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A Handful of Dust

Evelyn Waugh

3.91 · Rating details · 23,481 ratings · 1,296 reviews

Laced with cynicism and truth, "A Handful of Dust" satirizes a certain stratum of English life where all the characters have wealth, 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 lunch ...more

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Paperback, 308 pages

Published November 30th 1977 by Back Bay Books (first published 1934)

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Jan 04, 2015 Jeffrey Keeten rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

"'I never thought it would last but she seems really keen on it . . . I suppose it's a good plan . . . there wasn't much for her to do at Hetton. Of course she would rather die than admit it, but I believe she got a bit bored there sometimes. I've been thinking it over and that's the conclusion I came to. Brenda must have been bored.'"

photo kristin_scott_thomas2_zps775ebf6f.jpg

Kristin Scott Thomas adds sizzle to the 1988 movie version as Brenda.

Tony and Brenda Last have been married for seven years and although they don’t have a fier ...more

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Jun 16, 2016 Glenn Sumi rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: modern-library-100, 1900-1960, guardian-1000, classics

I’m not generally a fan of satirical novels (as opposed to, say, satirical sketch comedy), but this book was terrific. Seldom have I seen tragedy and comedy so successfully intermingled.

Set between the wars in the chic upper-middle classes in and around London, A Handful Of Dust is full of horrible people doing horrible things to each other, but it adds up to a bitter indictment of human behaviour. And it’s not all jokes. There’s despair lurking beneath the brittle laughs, and sadness at the wa I’m not generally a fan of satirical novels (as opposed to, say, satirical sketch comedy), but this book was terrific. Seldom have I seen tragedy and comedy so successfully intermingled.

Set between the wars in the chic upper-middle classes in and around London, A Handful Of Dust is full of horrible people doing horrible things to each other, but it adds up to a bitter indictment of human behaviour. And it’s not all jokes. There’s despair lurking beneath the brittle laughs, and sadness at the waste of potential. I believe it was partly inspired by Waugh’s wife of one year leaving him for one of their friends. I suppose it’s better to laugh at pain than cry…

Country gentleman Tony Last seems more attached to his ugly ancestral estate, Hetton Abbey, than he does to his bored and attractive wife, Brenda. So Brenda takes up with the dull and penniless social climber John Beaver, even going so far as to rent out a flat in London, telling Tony that she’s studying economics while she’s carrying on this affair that everyone knows about except her dim husband.

When tragedy strikes – I won’t spoil things by revealing the event and the astonishing reaction to it – Brenda insists on a divorce. This leads to a completely absurd scene in which the cold fish Tony attempts to get himself caught being unfaithful so Brenda can get one.

One section near the end, set in Brazil and completely inappropriate and wrong in its treatment of natives (there are many instances throughout of inappropriate remarks), at first seems absurd, but when bits of dialogue from the previous 200 pages crop up, you get to see how carefully Waugh has crafted the book. (And how memorable his dialogue has been.) There’s a plot point about reading Dickens that results in the darkest comedy, and perhaps a scathing statement about literature and civilization.

Waugh is simply a brilliant writer. I don’t think satire requires characters of much depth. But Waugh gives you enough details so you know everyone in this particular vanity fair. Their conversations are tart and suggestive, with people seldom saying what they’re thinking.

What’s remarkable is that beneath the exaggeration, there’s a brutal examination of the horrible things people are capable of doing – to themselves and each other.

In one of the silliest scenes, two adults play a children's card game where they're reduced to making animal noises. It's played for laughs, but Waugh knew what he was doing. Oink oink, cluck cluck cluck indeed. ...more

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Sep 21, 2018 Jean-Luke rated it it was amazing

And the winner of Cruelest Words Uttered by a Literary Character is Brenda Last. The words are 'Oh, thank God,' but saying saying more would give it away. She is tied for Worst Mother in Literature and her fellow nominees are Margaret White, Cathy Ames, Mrs. Lisbon, and Mrs. Wormwood. She would like to thank the Good Mothers in Literature, and lastly her son, without whom this honor would not be possible. ...more

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Aug 25, 2018 Fergus rated it really liked it

Aren't we ALL Last in the end? I can just hear Waugh's grim, faith-rooted, world-weary grunt of agreement!

Tony Last is a happy remnant of the Edwardian gentry, so much like his friends (and so many folks we know) - moneyed but house-poor, measuring out his comforting illusions in coffee spoons - until those illusions are shattered.

Fate knocks on his door.

Loudly.

Illusions! What use are they in the storm?

As for me, as I grow old, I have fewer illusions - and am glad of it.

Because, like Auden's ...more

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Apr 12, 2010 David rated it really liked 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 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 paraplegic dwarves humping dead color-blind Basques, for example), cheating is one of the most banal and obvious. No, the truly interesting thing is that this genre often employs the word 'cuckold' in its titles, as if this were five-cent, everyday, low-rent kinda word. At your leisure, please review some of these actual porn titles: Cum Eating Cuckolds 12, Cuckold Creampie 7, Grip and Cram Johnson's Cuckold MILFs, Non-Humiliation Cuckolding (What's the point then?), Interracial Cuckold Surprise (Is it the interracialism or the cuckolding that's the surprise? Or the permutation of both?), Forced Bi Cuckolding, and The Taming of the Cuckold. You get the idea. Many or most of these types of films involve an individual having some variant of sexual relations with another individual (or individuals) while the first individual's partner, spouse, or significant other watches or is forced to watch. (I hope you all appreciate that I had to go to www.smutnetwork.com at work -- and against my better instincts -- to procure those authentic cuckolding titles for you.)

