Nothing prepares one for the spritely acid bath of Evelyn Waugh’s third novel less than reading it after his first two novels. Yes, those are black comedies, too, but there’s something extra-chilling about the whimsical savagery found here, where life is cheap and violence constant.
Off the coast of northeastern Africa, the island nation of Azania stands athwart the march of progress, its people enmeshed in bloody feuds and quick scams. Seth, the new emperor, seeks to change that by looking to to Europe for inspiration. He happens upon a mash-up of Marxism and family planning that blows up sooner than you can say: “THROUGH STERILITY TO CULTURE.”
Counting on the help of an opportunistic Brit, Basil Seal, Seth’s road to nowhere implicates both Africans and Europeans as well as the hope they might have anything to learn from each other.


