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Apr 13, 2010

David rated it:

For those of you who live cloistered in a medieval turret of moral purity and use the interwebs only for researching your medical ailments (and, oh -- of course, researching books as well), you may or may not be interested to know that there is a 'cuckolding' porn genre. The interesting detail about this isn't that there is a particular subset of video pornography dealing with spouses cheating on each other -- because when you consider some of the very specific porn specialty niches (biracial pa More...

17 comments like (32 people liked it)

Nov 21, 2008

Jennifer rated it:

I have had this book on my shelves since I finished Brideshead Revisited three years ago. I really do enjoy Waugh's writing and his observations of life in Britain of the 20s/30's...He is especially gifted at creating characthers (good, bad and ugly) that you are drawn to and can understand. His characters that are children are especially amusing because they are so "real." I can just hear my kids saying the same things and acting the same way...This book was about the disintegratio More...

3 comments like (3 people liked it)

Sep 25, 2010

Julie rated it:

Reading Waugh is like being air-kissed by a socialite who clutches your shoulder in mock affection with one hand while raising an ice-pick behind your back with the other. You know you should be on guard for certain disaster, but charisma sweeps you away in an intoxicating wave of champagne and caviar.

Waugh wrote with scathing irony of the plight of English gentry between the two world wars. Sinking into debt and irrelevancy in the wake of the Depression, these bored and bigoted hyp More...

10 comments like (9 people liked it)

Apr 09, 2010

Christopher rated it:

Oh I hate this book--but in a good way. It was one long descent into a world without meaning. A beautifully depressing tale that I struggle to extricate myself from. I feel entwined somehow in the struggle between the sacred life Tony lives of decorum, nobles oblige, and preservation of family heritage and the profane drive to detach from the nonsense of the past. But the characters in this book seem only to exchange it for vapid modern existence. Is there no middle ground?

I've rehea More...

7 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jul 20, 2010

Steve rated it:

When I encountered Gore Vidal's statement that Evelyn Waugh was "our time's first satirist," I took him to mean our times best satirist. He could have intended nothing other.

Waugh's target in this novel is the English upper class, their attitudes, mores, shallowness, narrow self-centeredness, and on. . .and on. How can we characterize the nature of Waugh's satire? Blistering. Caustic. And utterly delightful.

The British upper class was not his only target, More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 28, 2011

Lorenzo rated it:

- Have got out of dinner 16th. Are you still free?
- Delighted. Second thoughts always best. Brenda.

This short interchange via telegrams between Mr Beaver and "her ladyship" Brenda Last may be considered the turning point of this novel, written in 1934.

While reading this passage, it occurred to me that the same thrust and counter-thrust may have happened today, via textings.
Don't you think so?
Sure, a present-day Mrs Last would have texted " More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 02, 2008

Dfordoom rated it:

As you’d expect from Evelyn Waugh, A Handful of Dust is a very funny novel. But this is very black comedy. Written in 1934, this is a biting and at times quite cruel satire on the aimless, bored, empty and hedonistic and lifestyles of the upper classes and their hangers-on. The Depression has hit so many are feeling the pinch, including Tony Last as he tries desperately to hold on to the crumbling gothic pile that he loves so much. Meanwhile his wife, Lady Brenda, is bored. So bored that sh More...

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Feb 11, 2008

Robert rated it:

Now I know where Martin Amis got his writing style from. "Pastoral" would be a kind word to describe this work, as weirdly absorbing as it becomes. The basic premise mirrors that of many comedies of manners from around its time; wife takes apartment in the city and takes a lover, leaving the hapless husband at home. Wife feels guilty. Wife attempts to set husband up with a lover. Husband is oblivious. The repercussions are immense.

I got the feeling that Waugh was trying too h More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 11, 2008

Skylar rated it:

It is appropriate that Waugh should allude to "The Waste Land," since A Handful of Dust is itself a satirical expose of the moral waste land that is modern society, a world drifting without the anchor of religion and tradition. But Waugh’s message is communicated both gradually and subtly, and with great wit. He seems always to select the perfect turn of phrase, and he creates extremely amusing and original situations. Take, for instance, the sad case of Tony Last, who, delirious with More...

4 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jun 17, 2008

Tommy rated it:

I guess this is supposed to be a tragedy of sorts, or Gothic as his chapter titles suggest, but Waugh treats everything so lightly that you finish it not feeling overly sorry for the poor man who is wronged, nor do you care much for the other characters and their "satisfactory" endings. It strikes me as a bit too callous, even for the "traditional" British way that affairs were treated at that time.

