A Handful of Dust

[Dark Muse]

I just finished A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh, and I loved it. I found it to be darkly humorous, and incredibly witty, and really just a fun book to read. There were parts of it which made me laugh out loud, which is rather unusual for me. I also thought it was a great bit of satire on society. The ending really caught me off guard, not at all what I would have ever guessed of suspected, but it was both tragic and hysterical, with a bittersweet touch.

[ThousandthIsle]

This is kind of a blind stab in the dark, but is the title of this book a reference to T.S. Eliot? I don't have a copy to reference at the moment, but off the bat it strikes me as possibly a phrase from The Wasteland.

[Dark Muse]

The book is not about Eliot, but really there is no obvious reason in the story for it. It is kind of a symbolic titile I suppose, the author could have had T.S. Eliot in mind when coming up with the titile. I could see where the sort of "wasteland" theme could fit into the book.

[Virgil]

Dark Muse, the title is a quote from Eliot's :"The Waste Land." Here:


What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish?Son of man, 20
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief, 23
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
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. 30

I have never read that novel, but I just loved Waugh's Brideshead Revisited.

[Dark Muse]

Ahh ok, I thought I vaguely remebered that line being in Wasteland, thank you

[kelby_lake]

the loved one is also a good satire- on america and cemeteries.

[Dark Muse]

I love cemeteries, I am going to have to look into that

[kelby_lake]

and it's quite short

[Pyrrho]

This may contain spoilers.


I read the novel and the end disturbed me for several days. Imagining to be stuck in the jungle with a madman having to read Dickens for the rest of my life startled me a little. Perhaps this secludeness in the jungle can be a metaphor for a too avid reader who shuts himself away from life until he can't go back (just like being stuck in the jungle). But it is not Tony's fault so maybe it means something else entirely.

[Dark Muse]

I could not help but find the end rather amusing in a way, it was a bit sad, and in someways distrubing, but so unexepcted, that I just had to laugh at it in a way.

I think it is about the fact that they were all isolated in a way. No one truly really connected to each other, becasue everyone was too caught up in thier own self-interests to notice what was going on around them.

Tony's isolation is symbolic of the way everyone was isolated within society, and the fact that he was trying to escape his problems. He did not want to deal with Brenda and the divorce so he thought he could run away from it.

It could also be a note on his character of always exepcting the best of people. The way in which he was blind to Brenda's affair, becasue he trusted her too much, and so he falls into the same mistake again.

[Pyrrho]

I just reread the last passage where Mr Todd says: 'We will not have any Dickens to-day...but to-morrow, and the day after that, and the day after that.'
Nightmarish...

[Dark Muse]

Yes it is chilling.

I also like the part when he is talking of the man before him that use to read and Mr. Todd said. "The black man use to talk like you, about leaving, but he died here."

A part of me suspects he killed the black man for trying to leave.

[Pyrrho]

Very probable...

I agree with you on the irony/fun part of the novel. For example, I loved the fact that E.Waugh entitled the most chilling Mr Todd chapter: Du Coté de chez Todd. The title does so not match the content that it actually made me laugh.

I think that Waugh can do great things with form and content. Some things are so unexpected (like Mr Todd) but the idea behind them is so evident and simple.

A Handful of Dust was my second Waugh - and I liked it even more than my first one (Brideshead Revisited). And I bought 'Vile Bodies' a little while ago and am very keen on reading it as soon as possible.