A Handful of Dust (Penguin Modern Classics)
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Review
"A vicious, witty novel." --"New York Times "
"Waugh's technique is relentless and razor-edged...By any standard it is super satire." --"Chicago Daily News
"
"The most mature and the best written novel that Mr. Waugh has yet produced." --"New Statesman & Nation "
"A story both tragic and hilariously funny, that seems to move along without aid from its author...Unquestionably the best book Mr. Waugh has written." --"Saturday Review "
"Waugh's technique is relentless and razor-edged...By any standard it is super satire." --"Chicago Daily News
"
"The most mature and the best written novel that Mr. Waugh has yet produced." --"New Statesman & Nation "
"A story both tragic and hilariously funny, that seems to move along without aid from its author...Unquestionably the best book Mr. Waugh has written." --"Saturday Review "
Product Description
In his elegant, malicious prose, Evelyn Waugh satirizes British society as he saw it over three decades. From Work Suspended, where Plant, a writer of detective fiction, puts his incomplete novel in a drawer until such time as he can finish it (that is to say after the war), to Basil Seal Rides Again, in which the hero of Black Mischief defeats the children of the Sixties, these stories encompass much of the social milieu of the twentieth century. The volume also includes the fragment Charles Ryder's Schooldays, which sketches the background to the narrator of Brideshead Revisited.
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First Sentence
'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. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
'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. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
58 of 60 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
You know that when you see a passage from Eliot's THE WASTE LAND appearing before the title page that you are not headed for 300 pages of fun and games. Sure there is the usual stock of Waugh humor, wit, and snappy dialogue to be had here, but this ranks as amongst his darkest novels. It's tragicomedy at its finest. It's also one of the most beautifully written novels I've ever read, perfect in pitch, cadence, wording, razor sharp characterization, mood, you name it.
Like a number of his novels, it is set primarily in England, between the wars, bouncing back and forth between London and an Estate in the country. The plot boils down to the break up of a marriage and the decline and fall of the central character, Lord of the manor and eventual "Explorer," Anthony (Tony) Mast.
Tony means well. He really does. It's just that he's so fixated on maintaining Hetton, his hereditary estate, that he doesn't even notice when his lovely wife Brenda engages in an affair with an inconsequential and boorish young society chap to whom Waugh assigns the inglorious name, John Beaver.
Waugh's customary drollery comes to the fore as he depicts the cavalier attitudes towards the affair on the part of Tony's and Brenda's social circle. They are rather like actors in a Restoration play, whose moral compasses have become entirely skewed. Though not as moralistic as some of Waugh's late novels, A HANDFUL OF DUST definitely offers a portrait of a very decadent society, indeed. These are not sympathetic characters. Even the two children who enter into the plot are hardly what one would call likeable.
This novel definitely takes some unexpected turns, leading us eventually to a denouement in the Amazon Jungle. The ending has to rank as one of the greatest in literature.
I can't recommend this book highly enough. The English are the greatest satirists and Waugh was the master of the genre amongst 20th century writers. My only minor quibble is that at times I had a tough time keeping up with names of some of the characters.
I've got a couple more Waugh books on my list, but will go with VILE BODIES next, as it's already on my shelf.
This edition has print large enough that I didn't need my reading glasses. It's the quickest 300 page novel I've ever read. It only took about 6 hrs cover to cover, and I am not a fast reader. I really was so transfixed that I had to read it straight through, which I don't usually do these days.
BEK
23 of 24 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Waugh was a wine critic with no equal. He is a satirist with no equal. His eye for social detail could not be crisper, his tongue could not be sharper. At times he will have you writhing with laughter; at times he will have you crying in pain.
As with much of Waugh's work his own life is a weighty influence. What distinguishes this novel from his earlier work is the heavy undercurrent that permeates thoughout. The title of the work is taken from T.S. Eliot's seminal modernist work 'The Waste Land', and that is precisely what Waugh sets out to describe. Although the humour follows on through Waugh's work, this is not the light-hearted jaunt through English polite society of 'Vile Bodies'. On occasion 'A Handful of Dust' is dark and damning.
That said, the work is highly amusing in places. Such a marriage of humour and despair might seem improbable if not impossible. It would be for rank-and-file satirists. Waugh is a class apart.
As with much of Waugh's work his own life is a weighty influence. What distinguishes this novel from his earlier work is the heavy undercurrent that permeates thoughout. The title of the work is taken from T.S. Eliot's seminal modernist work 'The Waste Land', and that is precisely what Waugh sets out to describe. Although the humour follows on through Waugh's work, this is not the light-hearted jaunt through English polite society of 'Vile Bodies'. On occasion 'A Handful of Dust' is dark and damning.