The only rationale I see for doing this would be as a commentary More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 04, 2009

Pris rated it:

As Good As it Gets: Surreal, Amoral, Aristocratic Decadence , 29 Jul 2007

"And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
Frisch weht der Wind
Der Heimat zu.
Mein Irisch Kind,
Wo weilest du? "
The Waste Land, T.S. Eliot 1922

Evelyn Waugh has given More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 05, 2012

Christine marked it as to-read

from mom's travel fiction list

A Handful of Dust
By Waugh, Evelyn

Laced with cynicism and truth, "A Handful of Dust" satirizes a certain stratum of English life where all the characters have money, but lack practically every other credential. Murderously urbane, it depicts the breakup of a marriage in the London gentry, where the errant wife suffers from terminal boredom, and becomes enamoured of a social parasite and professional luncheon-goer.

More...

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Jan 21, 2012

La Stamberga dei Lettori rated it:

Il rovescio della medaglia, il 'dietro le quinte' di tanti gialli di Agatha Christie è ben rappresentato dalla società che Evelyn Waugh mette in scena in questo desolato paesaggio di nullafacenti aristocratici inglesi old style, inetti e inconcludenti, insulsi e relegati in una serie di clichè tardo vittoriani, del tutto incapaci di fronteggiare i cambiamenti imposti dalla modernità.
Sotto i toni apparentemente neutri e distaccati con cui Waugh racconta la vita del suo protagonista, Tony Las More...

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Dec 17, 2011

Agatha rated it:

This is an extremely biting satire of the upper-class English in the period b/w WWI and WWII. Anthony Last is trying to hold onto his family's glorious past by keeping up their hereditary estate and playing "lord of the manor;" meanwhile, this lifestyle bores his wife, Brenda, to tears, and she escapes to London as often as she can, eventually initiating an affair with a young social climber whom Waugh laughably calls "John Beaver." The reaction amongst their morally corrup More...

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Sep 11, 2011

Pam rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

1 comment like

Sep 09, 2011

Moses rated it:

Reading Waugh’s A handful of dust made me want to read everything he has ever written. I have been searching for Brideshead Revisited for a long time since I saw the movie, and now I have a much intensified reason to try and get my hand on it.

The story of Tony Last and the slow degeneration of his life, A Handful of Dust is a devastating account of how things can go really wrong, and everything can actually be traced to something or some point where we lost the mark. His wife Brenda More...

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May 01, 2011

Jessica rated it:

A Handful of Dust is the story of a marriage going sour. Tony and Brenda Last drift apart slowly at first, and then quickly as Brenda takes first a lover and then a flat in London, hardly spending any time at the family estate. Waugh's delightful wit and subtle absurdities keep the reader smiling even as he throws tragedy into the plot and drives Brenda and Tony irreparably apart.

The book takes a bizarre twist at the end, which I won't go into so as to preserve its novelty for future r More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 04, 2010

Anthony rated it:

Waugh is masterful at what he does here: a fast-paced satire, dealing with adultery, and the British upper crust circa 1930. The comedy is served up dry and black . . . and it's hilarious. I stayed up until 3 in the morning giggling to myself while reading in bed. On top of that, the main theme tackles the decline of the British Empire/decay of morals/etc. head-on and adroitly, without coming off as preachy (something Waugh has been accused of in his later work).

However, plot wise More...

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Nov 17, 2009

Michael rated it:

What delicious fun! This book is usually called a satire, by which it seems to be meant that Waugh disliked almost all the characters and usually selected the nasty option for their actions in the story. That is not normally my cup of tea, but he was so extremely good at it. So, a slightly naughty reading pleasure, I suppose -- had me laughing aloud numerous times. An enjoyable response that doesn't happen often anymore! The plot takes an odd turn as the book approaches its end, but that pr More...

4 comments like (2 people liked it)

Nov 03, 2009

Trevor rated it:

I don’t know why I thought this was going to be a comedy, but I did think that when I started. The problem might have been the title, the clear allusion to Eliot’s The Waste Land and Other Poems - you can only really be either ponderous or funny if you allude to The Waste Land and I just suspected that this would be funny. And then it starts with a character who is on the outskirts of polite society – not unlike the main character in Waugh’s first novel Decline And Fall, and well, it just mad More...

