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Remote People
Perhaps the funniest travel book ever written, Remote People begins with a vivid account of the coronation of Emperor Ras Tafari - Haile Selassie I, King of Kings - an event covered by Evelyn Waugh in 1930 as special correspondent for The Times. It continues with subsequent travels throughout Africa, where natives rub shoulders with eccentric expatriates, settlers with Arab traders and dignitaries with monks. Interspersed with these colourful tales are three 'nightmares' which describe the vexations of travel, including returning home.
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1931
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About the author
Evelyn Waugh
356 books2,963 followersEvelyn 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...
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 - 22 of 22 reviews
November 25, 2021
Commencing with the 1930 coronation of Haile Selassie I in Abyssinia, which Waugh attended as special correspondent for The Times, this book covers his subsequent travels through Aden, Kenya, Zanzibar, Tanganyika, Uganda and the Belgian Congo.
There was little description of the coronation, but then Waugh was not far up the foodchain, and perhaps didn't enjoy the best of the hospitality. And yes, his style is pretty typical of the 1930s, seeing the Colonial benefits of Africa and the poor qualities of the natives (and perhaps especially the Indian immigrants), but I didn't find this too excessive.
I did enjoy his writing style, and his condescending wit, his mockery of his fellow travellers is all very amusing.
Some passages I enjoyed:
P61, during a mountainous walk It was a stiff climb; the sun was still strong and the stones all radiated fierce heat. 'I think, perhaps, we ought to take off our hats,' said the professor ' we are on very holy ground.' I removed my topi and exposed myself to sunstroke, trusting in divine protection; but, just as he spoke, it so happened that our guide stopped on the path and accommodated himself in a way which made me think his reverence for the spot was far from fanatical.
P156, in the town of Jinja, which has a golf links: ... is, I believe the only course in the world which posts a special rule that the player may remove his ball by hand from hippopotamus footprints. For there is a very old hippopotamus who inhabits this corner of the lake. Long before the dedication of the Ripon Falls it was his practice to take an evening stroll over that part of the bank which now constitutes the town of Jinja. He has remained set in his habit, despite railway lines and bungalows.At first, attempts were made to shoot him, but lately he has come to be regarded as a local mascot, and people returning late from bridge parties not infrequently see him lurching home on the main street. Now and then he varies his walk with a detour across the golf links and it is then that the local rule is brought into force.
P173, on the train from Albertville to Kabolo: It is perhaps fair to remark that the shower-bath was not, nor apparently had been for some time, in working order; but I have long ceased any hope for a railway carriage that will offer a tolerable water system. It seems to be well understood by carriage designers in all parts of the world that the true measure of luxury consists in the number of unnecessary electric light switches and different coloured bulbs.
There was little description of the coronation, but then Waugh was not far up the foodchain, and perhaps didn't enjoy the best of the hospitality. And yes, his style is pretty typical of the 1930s, seeing the Colonial benefits of Africa and the poor qualities of the natives (and perhaps especially the Indian immigrants), but I didn't find this too excessive.
I did enjoy his writing style, and his condescending wit, his mockery of his fellow travellers is all very amusing.
Some passages I enjoyed:
P61, during a mountainous walk It was a stiff climb; the sun was still strong and the stones all radiated fierce heat. 'I think, perhaps, we ought to take off our hats,' said the professor ' we are on very holy ground.' I removed my topi and exposed myself to sunstroke, trusting in divine protection; but, just as he spoke, it so happened that our guide stopped on the path and accommodated himself in a way which made me think his reverence for the spot was far from fanatical.
P156, in the town of Jinja, which has a golf links: ... is, I believe the only course in the world which posts a special rule that the player may remove his ball by hand from hippopotamus footprints. For there is a very old hippopotamus who inhabits this corner of the lake. Long before the dedication of the Ripon Falls it was his practice to take an evening stroll over that part of the bank which now constitutes the town of Jinja. He has remained set in his habit, despite railway lines and bungalows.At first, attempts were made to shoot him, but lately he has come to be regarded as a local mascot, and people returning late from bridge parties not infrequently see him lurching home on the main street. Now and then he varies his walk with a detour across the golf links and it is then that the local rule is brought into force.