Again, I find it interesting that the porn industry should employ the word 'cuckold' as opposed to merely 'cheating' or 'cheaters,' especially when one considers that porn video sleeves not infrequently contain misspellings of common words (I saw 'thier' recently -- ahem -- when I was doing my investigative research). There's something very Olde Englishy about the word 'cuckold' even though it has French origins... and the kind of infidelity featured prominently in Evelyn Waugh's A Handful of Dust is at least nearer to the associations I have with cuckoldry than a giant black man with a Texas-sized schlong anally penetrating a coked-out blonde bag of silicon while a skinny nebbish is tied to a windsor chair. But then again, the English language contains myriad subtleties, connotations, and associations, does it not?

In general, I don't find cuckolding stimulating. I find it sad. Not in the sense of two people in a relationship agreeing to fuck other people with the other's knowledge (which is their own perogative, I suppose), but in the sense of a spouse or partner being kept in the dark, lied to, and possibly publicly humiliated by his/her 'soulmate.' So that's what makes Evelyn Waugh's A Handful of Dust a particularly bitter satirical pill to swallow. The main character Tony Last is a cuckold. Waugh provides us with absolutely no evidence that he is anything but a kind, compassionate, and attentive husband. His wife Brenda rather glibly and carelessly carries on with an undesirable man named John Beaver, who is not particularly kind, interesting, or attractive. In fact, no one in Brenda's circle of friends and acquaintances seems to understand why Brenda should slither around with Beaver behind Tony's back, and -- more to the point -- Brenda herself doesn't seem entirely able to pinpoint his appeal.

In constructing the first half or two-thirds of the novel along these lines, Waugh creates a very prickly, uncomfortable humor. We the readers are encouraged to be amused by Tony's humiliation and Brenda's cavalier, indecipherable infidelity. Even while one laughs, one feels genuinely sorry for Tony. True to his legacy, Waugh manages some very funny, underlyingly bleak comic episodes; one involves Brenda trying to set up her husband with the wife of an Arab so that he won't bother her so much.

Around the midpoint of the novel, Waugh tosses in an exceptionally dark plot point (which I won't reveal here) which, in tune with the rest of the novel, is treated casually. Unsettlingly so. Then somewhere around two-thirds of the way in, the novel takes a strange, new course, which isn't completely successful -- but mostly successful, at any rate. Tony, it would seem, is so affronted by the protocol of the 'good society' of England that he embarks upon a rather radical response to it. But as you might expect, Waugh isn't about to provide him with the respite he desires, and that's what makes Waugh (at his best) so brittle and yet enjoyable. He makes us feel various things at odd with each other. Humor and tragedy. Empathy and mockery. Dissatisfaction and complacency. ...more

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Sep 19, 2010 Julie Christine rated it it was amazing

Shelves: best-of-2010, classic, read-2010, british-isles-theme-setting

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 hyphenated lord ...more

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May 30, 2008 Cecily rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, humour

Brilliant, but its sparkle is ice cold.

It's clever that the naive and saintly Tony is seamlessly recast as the villain of the piece - not just by his wife Brenda, but by most of their friends too.

But Brenda is the evil one, most dramatically demonstrated by a misplaced "Thank God". It sounds innocuous, but in context, it's one of the most chilling lines I've ever read.

Reading Dickens in the jungle for eternity: would that be heaven or hell? ...more

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Jun 10, 2020 TBV (on semi-hiatus) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, uk-ireland, 2020, reviewed-2020, classic-literary

A Handful of Dust (1934) is a sharp, incisive and subtle satire of the lifestyle and values of the upper-middle-class. The opening paragraph sets the tone:

“Du Côté de Chez Beaver (I love the chapter title)
‘Was anyone hurt?’
‘No one, I am thankful to say,’ said Mrs Beaver, ‘except two housemaids who lost their heads and jumped through a glass roof into the paved court. They were in no danger. The fire never reached the bedrooms, I am afraid.’”
They continue to talk about damage to the property... ...more

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Aug 15, 2017 Kevin Ansbro rated it it was amazing

Shelves: wry-humour, classic-literature, spiteful-humour, quintessentially-english, human-cruelty

Evelyn Waugh's writing is delightfully (and spitefully) mischievous. He's as witty as Oscar Wilde and as caustic as drain cleaner.
Something of a pessimist and a social misfit, Waugh loved to send up the chattering classes of which he was a part. This book also has an autobiographical aspect to it and centres on his inside view of upper-class selfishness and the erosion of spiritual values in post-WWI England. ...more

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Apr 01, 2017 Paul rated it it was ok

