An ironic phantasmagoria, comparable to the works of Gogol and Saltykov-Shchedrin, but based on purely British material. What Evelyn Waugh does in this small novel with the cliches of “colonial prose”, anti-war prose and “rural” prose is impossible to describe; for this, quote it would have taken the entire book. So, a small and generally funny mistake occurred: a modest correspondent from a provincial newspaper was sent instead of his namesake to a certain war-torn African country to cover the fighting. But one small mistake entails others, not small ones at all, and soon it becomes funny to no one except the readers...