P173, on the train from Albertville to Kabolo: It is perhaps fair to remark that the shower-bath was not, nor apparently had been for some time, in working order; but I have long ceased any hope for a railway carriage that will offer a tolerable water system. It seems to be well understood by carriage designers in all parts of the world that the true measure of luxury consists in the number of unnecessary electric light switches and different coloured bulbs.
May 15, 2019
In 1967 Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie visited Disneyland. There’s a photograph of him wearing a dark suit and sitting in one of the little boats that bob through the Small World ride. From there it’s a short walk to the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party in Fantasyland; did the emperor ride the spinning teacups, I wonder. My wife enjoys that one but it makes me sick to my stomach.
Thirty-seven years earlier, Evelyn Waugh traveled to Addis Ababa to report on the coronation of Haile Selassie, whose name means “Power of the Trinity.” In Remote People Waugh describes the experience as something like Alice’s disorienting adventures beyond the looking glass. Remote People is the third of Waugh’s travel books that I’ve read (after Labels and Ninety-Two Days). It’s also the best and funniest, and a feast of prose as savory as a mess of Ethiopian yebeg tibs.
After events in Addis Ababa, Waugh continued south via Aden, chronicling oddities, thrills, and exquisite miseries through British Kenya Colony, Uganda, Tanganyika Territory and the Belgian Congo. The colonial era was still at high tide in 1930 and, to judge by Waugh’s book, the politics of it all was as much a scandal at the time as it is in retrospect. Is there such thing as a legitimate right of conquest? And if not, how can crimes on such a grand scale be atoned for?
By what pass for today’s standards, Waugh is defiantly unwoke. He makes no apologies. Along with his maleness and whiteness, that makes him a part of The Problem. I suppose I am too. History is full of appalling violence and the destruction of one group by another in endless rounds. But like Waugh, I consider it a misreading of human nature to hope for better, or to imagine that sin is the province of any one race or people. Waugh writes:
“There is one general principle which we may accept; that the whole of history, from the earliest times until today, has been determined by the movements of peoples about the earth’s surface; migratory tribes settled and adapted their cultures to new conditions; conquest, colonisation, commercial penetration, religious proselytizing, topographical changes, land becoming worked out, pastures disappearing, harbours silting up – have preserved a constant fluidity of population.”
He continues:
“It is useless to pretend that, suddenly, at the beginning of the Boer War, the foundation of the Third International, or at this or that time in recent history, the piano stopped and the musical chairs were over, the lava stream cooled and congealed, and the whole process was at an end, for no other reason than that the enlightened people of Northern Europe – having lost their belief in revealed religion and falling back helplessly for moral guidance on their own tender feelings – have decided that it is Wrong.”
I don't care to defend colonialism, but I also have no patience for delusions of righteousness. It may begin with people of European descent apologizing to people of African or Native American descent, but the same logic would soon have the Arabs apologizing to the Spanish, the Turks to the Greeks, the Greeks to the Iranians, the citizens of Rome to all of Europe, the Mongolians to half the world, and so on. It changes nothing, but it apparently confirms for us the fairy tale of Progress – which always means our progress.
By all means, let us regret that history has often been terrible and violent. We can resolve individually to do well with that small portion of the future entrusted to us. But no one is culpable for an ancestor’s crime; no one can accept an apology offered to the dead. In fact we lack the right either to offer or receive such amends. When they’re offered anyway, it’s only a bit of theater we enact for our own moral gratification.
Thirty-seven years earlier, Evelyn Waugh traveled to Addis Ababa to report on the coronation of Haile Selassie, whose name means “Power of the Trinity.” In Remote People Waugh describes the experience as something like Alice’s disorienting adventures beyond the looking glass. Remote People is the third of Waugh’s travel books that I’ve read (after Labels and Ninety-Two Days). It’s also the best and funniest, and a feast of prose as savory as a mess of Ethiopian yebeg tibs.
After events in Addis Ababa, Waugh continued south via Aden, chronicling oddities, thrills, and exquisite miseries through British Kenya Colony, Uganda, Tanganyika Territory and the Belgian Congo. The colonial era was still at high tide in 1930 and, to judge by Waugh’s book, the politics of it all was as much a scandal at the time as it is in retrospect. Is there such thing as a legitimate right of conquest? And if not, how can crimes on such a grand scale be atoned for?