Shelves: waugh

2.5 stars
I’m not sure what it is about me and Evelyn Waugh; critics have said this is one of the best novels of the twentieth century and I really don’t get it. It is, as ever, a satire on the mores of the English upper class. The title is from The Waste Land:
“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.”
This is satire, comedy and farce mixed with the absurd; again 2.5 stars
I’m not sure what it is about me and Evelyn Waugh; critics have said this is one of the best novels of the twentieth century and I really don’t get it. It is, as ever, a satire on the mores of the English upper class. The title is from The Waste Land:
“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.”
This is satire, comedy and farce mixed with the absurd; again I get the sense that Waugh delights in disliking his characters.
Tony Last lives in a rather uncomfortable and decrepit country mansion with his wife Brenda and his son. It is not one of the great stately homes as the description indicates:
“Between the villages of Hetton and Compton Last lies the extensive park of Hetton Abbey. This, formerly one of the notable houses of the county, was entirely rebuilt in 1864 in the Gothic style and is now devoid of interest. The grounds are open to the public daily until sunset and the house may be viewed on application by writing.”
Brenda gets rather bored in the country and as she starts to spend more time in London, she starts an affair with John Beaver, a man of very limited means on the make. The plot is limited and there is a cast of supporting characters who have varying degrees of eccentricity.
This is said to be a turning point in Waugh’s novels; the point at which he begins to get serious. Well, he still manages to drag in race and civilization. Waugh draws on his own experiences on his visit to Guyana. When Tony’s marriage falls apart he sets off on an expedition to look for a lost city in Brazil; travelling from Demerara. This enables Waugh to draw his usual parody of uncivilized peoples of a different colour with the same sort of zest he did in Scoop. It also allows him to play with a Heart of Darkness motif (will I never escape from that book). Waugh often said that A Handful of Dust was really about the bankruptcy of humanism. Kurtz’s horror in this novel is the emptiness of secular humanism, which Waugh wants to replace with Catholicism.
Waugh also nods to Proust and the grail quest and plays with a number of ideas. This is a story of human selfishness, but perhaps Waugh does paint Tony Last with some sympathy; especially as Waugh’s marriage had recently ended. However he condemns Last to spending the rest of his days reading Dickens aloud in a native village to a Kurtz type character. The point here is that Waugh thought that Dickens was one of those responsible for the collapse of social restraint (as Waugh perceived it) in British society.
I’ve seen Waugh’s work described as a “theatre of cruelty” and I see the point of that. I also find Waugh’s attitude to women pretty suspect; look at this conversation between Tony Last and his young son’
““Where’s mummy gone?” “London.” “Why?” “Someone called Lady Cockpurse is giving a party.” “Is she nice?” ‘Mummy thinks so. I don’t.” “Why?” “Because she looks like a monkey.” “I should love to see her. Does she live in a cage? Has she got a tail? Ben saw a woman who looked like a fish, with scales all over instead of skin. It was in a circus in Cairo. Smelt like a fish too, Ben says”.”
Another trope that Waugh uses and drags in here is the “Oriental” woman who is portrayed as exotic, promiscuous, primitive and foolish. Racism and misogyny, class and cruelty and to cap it all, the death of a child used to move the plot on. Typical Waugh. ...more

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Jun 17, 2011 Jan-Maat added it · review of another edition

Shelves: british-isles, novel, 20th-century

You need a degree of sympathy for the author's intentions to enjoy reading their book, to tune in to their wave length. This was something I have never managed to do with Evelyn Waugh and his books remain for me whipped cream. I can eat them up but I get no nourishment from them.

Perhaps my appetite has been spoiled by the image of Waugh in his old age living a mock-aristocratic life, drinking too much, his wife - also an Evelyn - who had affection only for a discrete herd of pedigree cattle. His You need a degree of sympathy for the author's intentions to enjoy reading their book, to tune in to their wave length. This was something I have never managed to do with Evelyn Waugh and his books remain for me whipped cream. I can eat them up but I get no nourishment from them.

Perhaps my appetite has been spoiled by the image of Waugh in his old age living a mock-aristocratic life, drinking too much, his wife - also an Evelyn - who had affection only for a discrete herd of pedigree cattle. His fictions seem pale intimations of the life he eventually managed to achieve for himself which makes the idea of viewing them as satires, or comedies or even tragedies as strange. Instead I'm left with the suspicion that they are in part wish fulfilment (view spoiler).

Anyhow this was one of my A-level set texts back in the day. It features the lives of insufficiently wealthy upper class folk in-between the wars. Nowadays thanks to the National Trust and other wholesome organisations nobody with an inherited pile need struggle with repairs, although they may have to endure sans-colottes traipsing through the main entrance hall and then not spending enough in the gift shop before going home to watch fantasy dramas of how noble and good the owners of the manor houses were in the recent past as well as how grateful and demure our ancestors were for being allowed to empty their chamber pots or bring them piping hot water for their morning ablutions. Life in Britain can be little odd, perhaps it is a by-product of the mild inbreeding of island life (view spoiler).

I like the bow to The Waste Land and I am quite impressed at how the sweep of Elliot's powerful vision of city workers crowding over the London bridges and the well peopled pubs is exchanged for minor provincial aristocrats and the dashed impertinence of getting divorced or not. I was thinking how the ending, which is an abrupt narrative turn giving us a real quest for a non-existent prize as a nod to the earlier allusion to the world of King Arthur and his questing knights, wasn't too bad which rather gives away, in case there was any doubt over the matter, my lack of understanding of the characters. On reflection being left alone among natives and subject to an illiterate half-caste is a pretty intolerable fate for a true blue Englishman particularly in the 1930s. Thank goodness he's got the Dickens for company...
...more

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May 28, 2013 Fabian rated it really liked it

Oh what fun to get directly to the root of modern British wit. Okay, okay: the Victorian conventions still resonate, but Waugh loves dialogue as much as any screenwriter--it's modernity & old school gorgeously entwined. Indeed, pages upon pages of dialogue--at times the speakers themselves become insanely irrelevant--invites a speedy and satisfying reading of it. The strands of dialogue themselves are in the spotlight... what is being said (the ideas unraveled, the conventions and hypocrisies de ...more

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Nov 26, 2017 Gabrielle rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, own-a-copy, reviewed, read-in-2017, uk, penguin-modern-classics

I just can’t get enough of British wit. There’s something both elegant and scathing in it that North Americans don’t seem to be able to reproduce. And when it comes to biting British wit, no one can outdo the great Evelyn Waugh.