7 comments like (7 people liked it)

Aug 10, 2011

Jim rated it:

I see that I have classified A Handful of Dust as "humor." It is, a sort of bright, brittle, mirthless humor that looks at the sea of human relationships and sees them dissolve in the great wastes that surround and lay beyond a seemingly humdrum life.

Tony and Brenda Last live in the country. Back when Tony was wooing Brenda, they went out to parties and were bright young things who seemed to lead a charmed life. Tony was equally wedded to his family's country estate, Hetton. More...

3 comments like (4 people liked it)

Dec 13, 2008

Ellie rated it:

This is a dark and savage satire on British society in the 30's;

"It was, transparently, a made-up party, the guests being chosen for no mutual bond—least of all affection for Mrs. Beaver or for each other—except that their names were in current use . . ." p. 51

Waugh is not afraid to attack, and unlike some of his other books, A handful of dust has a much more savage and bitter feel. There is less of the frothy language and light gentle almost poking fun in an af More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Oct 02, 2011

F.R. rated it:

This satire from the 1930s is – as one would expect from Waugh – sharp, clever and merciless to its targets; although by the end it has veered off to some odd places, which might strengthen its impact, or may just prove to dark for some readers. Much like his excellent ‘Vile Bodies’, Waugh takes us to a distinctly Wodehouse-esque universe of aristocrats and bright young things. And yet this doesn’t have the exuberance of that earlier book, instead venturing to areas far crueller and colder. I More...

7 comments like (7 people liked it)

Feb 14, 2011

Veronica rated it:

I must confess to literary ignorance with regards to Evelyn Waugh and while the name was familiar, I believed the author female. I now know better and will most certainly be adding him to my “authors to read more of” list.

Alas, I digress, but must admit to another offense; reading a review in advance which as it turned out, was not at all favorable, and in fact, insinuated the book to be rather a bore. I, on the other hand, found A Handful of Dust to be quite pleasurable. Waugh’s w More...

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Mar 12, 2011

Mark rated it:

A comedy in the sense of that quote that's attributed to Mel Brooks (and probably others in different phrasings): "Tragedy is what happens to me. Comedy is what happens to you."

And that's really the way it is here, although it starts out as more of a run of the mill comedy, with a bored wife who starts an affair chiefly because she's bored with the country estate life, then tries to set up her husband with different other women so he won't be so lonely. The reactions of the More...

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Jul 21, 2010

Marita rated it:

If you're looking for a sound reminder that everyone is out there for themselves, this book is a solid place to start. You won't get the big dramatic scenes or conclusions in this read but it will nudge your towards a similar conclusion.

Lets be honest. It's easy for people to set aside their responsibility to other people from time to time, perhaps for curiosity, perhaps to better their situation. It's also easy to wash your hands of any responsibility for the ill-fortune you direct More...

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Nov 30, 2008

Lisa rated it:

Waugh's look at the thoroughly debauched, morally bankrupt English gentry. He savages these urbane savages with his cold rapier wit. If you like the early satires of Waught this one is for you. If you have always found Waugh too mean-spirited to be effective, this book will only strengthen that opinion. Though not quite a favorite, I rather liked the book myself, but haven't read it since the mid '80s and can't offer a really good review. For what it is worth, this book made Modern Library's Li More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 22, 2011

Stephen rated it:

This one gets a 4 purely for entertainment value. It is not great literature, but it is fun with some unexpected twists at the end. The novel is the story of Tony and Brenda, some minor nobility that own an estate at Hetton that features a large gothic mansion. Tony is rather serious and dull and thinks only of Hetton. Brenda is rather bored by it all. A young man comes to visit at Hetton and changes everything. Brenda becomes infatuated with this John Beaver and takes up a flat in London to car More...

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Sep 16, 2007

Helen added it

The rich but feckless people in Austen and Trollope's novels? Now their children are trying to keep up the manor around the time of the first world war, and things aren't going well, because they are no longer so rich but they are still feckless. The end is devastating! Oh wait, should I not say that?

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 17, 2011

Jason rated it:

Great satire, but not the kind that makes you laugh. A Handful of Dust is another attack from Evelyn Waugh on the idle and decadent state of contemporaneous English society. Just about every character in the book is loathsome. It's hard to imagine a more self-centered, gossiping and corrupt bunch, but Waugh makes it clear that this is how he saw the modern world he lived in. Waugh's wit is razor sharp, but the punchlines make you want to cry as often as they make you want to laugh. The shal More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

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