By what pass for today’s standards, Waugh is defiantly unwoke. He makes no apologies. Along with his maleness and whiteness, that makes him a part of The Problem. I suppose I am too. History is full of appalling violence and the destruction of one group by another in endless rounds. But like Waugh, I consider it a misreading of human nature to hope for better, or to imagine that sin is the province of any one race or people. Waugh writes:
“There is one general principle which we may accept; that the whole of history, from the earliest times until today, has been determined by the movements of peoples about the earth’s surface; migratory tribes settled and adapted their cultures to new conditions; conquest, colonisation, commercial penetration, religious proselytizing, topographical changes, land becoming worked out, pastures disappearing, harbours silting up – have preserved a constant fluidity of population.”
He continues:
“It is useless to pretend that, suddenly, at the beginning of the Boer War, the foundation of the Third International, or at this or that time in recent history, the piano stopped and the musical chairs were over, the lava stream cooled and congealed, and the whole process was at an end, for no other reason than that the enlightened people of Northern Europe – having lost their belief in revealed religion and falling back helplessly for moral guidance on their own tender feelings – have decided that it is Wrong.”
I don't care to defend colonialism, but I also have no patience for delusions of righteousness. It may begin with people of European descent apologizing to people of African or Native American descent, but the same logic would soon have the Arabs apologizing to the Spanish, the Turks to the Greeks, the Greeks to the Iranians, the citizens of Rome to all of Europe, the Mongolians to half the world, and so on. It changes nothing, but it apparently confirms for us the fairy tale of Progress – which always means our progress.
By all means, let us regret that history has often been terrible and violent. We can resolve individually to do well with that small portion of the future entrusted to us. But no one is culpable for an ancestor’s crime; no one can accept an apology offered to the dead. In fact we lack the right either to offer or receive such amends. When they’re offered anyway, it’s only a bit of theater we enact for our own moral gratification.
July 7, 2020
It is a wonderful essay, if a tad dated, on Reporters and Reporting by the great EW. If you love the English language, this is how it should be used in the hands of a master. If you have any degree of political, social etc thingy, you will find it hard. Shame because EW doesn't mean it that way at all.
Toast
Toast
January 28, 2016
*3.25 stars.
“It seems to me that a prig is someone who judges people by his own, rather than by their, standards; criticism only becomes useful when it can show people where their own principles are in conflict” (40).
“(And this shows the great gulf which divides the novelist from the journalist. The value of a novel depends on the standards each book evolves for itself; incidents which have no value as news are given any degree of importance according to their place in the book’s structure and their relation to intensity in the composition, just as subdued colours attain great intensity in pictures)” (41).
“The town, like the numerous lepers who inhabit it, seemed to be dying at its extremities…” 76).
“...I shall always be ill at ease with nine out of every ten people I meet; that I shall always find something startling and rather abhorrent in the things most other people think worth doing, and something puzzling in their standards of importance…” (85).
“...here, too, was the same decent respect for leisure…” (99).
“That seemed to me a new aspect of the tragedy” (100). *Reacting to a comment about the loss of so many “educated” men.
“Both parties in this dialogue seemed to be losing confidence in the other’s intelligence” (102).
“The roof remained wrapped in sleep. It is one of the odd characteristics of the Aden climate that it is practically impossible to remain both immobile and conscious” (104).
“Our knees seemed to be behaving as they sometimes do in dreams, when they suddenly refuse support in moments of pursuit by bearded women broadcasters” (108).
“He also gave me twelve gourds of Dhala honey, eight of which were subsequently stolen by the butler at the guest-house, who thus, with unconscious kindness, relieved me of a particularly unmanageable addition to my luggage, without incurring any possible self-reproach on grounds of ingratitude” (116). *Win-win!
“...the A.D.C.s doing all the polite drudgery that makes most picnics hideous…” (137).
“No one reading a book about smart people in London or Paris takes them as representing the general life of the country; but it is exactly this inference which is drawn when a book is written about smart people in Kenya” (138).
“But, of course, it is futile to attempt to impose any kind of theological consistency in politics, which are not an exact science but, by their nature, a series of makeshift, rule-of-thumb, practical devices for getting out of scrapes” (138).
“It is idle to pretend that I maintained a dignified calm” (176).
“It seems to me that a prig is someone who judges people by his own, rather than by their, standards; criticism only becomes useful when it can show people where their own principles are in conflict” (40).
“(And this shows the great gulf which divides the novelist from the journalist. The value of a novel depends on the standards each book evolves for itself; incidents which have no value as news are given any degree of importance according to their place in the book’s structure and their relation to intensity in the composition, just as subdued colours attain great intensity in pictures)” (41).