I’m not sure that I would have been interested in this book if I hadn’t read and loved “Brideshead Revisited” (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... stories about bored people having affairs is usually not something that interests me because it feels like a subject tha I just can’t get enough of British wit. There’s something both elegant and scathing in it that North Americans don’t seem to be able to reproduce. And when it comes to biting British wit, no one can outdo the great Evelyn Waugh.

I’m not sure that I would have been interested in this book if I hadn’t read and loved “Brideshead Revisited” (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... stories about bored people having affairs is usually not something that interests me because it feels like a subject that’s been explored to death. But Waugh’s gorgeous prose, his fascinating yet deeply unlikable characters had kept me entranced before. If anyone could make the tale of a failing marriage and estate something I’d want to read, it would be him.

Just as with « Brideshead », it’s hard not to feel like you have just landed in the middle of an episode of « Downton Abbey » : everyone has dressing rooms, frequents clubs and seems to have not a care in the world besides their own amusement. Brenda and Tony have been married for seven years, and while they give the impression of being happy, Brenda is dissatisfied. Most of their money goes into the upkeep of Tony’s estate, a huge and rather ugly Gothic manor named Hetton Abbey, and their son John is more trouble than either of them would like him to be, even when his antics are entertaining. Enter John Beaver, an impoverished socialite from Belgravia. He’s a smooth-talking social climber and when he sets eyes on Brenda, he knows exactly what to do to get to the booty (pun intended). It’s easy to see how fast that situation can go downhill, so it comes as no surprise when the rather pathetic comedy of manners turns into tragedy, which then turns into melodrama.

I read that Waugh included a very liberal amount of autobiographical details in “Handful of Dust”, as his own divorce was a nasty affair and that the withdrawal of his wife’s affection had traumatized him badly. If it’s true, then my heart breaks for him because this book is so profoundly sad. Not just because of what happens to Tony, who is clearly Waugh’s alter ego, but also because of the emptiness of all those characters’ lives and feelings. Everyone is as shallow as a birdbath, and their incapacity to care for and to connect to other people also makes them brittle. Does Brenda really think that throwing another woman in her husband’s arms will make up for her own indiscretions? What did she really think would happen with John, if she didn’t manage to get any money from her husband? Gee, lady!

I didn’t like it was much as “Brideshead” because I found the characters less compelling. Sure, both novels are about human trainwrecks, but I thought Charles, Sebastian, Julia and even Lady Marchmain were more nuanced and multilayered than Tony, Brenda and that silly Mr. Beaver. They explored a deeper side of human nature. That being said, “A Handful of Dust” was a still a good read, like a really beautiful car accident that you can’t look away from. Too bad the last part felt so disconnected from the first half; that feeling of rushed resolution was rather disappointing considering the novel's strong start. Oh well... ...more

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Feb 11, 2017 Antonomasia rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommended to Antonomasia by: Lee

Shelves: decade-1930s, el, british, 2017, divine-comedy-booklovers, 1001-books

Penguin Modern Classics edition with introduction and irksome notes by Robert Murray Davis

It sounds so grown-up... and boring, I always used to think about A Handful of Dust. Just another novel about middle-aged people having affairs. In my teens, I read, loved and re-read Brideshead, Scoop, Vile Bodies and Decline and Fall, and seemed to have exhausted the really interesting Waugh books. Then, a couple of years ago, I found that The Loved One, whilst it may not have the glamour of Roaring Twent ...more

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Apr 07, 2018 Laysee rated it really liked it

Published in 1934, A Handful of Dust is a satirical novel that offers a social perspective of life among the upper classes in England in the early twentieth century. The socially privileged thrive on club membership, nightly parties, and the latest gossip. They keep up a charade of manners, a glamorously hollow existence to which the poorer classes aspire. The novel begins on a light witty note but the flippancy slips darkly into sadness that finally wraps the gothic world in a shroud of grief.

T Published in 1934, A Handful of Dust is a satirical novel that offers a social perspective of life among the upper classes in England in the early twentieth century. The socially privileged thrive on club membership, nightly parties, and the latest gossip. They keep up a charade of manners, a glamorously hollow existence to which the poorer classes aspire. The novel begins on a light witty note but the flippancy slips darkly into sadness that finally wraps the gothic world in a shroud of grief.

Tony Last is a British aristocrat who lives with his wife Brenda and young son in their ancestral home in Hetton Abbey. When we are first introduced to Tony, Jock Grant-Menzies says, “I often think Tony Last one of the happiest man I know. He’s got just enough money, loves the place, one son he’s crazy about, devoted wife, not a worry in the world.” Tony is a traditionalist and loves Hetton Abbey. Having grown up in Hetton Place, all the things in this grand old mansion ‘were a source of constant delight and exultation to Tony; things of tender memory and proud possession.’ In contrast, his wife of seven years detests the house and considers it ‘appallingly ugly’. Hints that all is not well with the Last are evident in Waugh’s description of Hetton Abbey as possessing an ecclesiastical gloom and a fireplace like a tomb of the thirteenth century. This is the first half of this novel. (view spoiler) The second half of this narrative sees Tony trying to distance himself from his wrecked life at Hetton. From here now, the story begins to feel like a journey into the heart of darkness. (view spoiler) Oh, the ending is shocking and supremely sad.

It strikes me that cruel and monstrous behavior is accentuated because it is politely and even comically expressed. That is the horror in this story. Waugh rarely tells us what goes on in the minds of his characters, but he shows us how they conduct themselves, and allows us to draw our own conclusions.

