical or commercial attention.

Evelyn Waugh, considered by many to be the greatest satirical novelist of his day, died on 10 April 1966 at the age of 62.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evelyn_W...

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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
Profile Image for Marc Weitz.
Author 3 books5 followers
July 1, 2013
After years of constantly running into Evelyn Waugh in other biographies, history books, movies, and TV, I finally sat down and read him. This time motivated by my upcoming trip to Guyana and his travels travels there in 1932. I had a feeling that once exposed to his writing that I'd be immediately enraptured. I was right. (Don't ask me what took so long).

Evelyn Waugh visited a remote and rarely traveled to part of the world. Even today, this place is not on the tourist track. This is what attracted Mr. Waugh. This book is mainly about the eccentric characters he meets and the difficult of traveling through the jungle. Guyana is mostly covered in jungles. It was a British Colony with a mix of cultures brought to the area by the sugar plantations and the slaves who worked the land. Evelyn travels through the jungle to the Brazilian border. He hires horses, guides, and buys his own supplies. He meets missionaries and farmers who make their home in the jungle. He also mingles with the indian tribes in the area. His descriptions are colorful and filled with British sardonic humor. Such as his reluctance to visit Kaieteur Falls, arguably one of the top sites in South America. I found myself laughing aloud every couple pages. Waugh pokes fun at himself for having received criticism for a previous travelogue in which he said he was bored. A minor criticism is that he spends a lot of time describing the rough journey. Much of it is redundant, a fact not lost upon the author who defends the practice humorously as a necessary evil.

His sardonic humor fits so well with the things he finds, such as his description of the native alcoholic drink "cassiri." The indians make cassiri by chewing cassava root and spitting into a communal vat in the village. Everyone in the village chews the root and contributes their spit to the vat. The saliva ferments the root into an alcoholic drink. After a while the village has a big party and everyone drinks the vat full of now-fermented cassava spit. Yum! Hats off to Mr. Waugh for trying and enjoying it. You can tell that he's a man always in search of a drink.

The book is a quick read, and it's funny. There are great descriptions of the people and what traveling through Guyana was like in 1932. An experience, I'm sure, much different from today.
Profile Image for Chloe.
233 reviews
March 30, 2021
It is evident from this slim volume that Waugh didn’t especially enjoy his South American adventures. Compared to his accounts of Africa, Waugh disliked the insects (understandable), jungle, food and the locals. His warmest words and pithiest observations are reserved for Africans working for, or occasionally left behind by, European explorers. If you started with this book, you might not read any more Waugh, which would be a shame.
Profile Image for Hirondelle (not getting notifications).
1,325 reviews361 followers
May 23, 2011
"It was the end of the tether. There was nothing for it but to start writing this book".

From its title, the 92 days spent on Guyana, and its introduction the reader the potential reader can get clearly the message that these 92 days were not much fun for the author. And he surely works out his spleen in understated fashion.

"Who on his sense will read, still less buy, a travel book of no scientific value about a place he has no intention of visiting?(I will make a present of that sentence to any ill-intentioned reviewer.)"

A 70+ year old travel book at that. Besides being a travelogue about a particularly horrific trip in British Guyana in 1932, this has all of Waugh´s faults, his prejudices (regarding his Church), a certain unthinking acceptance of current prejudiced society mores (which he might mock, but seems to accept) and is just steeped in 1930s attitudes. The meaning of terms like negro, savage and even civilization (and how to spell Guyana) have changed since then, even if I do understand the context. Still, often maddening (btw, trivia fellow countrymen might find interesting, in 1930s Guyana Portuguese was considered a race itself, a non white race actually.)

This is not my first Waugh travel book, so I can not say I was surprised about these issues. Maybe it is a peculiar state of (my) mind, that despite that I find his travelogues fascinating: the atmosphere, the eccentric characters, the anecdotes, the so-understated writing and above all clear glimpse into another time and place. There is can´t-make-it up absurd dialogue and episodes. And then there is the writing. There is a lot here I stuck highlighting tabs. Just to share a few, regarding Mr Waugh´s state of mind when starting to write ("day of wrath") this book:

"The highest tribute one can pay to success is to assume an author employs someone else to work for him."
" I believe it would have been better for trade if authors had kept the bluff about inspiration."
"The truth I think is this - that though most of us would not write except for money, we would not write any differently for more money."