“The town, like the numerous lepers who inhabit it, seemed to be dying at its extremities…” 76).
“...I shall always be ill at ease with nine out of every ten people I meet; that I shall always find something startling and rather abhorrent in the things most other people think worth doing, and something puzzling in their standards of importance…” (85).
“...here, too, was the same decent respect for leisure…” (99).
“That seemed to me a new aspect of the tragedy” (100). *Reacting to a comment about the loss of so many “educated” men.
“Both parties in this dialogue seemed to be losing confidence in the other’s intelligence” (102).
“The roof remained wrapped in sleep. It is one of the odd characteristics of the Aden climate that it is practically impossible to remain both immobile and conscious” (104).
“Our knees seemed to be behaving as they sometimes do in dreams, when they suddenly refuse support in moments of pursuit by bearded women broadcasters” (108).
“He also gave me twelve gourds of Dhala honey, eight of which were subsequently stolen by the butler at the guest-house, who thus, with unconscious kindness, relieved me of a particularly unmanageable addition to my luggage, without incurring any possible self-reproach on grounds of ingratitude” (116). *Win-win!
“...the A.D.C.s doing all the polite drudgery that makes most picnics hideous…” (137).
“No one reading a book about smart people in London or Paris takes them as representing the general life of the country; but it is exactly this inference which is drawn when a book is written about smart people in Kenya” (138).
“But, of course, it is futile to attempt to impose any kind of theological consistency in politics, which are not an exact science but, by their nature, a series of makeshift, rule-of-thumb, practical devices for getting out of scrapes” (138).
“It is idle to pretend that I maintained a dignified calm” (176).
November 15, 2015
Waugh's assignment in Abyssinia in 1930 provided the raw material for two of his fine novels - Black Mischief, and Scoop. It also resulted in a non-fictional account (this book) of his experiences. While the novels are rightly still widely read and enjoyed, this book has travelled less comfortably. There are fine passages, to be sure, and Waugh's exquisite and deadly humour is to be found in some measure; but the political scene-setting which inevitably occurs at intervals slows things down and can be tiresome. I am grateful, however, not to have missed some gorgeous writing; as in these few sentences describing an incident which occurred on the voyage to Africa, involving soldiers of the French Foreign Legion:
'Two of them climbed through a porthole one night in the Suez Canal and escaped. Next day a third tried to follow their example. We were all on deck drinking our morning aperitifs when we heard a splash and saw a shaven-headed figure in shirt-sleeves scrambling up the bank behind us. He had no hat and the sun was at its strongest. He ran through the sand, away from the ship, with gradually slackening speed. When he realised that no one was pursuing him he stopped and turned round. The ship went on. The last we saw of him was a figure stumbling after us and waving his arms.'
Passages like this demonstrate Waugh's consummate skill as a reporter. In Scoop, the professional activities of fellow journalists was described in merciless detail; readers who believe the fictional account to be exaggerated will find in Remote People considerable evidence that it was not. When access to events was denied them, the correspondents had no compunction in turning to their own imaginations. Waugh does not criticise them for this ('it is perfectly natural that the cheaper newspapers should aim at entertainment rather than instruction, and give prominence to what is startling and frivolous over what is important but unamusing or unintelligible'); however he finds it disappointing that the inventions are frequently less interesting than the reality. 'For instance, one newspaper stated that the emperor's banqueting-hall was decorated with inlaid marble, ivory, and malachite. That is not very strange to anyone who has been into any of the cheaper London hotels. In actual fact, there were photographs of Mr Ramsay MacDonald and M Poincare, and a large, very lifelike oil painting of a lion, by an Australian artist.'
'Two of them climbed through a porthole one night in the Suez Canal and escaped. Next day a third tried to follow their example. We were all on deck drinking our morning aperitifs when we heard a splash and saw a shaven-headed figure in shirt-sleeves scrambling up the bank behind us. He had no hat and the sun was at its strongest. He ran through the sand, away from the ship, with gradually slackening speed. When he realised that no one was pursuing him he stopped and turned round. The ship went on. The last we saw of him was a figure stumbling after us and waving his arms.'