On the trivial side of things, I learned what 'Hard Cheese on Tony' meant idiomatically. I also found out that ‘being tight’ meant becoming inebriated. Evelyn Waugh, I also learned, is a male author! ...more

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Oct 23, 2016 Frona rated it liked it

The perfection of this novel lays only in its title, for a handful of dust is the exact description of the reading experience it provides and to some extent, its content. The fragile remains of the barely lively activity called reading this book would be swept away with the last page, if not for the purpose of writing this review. The book had so little impact on me that I, after finishing it last night, already have troubles remembering the theme.

It's a story about priviliged people of the last ...more

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Apr 18, 2018 Chrissie rated it it was ok

Shelves: audible, classics, humor, relationships, 2018-read, brazil, returned, england

Bored-Privileged-Socialites or

A Biting Satire of British Upper-Class Society Between the Two Wars or

Infidelity--Marriage Without Love

There you have three one-liners that describe this book.

The two central protagonists are Brenda and Tony Last. They have been married for seven years when the book opens. They have one son. The setting is London during the late 1920s or early 1930s. An expedition is made to Brazil. That is all you will be given about the plot.

The characters are immoral and shallo ...more

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Apr 06, 2018 Susan rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This is an important novel of Evelyn Waugh’s; marking a much more serious, darkly witty and sharply observant style, from his earlier, comic novels. It is widely suggested that this novel was largely the result of his first wife, Evelyn Gardner, or ‘She-Evelyn,’ leaving him for another man after a year of marriage. If so, Waugh certainly had his revenge , as he bitterly skewers his ex-wife, and her lover, in print.

Brenda and Tony Last have been married for five, or six, years, when we meet them. This is an important novel of Evelyn Waugh’s; marking a much more serious, darkly witty and sharply observant style, from his earlier, comic novels. It is widely suggested that this novel was largely the result of his first wife, Evelyn Gardner, or ‘She-Evelyn,’ leaving him for another man after a year of marriage. If so, Waugh certainly had his revenge , as he bitterly skewers his ex-wife, and her lover, in print.

Brenda and Tony Last have been married for five, or six, years, when we meet them. Tony adores his ancestral house, Hetton, his young son, John Andrew and his wife. Brenda, it is soon apparent, is bored to tears. When John Beaver - a scrounging young man, who lounges around bars hoping to be brought a drink, has no job and little income, but is a useful ‘spare man,’ ready to drop everything for a free lunch, or dinner party - takes up a half meant invitation for the weekend, Tony is appalled at his arrival. Apologetically, he leaves Beaver to be baby-sat by Brenda and that, without doubt, is a mistake. Although Tony is blithely unaware of what is going on, pretty soon half of London is aghast at their affair. While Beaver rises in their esteem, Brenda takes a flat and begins to attend every party in London.

This is very much a book of two halves and (a little like “Brideshead Revisited”) the first half is much better than the second. While the first half of Brideshead is so sublime it makes up for the second being not quite so wonderful, this novel does not manage to carry off the trick quite so well. The second half of this was taken from a short story Waugh wrote and, certainly, there is much biographical material in this novel – as well as a truly shocking moment (you’ll know it when you get to it).

Waugh not only turns his vengeful, bitter words against his ex-wife, and her lover (John Heygate), but his satirises his own lack of knowledge about their affair. It is sharply satirical, cruel, vicious and unbearable in parts – the ‘shocking moment,’ takes away any sympathy for Brenda (not that she is particularly sympathetic anyway) and how John Heygate ever showed his face in public again, I have no idea. Still, in parts this is brilliant. I am immediately moved to read the latest biography of Waugh, “A Life Revisited,” and never get bored of this, most brilliant, author.

...more

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Mar 17, 2016 John rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: evelyn-waugh, classics

If you like black humour this is an enjoyable book. There are some genuinely some laugh out loud scenes especially with Tony and Brenda's young son John. Coupled with insights to the decay of the upper classes and the weird rules they lived by. At times you want to shake Tony Last out of his placidity and it is a relief when he develops a backbone when his gothic home of Hetton is threatened by Brenda. I would also say that Brenda is a woman who gives villainy a bad name.

The switch to South Ame ...more

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Nov 03, 2009 Trevor rated it it was amazing

Shelves: literature

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 made 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 made sense that this was going to be a comedy. Then it just made sense that it was going to be a dark comedy – but by the end this novel proved to be more dark than comedy - much, much more dark.

I don’t know an awful lot about Mr Waugh and his background, but my guess would be that he belonged (in some sense) to the British aristocracy (or rather the landed version of that – the type of people who not only have titles, but also manors). That is, I always assume he belonged to a class of people that in his life time had become an anachronism. Waugh’s great talent was the sad one of being able to write about how this class of incredibly privileged people suddenly (I guess between the wars, but definitely after World War Two) had either disappeared from the English landscape or found themselves, a little dusty, in among the other curiosities on display at various National Trust Houses.

I’ve just seen that A handful of Dust wasn’t Waugh’s first choice for the title of this one, but I’m going to tell you my version of this quote from Eliot and what it refers to in the poem. That is, what I think you are expected to know from this reference. From memory (and I’m the first to admit my memory is somewhat shaky) of the thing is that Apollo was rather pleased with one of the sibyls and decided to offer her wish. If there is one think that you really ought to have learnt by now from literature about this whole wish granting thing is that it needs to be avoided like the plague, but never actually is. All the same, it wouldn’t ever be much of a story if she just told Apollo, ‘Look, take your three wishes and shove them’. The bit that generally surprises me is that sibyls are supposed to have the gift of prophesy, so you might have thought she would have seen this coming, so to speak. Nevertheless, she sees a pile of dust in the corner and says she would like to live for as many years as there are specks of dust in the pile. And this is the wish that is granted to her, quite literally until she realises that it might have also been a good idea to ask for eternal youth to go along with an awfully long life. When Apollo finally takes pity on her again she is so shrivelled up she is living in a jar. And when asked what she would now wish for she replies that she would like to be allowed to die. (In a world increasingly cursed with ever increasing life spans and a boom in dementia perhaps this really is a myth for our times)

