A Handful of Dust (Everyman's Library)
by Evelyn Waugh
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Book Summary Information
Author: Evelyn WaughIntroduction: William Boyd
Edition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2002-04-09
ISBN: 0375414207
Number of pages: 264
Publisher: Everyman's Library
Book Reviews of A Handful of Dust (Everyman's Library)
Book Review: A Dark, Satirical Masterpiece
Summary: 5 Stars
A Handful of Dust is the apex of Evelyn Waugh's signature acid satire and, except for those who prefer the broader and more ambitious Brideshead Revisited, his masterpiece. It is one of the all-time greatest satirical novels and one of the twentieth century's best overall. Quite entertaining, it pulls us in quickly and keeps us engrossed until the end. Along the way we get much insightful commentary about class; marriage, the family, and other domestic issues; and even a starkly thought-provoking contrast between modern Western society and the developing world. Waugh's vision was dark, and A Handful of Dust is irredeemably bleak - so much so that American publishers insisted on a new ending. This last has thankfully been relegated to an almost literal footnote, letting Waugh's stunning vision shine - not brightly but, as it were, dimly.
Like much of Waugh, the novel deals primarily with the British upper classes' early twentieth century decline. Waugh saw the storied aristocracy, the backbone of British society and culture since before the Modern era, crumbling around him and dramatized it vividly and memorably. Its passing was the death knell not just of a class but of all it stood for; its tastes in politics, art, religion, and even things as fundamental as speech were being ushered out in favor of the middle class ethos that has since dominated. Waugh was somewhat ambivalent about this, lamenting the demise of what he saw as many positive values but also well aware of the class' weaknesses. It was also obvious to him that the upper classes had sown the seeds of their own destruction and made it inevitable by perverse stubbornness; much as he hated to see them go in some ways, he essentially thought they deserved it.
All this comes across in the novel. Waugh's unadorned style lets the downfall more or less speak for itself; liberals may be offended that his depiction is not celebratory, but he was too aware of the tragic in life not to show this angle. A Handful of Dust is thus a curious mix of "you had it coming" mockery that rubs in the plight at least as harshly as a Marxist would and a sentimental, near-Romantic longing for a fabled institution's passing. The appropriately named Last family leaves little doubt as to why the upper classes perished. Vain, selfish, and parochial, they are close-minded and insular to a fault, refusing to let go of an inherited pride distinctly out of place in the twentieth century. They can almost see destruction rushing toward them, but their almost natural arrogance makes them think they will somehow survive. Living a lifestyle that even they know is outdated, they are practically a walking self-parody. Perhaps more significantly, their private life is in shambles. The broken marriage - indeed, the broken family - at the book's center is a bleak portrait of just how miserable marriage can be when partners are incompatible, especially with class issues thrown in. The book runs us through an emotional gamut ranging from pathos to cynical chuckling, moving us and provoking more than a little thought.
This is all the more remarkable in that, as often with Waugh, there is no conventionally likable character. The young John Last is sympathetic, but his role is so minor that he is really little more than fodder for tragedy and underscoring other characters' despicableness. Patriarch Tony Last is sympathetic because he is more sinned against than sinning, but even he is overflowing with vanity and pride. The other major characters - his wife Brenda, her lover John Beaver, family "friend" Jock Grant-Menzies, and the mysterious Mr. Todd - are far worse, though this is not immediately clear with the last two. This makes Tony seem far more decent, but the depiction of him as so naïve as to be fatally manipulated by those he does not even suspect is more pathetic than sad. His relatively minor faults certainly do not warrant his punishment, far less his tragic end, but his fate comes off more as depicting the generally tragic human condition than a tear-jerking individual downfall.
Sharp as they are, satire and social comedy thus do not keep the book from being extremely dark; A Handful of Ashes, the title Waugh wanted, would have been far more appropriate. The last section is one of the bleakest imaginable - dark enough in itself but far more so if taken symbolically as a contrast between supposedly civilized, all-powerful Western society and the mysteriously foreboding rest of the world. If not exactly fatalistic, there is a strong sense that, however powerful and proud the Western world becomes, it will never overcome the dark forces at human nature's heart as personified by Mr. Todd. The satire is thus in a sense double-edged; if true that Waugh feels for what he mocks, it is even truer that he is unafraid to mock everything. His wit is vicious and should be a warning to all.