Passages like this demonstrate Waugh's consummate skill as a reporter. In Scoop, the professional activities of fellow journalists was described in merciless detail; readers who believe the fictional account to be exaggerated will find in Remote People considerable evidence that it was not. When access to events was denied them, the correspondents had no compunction in turning to their own imaginations. Waugh does not criticise them for this ('it is perfectly natural that the cheaper newspapers should aim at entertainment rather than instruction, and give prominence to what is startling and frivolous over what is important but unamusing or unintelligible'); however he finds it disappointing that the inventions are frequently less interesting than the reality. 'For instance, one newspaper stated that the emperor's banqueting-hall was decorated with inlaid marble, ivory, and malachite. That is not very strange to anyone who has been into any of the cheaper London hotels. In actual fact, there were photographs of Mr Ramsay MacDonald and M Poincare, and a large, very lifelike oil painting of a lion, by an Australian artist.'
March 10, 2011
Waugh is, as usual, rather acid and condescending. He doesn't take anybody seriously, himself included. That being said, I didn't start this expecting sensitive portrayals of cultures and people. However, IMO, if anybody ever needed a little historical cutting down to size (sorry, bad phrasing considering his height) it is Haile Selassie, and so far Waugh's description of Selassie's coronation is really funny.
After finishing the entire book, I would say that if you are really interested in the regions he travels through, it's a funny book and will offer another view of many familiar East African characters. But his constant mockery does get a little grating by the end.
After finishing the entire book, I would say that if you are really interested in the regions he travels through, it's a funny book and will offer another view of many familiar East African characters. But his constant mockery does get a little grating by the end.
July 31, 2009
Evelyn Waugh goes to Ethiopia for the coronation of Hailie Salassie -- great stuff. Not particularly PC, however, so do not read if you are offended by early 20th century western attitudes towards other cultures. Fine book.
May 19, 2020
From what I've seen so far, I think Evelyn Waugh's fiction novels are in a different class to his wishy washy travel diaries, so forgive me if I skip the full review on this occasion.
September 29, 2025
A truly fascinating and amusing re-telling of Waugh’s voyage and exploration through Eastern Africa in the 1930’s
September 16, 2019
Evelyn Waugh was an unpleasant man with nasty political and religious ideas, but a brilliant writer when he chose to be. There are places in this book where he does so choose.
Waugh went to Africa in 1930 to cover the coronation of Ras Tafari, the emperor of Abyssinia, for the Times of London. His descriptions of the ceremony and his travels in the country are vivid and often hilarious, though anyone who has read Wilfred Thesiger’s version of Tafari’s coronation may wonder whether the two men had ended up by accident in different countries. In his autobiography Thesiger presents Abyssinia (now Ethiopia), as a heroically, splendidly barbarous land; Waugh agrees about the barbarity but gives it to us as a gimcrack shambles, populated by savages playing ineptly and absurdly at a game, civilization, to which they do not know the rules. He claims to find it all very funny, but his humorous sallies, most of which seem to be founded in racism, religious prejudice and snobbery, often fail to amuse because they are so obviously based on a mistaken interpretation of what he sees about him.
Evidently stung at some point during the interminable coronation by the tsetse fly of perversity, Waugh decided afterwards to take in even more of a continent that he must, by then, surely have recognized as disagreeable to his constitution. He thus commenced to travel by road, rail and steamer down the East African coast, visiting Aden, Kenya and Uganda before making a detour into the Belgian Congo in the hope of catching an aeroplane to fly him over Central Africa to an Atlantic seaport where he could catch a steamer back to England. The final part of this plan failed, leaving him to return to British East Africa and make his way by train down to South Africa, where (his funds now almost exhausted) he bought himself a third-class passage home.
His brief stay in Aden, a hellish place that he mischievously pretends to like, gives us the funniest passages in the book, which describe an outdoor ramble with a Levantine businessman and his European clerks that turns out to be a kind of Outward Bound test of manhood, involving climbs up precipitous cliffs and a swim in a shark-infested bay. He professes to like Kenya, and gives us a sympathetic portrait of the white farmers and the decadent Happy Valley Set, who in spite of their decadence were very much his kind of people; but he then ventures for several pages to expound on colonial and imperial politics, about which he doesn’t have a clue. It’s demented waffle, all of it, and completely ruins his picture of Kenya for us by making it plain that he traversed Africa quite blind to anything that he had not, in some sense, expected to see. This affects our vicarious experience as much as it did his direct one, because we don’t get to read about anything new, or even about anything old from a fresh perspective.