Profile Image for Paul.
219 reviews3 followers
September 8, 2013
92 Days is a witty account of , well, the 92 days Evelyn Waugh spent in what was at the time British Guiana and Brazil.
He explains that his absolute lack of knowledge about Guiana prompted his trip, although we learn in the afterword that his marriage had just ended and he was also seeking some respite from his claustrophobic London society. Armed with a rudimentary map, his wit and baggage that seemed to always be ahead of or behind him, Waugh in effect disappeared deep into the heart of the far flung British Colony, often sleeping in native indian shelters after spending all day on horse back crossing the limitless bush..

Thwarted in his attempts to travel deeper into Brazil, he tracks back into Guiana and back up the other side. He describes the characters he meets as well as his feelings towards them, as any number of guides help him traverse the little travelled terrain, in between his refilled glasses of rum and indian subsistence diet.

You could always tell a Freemason, he said, because they had VOL branded on their buttocks. ’It means volunter, I suppose’, he said, ‘I can’t think why’ (Mr Christie)

Having recently read John Gimlette’s Wild Coast I realised I might have read this first, but no matter, Waugh’s humour and practicality were enough to make this an enjoyable read of somewhere I have no place to visit, which probably means I’ve taken leave of my senses.
(blog review here)
Profile Image for Daniel Simmons.
832 reviews56 followers
June 5, 2016
An acerbic and engaging travel memoir about Waugh's three months "up country" in British Guiana, where he was feasted upon by cabouri flies, preached at by an assortment of jungle-bound Jesuits and Benedictines, and inspired to sample cassiri, a kind of alcoholic cassava juice that is fermented by the conjoined spit of every villager in the area. (You get the feeling that Waugh will do pretty much anything for a drink.) Waugh is judgmental but ultimately appreciative of the natives, ranchers, priests and vagabonds he meets on his journeys through the bush. His account didn't teach me much about Guiana, to be honest, but as a string of wittily written character studies it entertained me immensely.
Profile Image for Andrew Austin.
4 reviews1 follower
December 14, 2013
Evelyn Waugh takes a foot and horse back journey in the remote outback of South America, and meets strange people, sees beautiful and brutal country, and has an entertainingly miserable time. He complains so much you will wonder why he bothers to travel at all, but his writing is wonderful and he captures a perfect feel for the culture and the isolated countryside. By the time it was over I felt like I had taken the trip, and had the adventures, along with the grouchy narrator, and that's what makes great travel writing.
23 reviews
August 11, 2024
5/10

Genuinely bad for the most parts, yet a few highlights manage to save the complete picture.

It's Evelyn Waugh entirely devout of any character. He's not mean, he's not funny, he's just honest and journalistic. It doesn't start like that. Introduction is fabulous, he gets the reader hyped with one of his trademark long narratives that ends on a high point. He's entering Guiana on a venture he never explains. Soon, though, poetic narrative dissolves into day to day drag through the jungle as he enters the interior and goes on a pointless, and never explained journey. Looking back at it, it's almost akin to Heart of Darkness, if it wasn't all so completely impersonal. His journey is mad to a degree, he often jogs well ahead of his party with no sense of danger. Goes on a weird detours, drinks tepid water, bathes in random creeks. At one time, he travels to Brazilian Boa Vista, with a plan of going through it to Menaus and then down the Amazon towards the coast, then he changes his mind, and with a single servant travels back to Guiana in a chaotic manner. He stops at various stages for extended periods. Sometime waiting for transport, other times recuperating, the other times just wasting time. The way he writes about it is the problem, it's some of the worst prose I've ever read from him. He's calm, never afraid, never self-critical, never funny, never joyous. His prose is deadbeat serious all the time, even though there are hints of joy and suffering in it, particularly when he returns to British catholic mission, and when his foot goes lame. Still, all of that is given in a straight, impersonal, journalistic jargon. Fortunately there a few rare gems in the text. His savannah description is superb, and he really livens up towards the end of his journey, or possible, he livens up because he realises that he's at the end of writing about it. Either way, out of nothing, we suddenly witness how great he can be. He goes on a lengthy discourse on airplane travel, he gives us Alfredo Sacramento story, and he argues Jungle reclamation, and he witnesses some waterfalls along the way. The way he talks about them, they're probably famous or something, but I wouldn't know anything about that. Another special occurrence is one particularly dirty joke, it comes so out of the blue, and is so effective, that it had me laughing out loud.