There are going to have to be some spoilers in this one, I’m afraid – so before I do those, you might want to know what I thought about this book and whether or not I would recommend it. The short answer is that I loved this book and I would recommend it whole-heartedly. I really like his writing and I really like what he writes about. I can identify with so many characters in his books on various levels and always find the themes of love and love lost and love not so much cast-aside as rather carelessly left too close to the edge of the table only to see fall and smash into a thousand sharp-edged pieces all a bit shocking in that ‘and that too is my life’ sense.

Time to look away if you are thinking of reading this one.

I think many people who have read this book might think the main female character (Brenda) is a bit stereotyped and far too harshly portrayed. I haven’t checked other reviews, but look, I wouldn’t be surprised if that was said repeatedly in them and I can see that might be a criticism. There are times in the novel when it does feel like stretching credulity to breaking point to believe that she didn’t expect her husband to fight back. And even if he is a wimp of the first order throughout much of the start of the book (and having personally been that wimp) I’m not as sure he is so completely unbelievable. I also don’t think she is as unbelievable as first impressions might imply. People tend to love to see themselves as the injured party in any interaction and just because she started an affair, abandoned her husband, tried to take away from him the only thing he truly loved (his manor house, no less) and had been effectively making a fool of him in front of just about everyone he knew (even if, for the most part, keeping all this behind his back) is no reason to believe that she would not feel like the ‘injured party’ when it came to the divorce.

We are incredibly self-centred creatures, we humans. And I don’t want you to think that this is presented as the story of some poor guy whose bitch of a wife frigs off with some no-hoper and stuffs up the life of the man who truly loves her only to find them both losing everything in the process. Look, that is certainly a reading of this book, but it is a pretty unsatisfying reading on some levels. This reading requires everything to be Brenda’s fault – and that is pretty hard to sustain. There is no question that, as in life, divorce really needs two people to get the tango going.

If your wife is finding life so tediously dull that she would need to fall in love with an idiot like John Beaver then, really, you have to say that as a husband you might not have been doing enough to meet her needs.

No one comes out of this book smelling of roses – but selfishness is the major theme being explored here. The most horrible line in the book would probably be the one said when Brenda finds out her son is dead. You know, ‘oh, thank God’ is never going to be the most endearing of sentences uttered by a mother on such an occasion. We may not all be overly fond of apple pie, but motherhood, well, that’s another story… Waugh clearly has no intention of making this woman the world’s most loved female character. I mean, we are pretty well crossing Lady MacBeth with Medea in this scene. But isn’t it just fascinating that Waugh, in a throw-away line at the end of the book, has her married to the man she says this to? Nothing is simple in this book - nothing is black or white.

The other interesting theme in this book, and one that isn’t ever answered, although it is central to the question implied by the title of the book – is when do you give up hope? And particularly given how this book ends for Tony that really does remain an open question.

Look, this is a disturbing book, this is exactly the sort of book you might expect to be written by someone who is witnessing the death of their social class. This is also a comedy in the sense that the characters seem exaggerated in exactly the way we expect characters in comedies to be exaggerated – that is, exaggerated to make a point – but the points that are made are points worth making, and points well worth reading about.
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Sep 20, 2008 Jesse rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: brit-lit, literary-modernism, 1930-s, bright-young-things, flappers-gin-and-jazz, read-in-2016

Waugh’s novel makes me think of a curious little pen knife kept under plate glass display at an antique shop: a decorative little handle, perhaps delicately wrought in chrome, looking charmingly innocuous nestled among the moldering paste jewelry and assorted tchotchkes. But then, with the flick of a finger, the blade appears—unexpectedly sharp, dazzlingly shiny, potentially cruel. Careful now: Waugh might cut you.

A Handful of Dust is perhaps similarly deceptive, especially when read today. Like Waugh’s novel makes me think of a curious little pen knife kept under plate glass display at an antique shop: a decorative little handle, perhaps delicately wrought in chrome, looking charmingly innocuous nestled among the moldering paste jewelry and assorted tchotchkes. But then, with the flick of a finger, the blade appears—unexpectedly sharp, dazzlingly shiny, potentially cruel. Careful now: Waugh might cut you.

A Handful of Dust is perhaps similarly deceptive, especially when read today. Like an alluring little relic of another age, it satirizes the values and behaviors of an era that today feel quite distant and removed. And yet, despite their obvious foibles I actually liked both Brenda and Tony Last, Downton Abbey-esque minor aristocracy whose happy-seeming seven year marriage suddenly but somewhat understandably begins to spiral. Quietly and unobtrusively things for the Lasts run off the rails, even if neither partner seems particularly discontent with their current situation. Instead each drifts about in a cloud of their own preoccupations and unvoiced concerns, making them oblivious to the fact that there is, in fact, quite a bit amiss. It’s a chilling indictment of how quiet enervation can be just destructive as fiery confrontation.

Which perhaps gives a misleading description of a novel which remains on the whole quite jaunty. Not exactly laugh-out-loud funny, the humor is instead incredibly dry—and perhaps a bit brittle—employing wordplay and double entendre (ie “Lady Cockpurse”) and acerbic caricature (the failed, faux-oriental vamp “Princess” Julie Abdul Akbar). But stealthily the glamor of London society rituals give way to an underlying despair—it’s not for nothing that the title and opening epigraph are plucked from Eliot’s “The Waste Land.”