From this point onwards his travelogue becomes a litany of tedium and discomfort, taking a nosedive into genuine privation aboard a Belgian steamer on the Great Lakes of Africa. This part of Africa, I have found, does not lend itself to enjoyable travel writing, principally because it so unpleasant and ugly in every aspect, from the scenery to the souls of the people who inhabit it. Waugh only recovers his composure when he has left the Congo and is safely back in British territory, but there is not much to the book after this. The last few pages, about a visit to a London night-club, seem intended to prove that the civilized world can be quite as unpleasant as the interior of Africa. All they really seem to prove is that Evelyn Waugh could find something to repel him in almost any circumstances.
Don’t read this book. It’s hideously outdated anyway. If you want to read something good by Waugh, read one of his novels.
This review was originally posted on Notes from Ceylon.
Waugh went to Africa in 1930 to cover the coronation of Ras Tafari, the emperor of Abyssinia, for the Times of London. His descriptions of the ceremony and his travels in the country are vivid and often hilarious, though anyone who has read Wilfred Thesiger’s version of Tafari’s coronation may wonder whether the two men had ended up by accident in different countries. In his autobiography Thesiger presents Abyssinia (now Ethiopia), as a heroically, splendidly barbarous land; Waugh agrees about the barbarity but gives it to us as a gimcrack shambles, populated by savages playing ineptly and absurdly at a game, civilization, to which they do not know the rules. He claims to find it all very funny, but his humorous sallies, most of which seem to be founded in racism, religious prejudice and snobbery, often fail to amuse because they are so obviously based on a mistaken interpretation of what he sees about him.
Evidently stung at some point during the interminable coronation by the tsetse fly of perversity, Waugh decided afterwards to take in even more of a continent that he must, by then, surely have recognized as disagreeable to his constitution. He thus commenced to travel by road, rail and steamer down the East African coast, visiting Aden, Kenya and Uganda before making a detour into the Belgian Congo in the hope of catching an aeroplane to fly him over Central Africa to an Atlantic seaport where he could catch a steamer back to England. The final part of this plan failed, leaving him to return to British East Africa and make his way by train down to South Africa, where (his funds now almost exhausted) he bought himself a third-class passage home.
His brief stay in Aden, a hellish place that he mischievously pretends to like, gives us the funniest passages in the book, which describe an outdoor ramble with a Levantine businessman and his European clerks that turns out to be a kind of Outward Bound test of manhood, involving climbs up precipitous cliffs and a swim in a shark-infested bay. He professes to like Kenya, and gives us a sympathetic portrait of the white farmers and the decadent Happy Valley Set, who in spite of their decadence were very much his kind of people; but he then ventures for several pages to expound on colonial and imperial politics, about which he doesn’t have a clue. It’s demented waffle, all of it, and completely ruins his picture of Kenya for us by making it plain that he traversed Africa quite blind to anything that he had not, in some sense, expected to see. This affects our vicarious experience as much as it did his direct one, because we don’t get to read about anything new, or even about anything old from a fresh perspective.
From this point onwards his travelogue becomes a litany of tedium and discomfort, taking a nosedive into genuine privation aboard a Belgian steamer on the Great Lakes of Africa. This part of Africa, I have found, does not lend itself to enjoyable travel writing, principally because it so unpleasant and ugly in every aspect, from the scenery to the souls of the people who inhabit it. Waugh only recovers his composure when he has left the Congo and is safely back in British territory, but there is not much to the book after this. The last few pages, about a visit to a London night-club, seem intended to prove that the civilized world can be quite as unpleasant as the interior of Africa. All they really seem to prove is that Evelyn Waugh could find something to repel him in almost any circumstances.
Don’t read this book. It’s hideously outdated anyway. If you want to read something good by Waugh, read one of his novels.
This review was originally posted on Notes from Ceylon.
August 14, 2023
The young Waugh took an journalism assignment to Africa in 1930 that was grist to the mill for not only his blackly satiric Black Mischief but only this my favorite to Waugh's travelogues. He is both a master observer and one of the great prose stylists of the 20th Century. A taste:
In fact, it is to Alice in Wonderland that my thoughts recur in seeking some historical parallel for life in Addis Ababa. There are others: Israel in the time of Saul, the Scotland of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the Sublime Porte of Constantinople as one sees it revealed in the dispatches of the late eighteenth century, but it is in Alice only that one finds the peculiar flavour of galvanized and translated reality, where animals carry watches in their waistcoat pockets, royalty paces the croquet lawn beside the chief executioner, and litigation ends in a flutter of playing-cards. How to recapture, how retail, the crazy enchantment of these Ethiopian days?
