SOURCE: “Review of ‘Scott-King's Modern Europe,’” in New York Times Book Review, Vol. 1, No. 25, February 20, 1949, pp. 1, 25.

In the following review of Scott-King's Modern Europe, Orwell argues that Waugh's work is conservative in outlook and lacks necessary elements of political satire.

Mr. Evelyn Waugh's recent book, The Loved One, was an attack, and by no means a good-natured attack, on American civilization, but in Scott-King's Modern Europe he shows himself willing to handle his native Continent with at least equal rudeness. America worships corpses but Europe mass-produces them, is what he seems to be saying. The two books are indeed in some sense complementary to one another, though Scott-King's Modern Europe is less obviously brilliant than the other.

The book has a general resemblance to Candide, and is perhaps even intended to be a modern counterpart of Candide, with the significant difference that the hero is middle-aged at the...