At the end of his journey he mentions that "whatever interior changes there were are the writer's own property and not marketable commodity." It's a shame, really, with a bit of introspection, this could be a decent travelogue. As it is, I can only recommend it to those interested in learning the background of A Handful of Dust. There's plenty of that here, a nucleus of characters and locations, Dickens, it's even possible he saved his own thoughts of his journey for it as well.
Author 11 books3 followers
May 7, 2019
Interesting, straight to the point read of hard travel in the Guiana outback circa 1932 with a few good observations, including some dated, offensive impressions (not pc). It read like an obligation to justify the trip. No joy in it. Meaning the writing, if not also the trip. It did inspire the pleasure of bathing in a stream after a long hot haul as "...the exquisite, almost ecstatic, experience of washing in the tropics after a long day's journey; it was as keen a sensation as I have ever known, excluding nothing..." And ironically as well as to his surprise, the other pleasure he rediscovered was for reading "for the mere pleasure of the process."
Profile Image for Zach.
126 reviews1 follower
June 30, 2020
A Waugh deep cut, and definitely not a hidden gem. There are only a handful of stand-out moments, and of these his thoughts on the value of traveling “as the natives do” is the only section that had a real impact on me. Still, it was short and entertaining enough, and worth a read if you love Evelyn Waugh. If you’re looking instead for an intro to his nonfiction I’d recommend “When The Going Was Good”, which is the highlights from his several travelogues. For his fiction, I’d recommend starting with “Put Out More Flags”, which is more structured than his earlier novels, retains their humor, and distills Waugh’s views on the old vs the new that runs through all of his works.
Profile Image for Sinesio.
43 reviews
November 8, 2020
Waugh, neste livro, trata muito mais das dificuldades da viagem do que das paisagens naturais e humanas que teria visto. Quando menciona as pessoas com quem se relacionou, revela certa superioridade egocêntrica disfarçada pela ironia. Como não poderia deixar de ser, há ótimos trechos, recheados de seu humor, mas o conjunto do livro acrescenta muito pouco à obra de Waugh e ao estoque de conhecimentos de seus leitores.
Profile Image for Emmanuelle Maupassant.
Author 75 books1,275 followers
May 2, 2015
Waugh begins his entertainingly sour travelogue by stating: 'Who in his senses will read, still less buy, a travel book of no scientific value about a place he has no intention of visiting?'

Every year, Waugh would try to escape British winters by undertaking a trip. In 1932, his marriage had just ended, his wife betraying him in a humiliating and very public manner, so his choice of remote and isolated British Guiana reflected a desire more than ever to leave behind stifling polite society.

His catalogue of discomforts and complaints is ripe fodder for humour, as he grumpily hacks his way through the jungle, jolted and fly-bitten, upon various weary ponies, and accompanied by an argumentative crew of baggage carriers, who spend most of their time very much lost from sight (occasionally, lost altogether).

His journey is numbered assiduously (rather like a 92 day prison sentence he must endure) - emphasising its arduous nature. We feel more than anything his sense of unpreparedness: repeated protests of disgust with the food, rough terrain, searing heat and unrelenting insect invasion. When provisions allow, the highlight of his day is his rum and lime cocktail, mixed by a canny hired hand, who quickly judges the way to Waugh's heart.

Put aside modern sensibilities regarding Waugh's reference to 'savages' and it's possible to accept him as less prejudiced than might be expected for his time. Through his interminable grouchiness, it is possible to still like him by the closing pages.

Waugh's distress and dejection outweigh any other aspect of his adventure and that he chose not to have his travel writing republished in his lifetime perhaps speaks for itself. Nevertheless, there is a sense of taking every rueful and tortured step together and a strong feeling for the land's vastness, unchartered and brutal.



Profile Image for Seth.
86 reviews11 followers
August 2, 2016
Evelyn Waugh appears as a sort of off-screen character in Pauline Melville's novel The Ventriloquist's Tale. Placing the author of Brideshead Revisited in the Rupununi Savannah seemed an odd detail to invent from scratch. I easily found, of course, that Waugh did indeed travel around those parts, circa 1932, and even wrote this book about it.

Several of the details concerning Waugh in the novel were drawn from this book. Members of Pauline Melville's family even appear as characters Waugh encounters on his travels. "Almost everyone of importance in the Rapununi has some ties with the Melville family," he observes. I didn't know that about Pauline Melville's background, so it was interesting to learn something about her from Waugh.

In Melville's book, Waugh is portrayed as an odd, curious man and as usually not comprehending what goes on under the surface of the Amerindian tribal cultures he encounters. Waugh portrays himself in much the same way in this travelogue. But with consistent wit, good humor, and insight.

Waugh is a racist, and an apologist for colonialism and missionary activities. So be advised that reading this involves some reading between the lines. Even so he creates several sympathetic portraits of individuals of various races, and occasionally seems to be aware of his own blinders.
Profile Image for Dmaj.
8 reviews1 follower
April 7, 2015
Beautiful writing and a compelling narrative both entirely marred by noxious racism and the unswerving certainty that the author is better than everyone else.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews

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