Remote Peoples is stronger and less dated that the account of his later trip, Waugh in Abyssinia, which he also used to forge that his great satire of fake news, Scoop.
In fact, it is to Alice in Wonderland that my thoughts recur in seeking some historical parallel for life in Addis Ababa. There are others: Israel in the time of Saul, the Scotland of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the Sublime Porte of Constantinople as one sees it revealed in the dispatches of the late eighteenth century, but it is in Alice only that one finds the peculiar flavour of galvanized and translated reality, where animals carry watches in their waistcoat pockets, royalty paces the croquet lawn beside the chief executioner, and litigation ends in a flutter of playing-cards. How to recapture, how retail, the crazy enchantment of these Ethiopian days?
Remote Peoples is stronger and less dated that the account of his later trip, Waugh in Abyssinia, which he also used to forge that his great satire of fake news, Scoop.
May 4, 2020
Having discovered, presumably to his delight, that he was a good enough writer that people would actually pay to read his 'what I did in my holidays' essays', Evelyn Waugh clearly decided to pen his way around the world, on this occasion convincing a Fleet Street newspaper to pay for his travels in Africa. The notional peg on which he hung his expense account was that he would write an account of the coronation of the Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, and indeed he did, and highly entertaining it is too, but clearly Waugh was basically blagging: getting other people and organisations with more money to pay for him to have adventures while, preferably, staying in the best accommodation and eating at the best restaurants around.
However, being Waugh, Evelyn manages to make this eminently readable and, on the personal level, he was able to eschew comfort when necessary in order to venture further off the beaten track. Still, travelling in the mid-1930s, when the British Empire reached its global height, and having all the confidence of a journalistic remit, a public-school and Oxbrige education, and the sublime self-confidence that came from realising that he was the supreme stylist of the English language writing, Waugh could, and did, go anywhere, talk himself into anything, and emerge unscathed and, usually, with a decent glass of champagne in hand. Remarkable adventures of a remarkable man. Highly recommended.
However, being Waugh, Evelyn manages to make this eminently readable and, on the personal level, he was able to eschew comfort when necessary in order to venture further off the beaten track. Still, travelling in the mid-1930s, when the British Empire reached its global height, and having all the confidence of a journalistic remit, a public-school and Oxbrige education, and the sublime self-confidence that came from realising that he was the supreme stylist of the English language writing, Waugh could, and did, go anywhere, talk himself into anything, and emerge unscathed and, usually, with a decent glass of champagne in hand. Remarkable adventures of a remarkable man. Highly recommended.
February 21, 2021
I thought I would really like this book, but I found both the writing and the story line tedious. Having been written in 1931, I expected some crude racial descriptions, but the disparaging references to "gangs of ruffians, negresses, god-foresaken places, Jew boys" etc. were still disconcerting.
Far too much of the book was dedicated to the author's observations in Ethiopia surrounding the coronation of King Selassie, cavorting in expat champagne parties, and not enough of the story focused on her later travels in Aden, Uganda and the Congo, which I found much more interesting. As she is a journalist, I expected more from the author, but there was too little wit or insight into the times she was writing in. Her accounts of the few weeks she spent in Yemen was the closest she got to delving into colonial structures and the complexities of imposing British rule on disparate local clans.
One very relatable aspect: the chapters called: Nightmares 1, 2 & 3, which describe episodes of horrible travel mess-ups where the boat had already departed, or the train wasn't running, and she was stuck in remote places to deal with swarms of malarial mosquitos and intense heat, trying desperately to defeat boredom and despair. Anyone that is well-traveled has inevitably had similar moments, and I for one found these parts of her story sympathetic.
Far too much of the book was dedicated to the author's observations in Ethiopia surrounding the coronation of King Selassie, cavorting in expat champagne parties, and not enough of the story focused on her later travels in Aden, Uganda and the Congo, which I found much more interesting. As she is a journalist, I expected more from the author, but there was too little wit or insight into the times she was writing in. Her accounts of the few weeks she spent in Yemen was the closest she got to delving into colonial structures and the complexities of imposing British rule on disparate local clans.