There are no real complaints; the novel is very tightly written and readable. Some find the closing section a bit forced, specifically thinking Tony's drastic solution uncharacteristically impulsive. This probably comes from the fact that Waugh adapted it from a prior short story. The transition is not perfectly smooth, but the section is in my view written extremely well and put forth convincingly; Waugh certainly gets his point across at any rate. As for style, Waugh is in my view one of modern fiction's great stylists, his conciseness, straight-forwardness, relative lack of allusion, and general avoidance of Modernist techniques making him stand out in an era when literature became ever less accessible. He may lean toward overly simple for some, but he has the great virtue of clearness that I value highly and that is so sorely lacking in much post-nineteenth century literature. That said, what was concise and clear seventy-plus years ago is not exactly so now. Waugh is formal and, in contrast to much subsequent fiction, especially the popular kind, somewhat stiff. He was not really pretentious but can easily come off as such to those not prepared to take him on his own terms. It should also perhaps be pointed out that Waugh was uber-British; the country's culture and history infuse every aspect of the novel, though the themes are universal. This is of course not a bad thing, but those unfamiliar with British culture and literature - or who dislike it - may be somewhat averse to the novel. My advice to them and all others not immediately taken with the book is to stick with it. It is a satirical masterwork that should be read by all fans of that genre as well as anyone interested in English or twentieth century fiction generally. Readers should not let this dust slip through their hands.
Summary of A Handful of Dust (Everyman's Library)
(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)Evelyn Waugh?s 1934 novel is a bitingly funny vision of aristocratic decadence in England between the wars. It tells the story of Tony Last, who, to the irritation of his wife, is inordinately obsessed with his Victorian Gothic country house and life. When Lady Brenda Last embarks on an affair with the worthless John Beaver out of boredom with her husband, she sets in motion a sequence of tragicomic disasters that reveal Waugh at his most scathing.
The action is set in the brittle social world recognizable from Decline and Fall and Vile Bodies, darkened and deepened by Waugh?s own experience of sexual betrayal. As Tony is driven by the urbane savagery of this world to seek solace in the wilds of the Brazilian jungle, A Handful of Dust demonstrates the incomparably brilliant and wicked wit of one of the twentieth century?s most accomplished novelists.
"All over England people were waking up, queasy and despondent."
Few writers have walked the line between farce and tragedy as nimbly as Evelyn Waugh, who employed the conventions of the comic novel to chip away at the already crumbling English class system. His 1934 novel, A Handful of Dust, is a sublime example of his bleak satirical style: a mordantly funny exposé of aristocratic decadence and ennui in England between the wars.
Tony Last is an aristocrat whose attachment to an ideal feudal past is so profound that he is blind to his wife Brenda's boredom with the stately rhythms of country life. While he earnestly plays the lord of the manor in his ghastly Victorian Gothic pile, she sets herself up in a London flat and pursues an affair with the social-climbing idler John Beaver. In the first half of the novel Waugh fearlessly anatomizes the lifestyles of the rich and shameless. Everyone moves through an endless cycle of parties and country-house weekends, being scrupulously polite in public and utterly horrid in private. Sex is something one does to relieve the boredom, and Brenda's affair provides a welcome subject for conversation:
It had been an autumn of very sparse and meagre romance; only the most obvious people had parted or come together, and Brenda was filling a want long felt by those whose simple, vicarious pleasure it was to discuss the subject in bed over the telephone.Tony's indifference and Brenda's selfishness give their relationship a sort of equilibrium until tragedy forces them to face facts. The collapse of their relationship accelerates, and in the famous final section of the book Tony seeks solace in a foolhardy search for El Dorado, throwing himself on the mercy of a jungle only slightly more savage than the one he leaves behind in England. For all its biting wit, A Handful of Dust paints a bleak picture of the English upper classes, reaching beyond satire toward a very modern sense of despair. In Waugh's world, culture, breeding, and the trappings of civilization only provide more subtle means of destruction. --Simon Leake
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