That said, the work is highly amusing in places. Such a marriage of humour and despair might seem improbable if not impossible. It would be for rank-and-file satirists. Waugh is a class apart.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
"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 us a dark, witty, satirical novel that takes aim at the post World War I upper class society. His writing is biting and sharp and sometimes hilarious. Tony Last ( the last of the dwindling English gentry ) is smitten, smitten with his boring life at Hetton, his ancesteral, crumbling home. His fortune has dwindeled and there is not much left for his family. His wife whom he adores, Brenda, is smitten also, but not with Tony. She is bored and has found a lover, John Beaver (yes, Beaver). He is a sponger of life and of Brenda and ultimately , Tony. Brenda has rented a flat in London from John's mother- what goes around, comes around. She is smitten with the social life. Tony is unaware of any of the happenings- he trusts his beloved Brenda and is too busy with his life. Their son, John, is a slightly annoying pawn in this tragic comedy. Waugh has written a disaster of scathing proportions and the family such as it is, falls apart. None of these characters are in the least likeable. Not one could bring some semblance of order and honesty to this aristocratic crowd. There is wit, but with the humor comes a feeling of loss. Tony becomes his own person when he goes on a trip to the Amazon. That portion of the tale is interspersed with Brenda's social life in London. The ending is amazing and Dickensonian,if you get my drift.
"My novel also included a happier ending for an American audience, which doesn't surprise me at all. Go and read it and see if you are a tough Britisher or a wimpy Yank who would prefer some Canderel with their Waugh." Peter Walker
A most riveting novel, entertaining and sharp. One I shall remember for a long time to come.
Most Highly Recommended. prisrob 7-22-07
Waugh Abroad: The Collected Travel Writing (Everyman's Library)
Diaries of Evelyn Waugh
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 us a dark, witty, satirical novel that takes aim at the post World War I upper class society. His writing is biting and sharp and sometimes hilarious. Tony Last ( the last of the dwindling English gentry ) is smitten, smitten with his boring life at Hetton, his ancesteral, crumbling home. His fortune has dwindeled and there is not much left for his family. His wife whom he adores, Brenda, is smitten also, but not with Tony. She is bored and has found a lover, John Beaver (yes, Beaver). He is a sponger of life and of Brenda and ultimately , Tony. Brenda has rented a flat in London from John's mother- what goes around, comes around. She is smitten with the social life. Tony is unaware of any of the happenings- he trusts his beloved Brenda and is too busy with his life. Their son, John, is a slightly annoying pawn in this tragic comedy. Waugh has written a disaster of scathing proportions and the family such as it is, falls apart. None of these characters are in the least likeable. Not one could bring some semblance of order and honesty to this aristocratic crowd. There is wit, but with the humor comes a feeling of loss. Tony becomes his own person when he goes on a trip to the Amazon. That portion of the tale is interspersed with Brenda's social life in London. The ending is amazing and Dickensonian,if you get my drift.
"My novel also included a happier ending for an American audience, which doesn't surprise me at all. Go and read it and see if you are a tough Britisher or a wimpy Yank who would prefer some Canderel with their Waugh." Peter Walker
A most riveting novel, entertaining and sharp. One I shall remember for a long time to come.
Most Highly Recommended. prisrob 7-22-07
Waugh Abroad: The Collected Travel Writing (Everyman's Library)
Diaries of Evelyn Waugh
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
A Handful of Dust - Evelyn Waugh
Waugh is the great chronicler of mid-war upper class British life, and this is one of his bleakest, blackest novels. Read more
Published 10 days ago by DJJ
Society Novel about Adultery and Cocktails, Served Up with Satire
Evelyn Waugh's "A Handful of Dust," first published in 1934, was, of course, quite popular in its time, with both critics and readers. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Stephanie DePue
Hmmm..reckon I will read some more Waugh
Having been educated in a Comprehensive School more concerned with War Poets lest we should dive into some sort of combat debacle with the Soviets, I was completely unaware of... Read more
Published 5 months ago by Mr B
tragicomedy, black, witty...
What can one say to add to what has been said. Although a Waugh fanatic I discovered this one of his recently. It's a pity it's still not in Kindle, but... Read more
Published 7 months ago by Henry Ireson
Light and entertaining.
A typically Evelyn Waugh-like cynical look at a certain stratum of between-the-wars English society. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Brenda Young
A bleak and bitter book
This is Waugh at his most acidic and, in my view, least funny. Tony Last adores his spoilt, beautiful wife Brenda, but she finds him boring and obsessed with the Gothic monstrosity... Read more
Published 12 months ago by hiljean
So worth revisiting another Brideshead
I searched this out after hearing it described as a favourite on 'My Life in Books'. As I began to read it I remembered watching 'A Handful of Dust' as tv drama. Read more
Published 15 months ago by Mrs. Katharine Kirby
Handful of dust
I hated this book- a lot of silly people with no personalities doing very little!
Published 19 months ago by Tricia Howard
Sad...
I expected dark humour, but I found this book desperately sad. The only character with any real meaning was the husband, who suffers the most unjust catalogue of misfortunes. Read more
Published 22 months ago by starsailor
A perceptive genius
Evelyn Waugh needs to be read in consideration of the times in which he lived. As someone on the periphery of the Bright Young Things of the 1920s, he was part of a disaffected... Read more
Published 22 months ago by Doug Reid
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