One very relatable aspect: the chapters called: Nightmares 1, 2 & 3, which describe episodes of horrible travel mess-ups where the boat had already departed, or the train wasn't running, and she was stuck in remote places to deal with swarms of malarial mosquitos and intense heat, trying desperately to defeat boredom and despair. Anyone that is well-traveled has inevitably had similar moments, and I for one found these parts of her story sympathetic.
May 8, 2016
"Remote people" is the story of the coronation of Ethiopia's last emperor Haile Selassi in 1930, seen through the eyes of British journalist and author Evelyn Waugh. It's a fascinating account, colorfully written and also includes chapters on his subsequent travels to Aden, Kenya, Zanzibar, the Belgian Congo and South Africa. I had been looking for this book ever since my posting in Ethiopia (2005-2007). I only found expensive copies online, but finally I got my copy for a few euros in a small second hand bookshop in The Netherlands alongside with Waugh's sequel on Ethiopia, "Waugh in Abyssinia", which I am going to read soon!
December 27, 2022
Didn’t love this.
Wanted to read this because it starts with the coronation of Haile Selassie (Ras Tasfari) which seemed interesting and there’s another book on my to-read list on the end of his reign.
I had read a couple of Waugh’s funny books (including Decline and Fall) and found them quite entertaining.
This is a lot less entertaining. A bit dry.
Waugh comes across as a pretty good with words, a gung-ho traveller, but a fairly unpleasant person.
Possibly the most interesting parts of the book were about politics, empire, race, etc. Waugh complains about how woke his contemporaries were in 1931.
Wanted to read this because it starts with the coronation of Haile Selassie (Ras Tasfari) which seemed interesting and there’s another book on my to-read list on the end of his reign.
I had read a couple of Waugh’s funny books (including Decline and Fall) and found them quite entertaining.
This is a lot less entertaining. A bit dry.
Waugh comes across as a pretty good with words, a gung-ho traveller, but a fairly unpleasant person.
Possibly the most interesting parts of the book were about politics, empire, race, etc. Waugh complains about how woke his contemporaries were in 1931.
March 8, 2022
Nice to be able to read a contemporary account from a first hand traveler.
1930-1931 account of journey through Ethiopia, Djibouti, Aden, Zanzibar. Mombasa, Nairobi, Kampala, Burundi, Tanganyika, Congo, Zambia, Rhodesia, South Africa , St Helena, Southampton.
Roundtrip for the mere price of £ 500.
Many descriptions still fitted the time period 1965 - 1980. So recognizable and a sentimental journey.
1930-1931 account of journey through Ethiopia, Djibouti, Aden, Zanzibar. Mombasa, Nairobi, Kampala, Burundi, Tanganyika, Congo, Zambia, Rhodesia, South Africa , St Helena, Southampton.
Roundtrip for the mere price of £ 500.
Many descriptions still fitted the time period 1965 - 1980. So recognizable and a sentimental journey.
March 1, 2011
This is a typically unsympathetic view of Africa and Africans from the 1930s. The most readable part is the chapter on the Coronation of Emperor Haile Selassie.
The other half of the book is a journal of a tour through other East African countries -- mostly devoted to the goodness of the colonizers, complaints about the heat and food etc.
The other half of the book is a journal of a tour through other East African countries -- mostly devoted to the goodness of the colonizers, complaints about the heat and food etc.
August 14, 2012
Quite enjoyable. Not one word in excess. Precise and funny descriptions (we should remember that Waugh made this trip in 1930). And above all, he never tries to show off - it's always the country or the rest of the people who are the leading characters. So far, Evelyn Waugh has never disappointed me.
July 5, 2021
Very good book. Waugh was an excellent writer. good flow and description. Waugh is generally viewed as an aristocrat, but this book demonstrates that at this time and place (Africa, 1930s), travel was challenging and filled with hardships. Good insight into the politics, culture and people that existed then. Easy to read and entertaining.
June 29, 2021
No, not for me. Just comes across as snobby, rambly, and completely of its time (which is a polite way of saying racist). One of those books where I felt like it might as well have been fiction because of how little I seemed to care about what was happening (which is rare for a non-fiction book).
December 14, 2012
Reading in WAUGH ABROAD: COLLECTED TRAVEL WRITING (Everyman)
February 24, 2016
it was alright.
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