Invoking that great landmark of literary modernism is apt for other reasons as well: though not as obviously experimental as Eliot’s poem, I was consistently impressed by the novel’s elegantly economical style. The reliance on dialogue and verbal interchange to convey meaning is almost cinematic, also emphasized in the way scenes are cut into small little snippets that skip around like so many jump cuts. Given the obvious technical mastery on display, I should have had more confidence in authorial control when the last third of the novel juts out into unexpected territory; I admit that for a while I was worried the story had gone irremediably awry just like the Last’s marriage. I need not have worried though, as everything plays itself out with a brutal efficiency and shocking force.

The Penguin Classics (UK edition) I own includes an alternate ending as an appendix, originally attached to an American serialized version of the novel for legal reasons. It’s certainly a much more conventional resolution, but even if it doesn’t contain the same jolt as the intended conclusion there’s still something deeply haunting about it. Perhaps, it seems to ask, reconciliation was indeed possible for the Lasts via roads not taken. But for how long? At the very last moment a turn is taken, and the entire cycle seems to snap back into place, poised to begin yet again.

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Sep 29, 2009 Maureen rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: novels, 2009

cross-posted at booklikes and the mo-centric universe.

(this is an edit of a review from 2009)

i found this to be much, much better than the two other waugh books i read: vile bodies, and the loved one. i would have liked it immensely had it ended about three quarters in, as stopping there would have satisfied my need for comeuppance for jerks but that comeuppance never came. the last quarter of the book seems almost a sequel to the first part, and left a darkness in its wake.

and yet, from what ...more

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Jul 02, 2013 Helle rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: english, 1001-books, guardian-1000-must-read

Talk about bleak satire and cynicism! I read – and loved – Brideshead Revisited years ago, and once again we’re among the English upper classes, whom Waugh mocks more or less constantly throughout the novel, which is especially apparent in some of the ludicrous but funny dialogues.

Some of the characters are ridiculous (Princess Jenny Akbar, Mr. Beaver, ‘Mumsy’) , some are indifferent/oblivious to people around them (Tony), some are utterly selfish (Brenda), and most of the characters exhibit a ...more

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Apr 29, 2018 Roman Clodia rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Although they were both in good health and of unexceptional figure, Tony and Brenda were on a diet. It gave an interest to their meals... 'Yes, darling, and when we get tired of it we might try an alphabetical diet, having things beginning with a different letter each day.'

At the heart of this book is the ill-matched marriage of Brenda and Tony Last ('she's lovely, he's rather a stick') - he obsessed with his family seat and the money it takes to keep up, forcing his wife to travel in the 3r ...more

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Jul 01, 2018 Paul Secor rated it it was ok

I'm obviously in the minority with my rating. I've read a number of reviews here (after finishing the book) and am not convinced of its worth.
When I began reading this novel, I thought I might enjoy it. However, the inane characters and their inane actions soon dispelled that notion.
I get that it was supposed to be a satire - and a bitter one - but, for me at least, there was nothing there worth satirizing.

On the back cover of the edition I read is the mention: "A Handful of Dust (was) selected ...more

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Dec 25, 2019 Fonch rated it liked it

Ladies and gentlemen. In this case I take up a book, which I read late last year. I told you, I was very interested in writing some criticism of my Christmas readings, because, although I think, I didn't put any five. There was some interesting book and"A handful of dust". The first thing you've missed them is why did you put a (3) on it? The first thing, which I mean is one thing, that this three is, very misleading, and does not always reflect the reality of the whole. When I put a three books ...more

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Oct 04, 2016 Greg rated it really liked it

Shelves: reviewed

England is between two World Wars, and when tragedy strikes a family in the form of a death, no one seems very upset. Are the English simply numb from the loss of almost an entire generation of men due to WW1? Or are the upper class simply ripe for satire? I think it's a little of both until towards the end of the book a woman wants a divorce so her husband basically hires a woman to spend a weekend with him so that he can be blamed for infidelity while the wife is the one who had been having an ...more

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Apr 17, 2013 Vit Babenco rated it it was amazing

How deadly can boredom really be? For some it can become deadly enough…
“I should say it was time she began to be bored. They’ve been married five or six years. Quite well off but everything goes in keeping up the house. I’ve never seen it but I’ve an idea it’s huge and quite hideous.”
While endeavouring to escape the boredom of the aristocratic life one may find a lot of troubles on one’s romantic head…
Evelyn Waugh is a brilliant observer of human peccadilloes and in A Handful of Dust he is at h ...more

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Jun 26, 2016 Gary rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommended to Gary by: Sas Tovee-Lynch

Shelves: relationships-romance, social-commentary, adventure-derring-do

Overall I really enjoyed this book, though it changed so dramatically about half way through that I wasn’t sure at first if I liked it after that, because it was not what I was expecting.

The story is essentially one of upper class relationships and behaviour between the wars. The characters are filthy rich by most people’s standards but several of them never have enough money because they are maintaining enormous ancestral homes that cost a fortune to run. This is the cause of a lot of their pro Overall I really enjoyed this book, though it changed so dramatically about half way through that I wasn’t sure at first if I liked it after that, because it was not what I was expecting.

The story is essentially one of upper class relationships and behaviour between the wars. The characters are filthy rich by most people’s standards but several of them never have enough money because they are maintaining enormous ancestral homes that cost a fortune to run. This is the cause of a lot of their problems: the ‘Lord of the Manor’ feels an ancient and heavy burden of responsibility towards his estate, tenants and most of the village, the populace of which still relies heavily on the estate for its economic wellbeing.

