A Handful of Dust - Evelyn Waugh

A sophisticated class society is a fertile ground for development of social satire. British literature would have been hugely depleted if all novels that can be regarded as such were suddenly to disappear. Evelyn Waugh made the genre his own, and "A Handful of Dust" is a sublime example of his mastery of it. Tony Last lives contentedly in his hideous country mansion, just about able to afford its upkeep, ensconced in his lordly duties, happy with his son and a pretty wife blessed with social graces he finds a bit of a conundrum. His wife Brenda is, however, getting bored after seven years of such rural bliss. Tony's life start to disintegrate when ...  Read the complete review

A dangerous boast, perhaps, but for a very cynical writer, 'A Handful of Dust' is Evelyn Waugh's most cynical book. Unlike Charles Ryder, William Boot or Paul Pennyfeather, the protagonist here, Tony Last, is largely unsympathetic, a hapless, spineless man caught in a situation he doesn't have the wit to deal with. The book's most famous scene, where Tony's selfish wife Brenda is secretly relieved to discover that it is her son, John, not her lover, John, who has died in an accident sums up just how bitter Waugh's vision of the thirties is. Without the grand romantic tragedy of 'Brideshead' or the gleeful farce of 'Decline ...  Read the complete review