This was a time in England when the value of agricultural land had declined and continued to do so and huge inherited estates became more of a burden than an asset. Many large country houses were being sold off to nouveau-riche Americans, who themselves were indulging themselves in their wealth – wealth born of a very different kind of business; a hard-nosed ‘life is tough, so fight for what you want’ sort of wealth, which many Americans then invested – squandered in some cases, no doubt – buying British country houses and turning them into hotels, schools and golf resorts. The people selling them these piles were often rent by conflicting emotions: enormous guilt and feelings of failure at having to sell up the family seat, sometimes centuries in the making: guilt towards their servants and tenants, whom they felt they had let down, guilt towards the older members of their families who did not understand that the world had changed and a system originally based on feudalism was no longer necessary or desirable. Mind you, they must have also felt huge relief once the money was in the bank.

This is also a time when many rich people lived for their social lives (not having to trouble themselves with a job), when debutantes still ‘came out’ at balls (a system whereby young women were ‘introduced into society’, i.e. declared their availability for marriage), when lunching at the club or dining with ones friends was the highlight of their day. I guess that’s what some rich people always do, now and back then, though today it is all less formal.

This was the late 1920s, a time when Victorian England and the Empire were still held in high esteem by many and, perhaps, mourned as the Empire crumbled and was given away (not before time) and the world had moved on enormously – the Great War had seen to that, but younger people demanded and got more freedom than their parents (as ever) and wanted more to life than duty and responsibility.

It was also a time when the Victorian ‘system’ of marriage still operated; i.e. it was okay to have extra marital affairs if that meant you were kinder and remained loyal to your spouse ‘til death us do part’ and divorce was still frowned upon.

Some spoilers…
A Handful of Dust is set in this atmosphere. It concerns a husband who feels the weight of his responsibilities as the ‘Lord of the Manor’, which he rather likes, and who loves his large but not very attractive or particularly historical house. His wife, on the other hand, hates living in the middle of nowhere in a not very attractive old house with not much to do, whilst her friends live and continually socialise in London. She is bored and a bit envious which, as we all know, often leads to trouble.

She embarks on an affair with a young man who is quite good looking but pretty useless, having no money, no status and is a bit of a joke to Society. The story develops along these lines until the husband finds out and things come to a head – and then it all changes completely! I won’t reveal how but it seemed a huge leap in plot development.
Waugh was clever because truth is stranger than fiction generally and people do strange things when they experience a big and unwelcome change in their lives. Suffice to say that the main protagonists both get more than they expected and both look rather foolish.

The book is very well written; Waugh is able to give sufficient characterisation in just a few words and the story certainly grips you. The ending is totally unpredictable until over half way through.

I will read this one again and read some more Waugh.
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May 23, 2009 James Henderson rated it really liked it

Shelves: humor

Evelyn Waugh’s A Handful of Dust, on several end-of-century Top 100 lists,was published on September 3, 1934. Waugh took the title for his novel from a line in T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land — “I will show you fear in a handful of dust.” In Brideshead Revisited, Waugh returned to the same poem, sending Anthony Blanche out on an Oxford balcony to stutter a few lines from it. Waugh’s biographers have noted a particular connection to Eliot. Early in life, Waugh liked to associate himself with Eliot’s ...more

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About Evelyn Waugh

Evelyn Waugh

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Evelyn Waugh's father Arthur was a noted editor and publisher. His only sibling Alec also became a writer of note. In fact, his book “The Loom of Youth” (1917) a novel about his old boarding school Sherborne caused Evelyn to be expelled from there and placed at Lancing College. He said of his time there, “…the whole of English education when I was brought up was to produce prose writers; it was al Evelyn Waugh's father Arthur was a noted editor and publisher. His only sibling Alec also became a writer of note. In fact, his book “The Loom of Youth” (1917) a novel about his old boarding school Sherborne caused Evelyn to be expelled from there and placed at Lancing College. He said of his time there, “…the whole of English education when I was brought up was to produce prose writers; it was all we were taught, really.” He went on to Hertford College, Oxford, where he read History. When asked if he took up any sports there he quipped, “I drank for Hertford.”

In 1924 Waugh left Oxford without taking his degree. After inglorious stints as a school teacher (he was dismissed for trying to seduce a school matron and/or inebriation), an apprentice cabinet maker and journalist, he wrote and had published his first novel, “Decline and Fall” in 1928.

In 1928 he married Evelyn Gardiner. She proved unfaithful, and the marriage ended in divorce in 1930. Waugh would derive parts of “A Handful of Dust” from this unhappy time. His second marriage to Audrey Herbert lasted the rest of his life and begat seven children. It was during this time that he converted to Catholicism.

During the thirties Waugh produced one gem after another. From this decade come: “Vile Bodies” (1930), “Black Mischief” (1932), the incomparable “A Handful of Dust” (1934) and “Scoop” (1938). After the Second World War he published what is for many his masterpiece, “Brideshead Revisited,” in which his Catholicism took centre stage. “The Loved One” a scathing satire of the American death industry followed in 1947. After publishing his “Sword of Honour Trilogy” about his experiences in World War II - “Men at Arms” (1952), “Officers and Gentlemen” (1955), “Unconditional Surrender" (1961) - his career was seen to be on the wane. In fact, “Basil Seal Rides Again” (1963) - his last published novel - received little critical or commercial attention.

Evelyn Waugh, considered by many to be the greatest satirical novelist of his day, died on 10 April 1966 at the age of 62.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evelyn_W... ...more