Reading 1001 discussion

read July 2020

This was not what I was expecting at all. I thought this novel was a satire about the vacuous rich people I find so annoying to read about. It is satire, and certainly has moments that caused me to laugh out loud. But at it’s heart it is a bleak tragedy. All of the main and secondary characters are so completely self absorbed, but not self aware, that when the most tragic thing happens (of all) they can’t even begin to react appropriately. It would be very easy to spoil this book in a review, so suffice to say it is a strong, strong novel. 5*

Mr and Mrs Last - Tony and Brenda are married for several years and live isolated at his family gothic mansion when suddenly everything changes by visit of a shallow Mr Beaver, to whom Brenda is attracted.
It is a cynical description of a higher society, but contains a lot of human emotions, sorrow and grief.
For me a quick, nice read - 4 stars.

My admiration for Evelyn Waugh is enhanced by this novel which is more complicated and nuanced than it appears at the beginning. The themes of the decline in the traditional privilege of landowners, the anatomy of a failed marriage and the absurdity of religion (well, more specifically, Anglicanism) are interlaced with references to Eliot's The Wasteland "I will show you fear in a handful of dust" and Proust. Two chapter titles are reminiscent of Remembrance of Things Past. And then there is the obvious parallel to Conrad's A Heart of Darkness. My favourite part was the old minister rehashing his sermons from his time in India which were completely irrelevant to their setting in England. The parishioners tolerated this anachronism presumably because the whole service was an exercise in pointlessness.

This starts out as farcical, lighthearted laugh that suddenly turns on the reader and becomes tragic. Written in 1934, it is set between the wars and is a look at the changes in English society following WWI with those that have money.
Tony Last is an aristocratic Englishman who clings to his roots (namely his Gothic styled home) which represents cold, boring, country life. Tony was the lucky man to land the much sought after Brenda St. Cloud. He is blind to, or ignore's his wife's dislike of the home and country life. She takes a flat in London, after a meet up with John Beaver, a penniless, social climber who offers Brenda a picture of the social life to be found in London and engages in an affair with Beaver, leaving her husband and young son to the country life. In fact she excludes her husband, tries to entice her husband into his own affair, and in the end, all comes to a tragic end and the marriage is over. This book gives a look at how divorces used to happen when they were not so easy. Tony at first wants to cooperate but Brenda becomes selfish, wanting to take everything from her husband. Tony leaves in search of the mythical city of gold in Brazil where he becomes captive to a man who won't let him go just as Brenda had been captive to Tony in his obsession. Another theme in the book is the church life. The country church with it's beloved minister and it's prewritten sermons set in a different time and place show a picture of the religious life as a custom rather than a belief. It is quite clear that Tony's connection to church is more about his social standing and traditions than about faith or belief.

Waugh wrote a short story called, "The Man Who Loved Dickens" and this book developed as prequel to that short story. This grafting of the story of that man prior to his becoming a prisoner in the Amazon jungle to an obsessed, illiterate man, who loves to hear Dickens read and is obsessed with the larger than life Dicken's characters. This part seems like awkward and has been a source of criticism. The title of the book, A Handful of Dust, comes from T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland, a favorite poem and alludes to death, "from dust you came and dust you will return". The first line, "Was anyone hurt" and the discussion of the servants who "lost their heads" but no one was hurt sets the atmosphere for this tragic/comedy. There are many who are hurt in this novel; a son abandoned by his mother and father and left in the hands of the help and the death of the marriage which does hurt both Brenda and Tony. It is a picture of the change in British society but also of marriage and family.

This is my favorite of the three Waugh novels that I've read.

This was my first Waugh novel and I was a touch disappointed in how manipulated I felt by reading it. The book revolved around the disintegration of a upper class marriage for no obvious reason other than boredom or breaking away from constraining patterns of behaviors. This light house comedy disintegrates into a bit of a horror show a la Twilight Zone in the end. No one is entirely sympathetic in this book, but the wife comes across as truly a monster, as does the late introduction in the second half; Mr. Todd. Mr. Todd is a someone who is addicted to being read Dickens and that becomes a monstrous addiction for Tony Last, the husband of our monstrous wife.
It was not a pleasure to read this book's plot but the writing is all fluid and grace in comparison to the jagged events and that made the book interesting.

This book is difficult for me to rate and review, as I enjoyed parts but not all of it and the shift in setting felt odd and somewhat disjointed. However, all of the reviews and comments I've read have led me to appreciate it a bit more. The beginning did not engage me at all, but after the tragic event, I was both amused and baffled by the events surrounding the plans for divorce. The decision to explore Brazil felt out of character and the events just a bit too strange. I was again amused in the way in which Tony became trapped by Mr. Todd, but at the same time I was sympathetic to him through most of the book and had hoped he would somehow get a somewhat happier ending.

Based on the summary and my previous feelings towards social satire I was not expecting to enjoy this one however from the very start I was sucked into the story.

I really enjoyed watching how the characters changed as the story progressed and their perceptions by society were upended. This book has some really hilarious moments and some truly tragic.

Tony is a bit of a wet lettuce right up until almost the end of the book when he does something so out of character I had no idea where the book was going and honestly that ending...very sinister.

Brenda meanwhile starts out as a sympathetic character a young woman stuck in a decaying house away from the lights and action of London but in love with husband and a caring mother to her son and then bang! all that is gone and she becomes a cold and calculating b**ch.

I can't explain what makes this book so funny and so readable without giving away major plot points so you will have to take my word for it this is well worth reading!

3 Stars - funny, tragic, sinister and totally unpredictable also fairly short you should

3 Stars

One of the themes I least enjoy is the exploration of class as it relates to those with money. And ironically, I love books that explore class with respect to the poor.

A Handful of Dust is my first read of a book by Waugh, and I didn't really connect to it. This one introduces us to an English aristrocrat named Tony Last who is clinging to the life he always had. He is married to Brenda, and is considered very lucky to have married her. She however, hates the home he loves and finds country life boring and unfulfilling. She takes a flat in London where she has met (and starts an affair with) John Beaver, a social climber who painted a picture of the social life they could have together in the city. To have John, she leaves her husband and young son, and tries to entice her husband into having his own affair. The marriage ends, and the book dives deeply into the consequences of divorce in that era.

Nobody escapes this one without pain; the death of the marriage hurts everyone involved.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Not my favorite by Waugh, but still a solid read. As others have mentioned, the ending was a strange departure from character for Tony. I was curious as to why Waugh chose to end it that way and learned that the ending was actually a previously published short story titled "The Man Who Like Dickens". I guess he decided to tack it onto this storyline for a more dramatic ending.

This was just my second Waugh novel, the other being the excellent Brideshead Revisited, and while I liked it, it didn't quite make the four-star level for me. It has interesting, unusual characters, but I didn't develop much empathy with any of them and thought the story somewhat on the dull side.
The most amusing part was Tony and Brenda's efforts to obtain a divorce, a nice social satire. I realized near the end that I had either read this or the related short story some decades ago.

Read in June 2020. Somehow I forgot to post to the discussion in July.

I bought a used copy that also includes his Decline and Fall, and I plan on reading that as well, probably in about a year.

This was my last Waugh novel to read from the List. I've enjoyed most of Waugh's novels so far, and I did enjoy this one, too. This one, Vile Bodies, and Scoop, reminded me a lot of the Jeeves and Wooster novels by Wodehouse. These novels are all focused on wealthy elites whose lives are rather frivolous and at a significant remove from what most middle and lower class people experience. The characters have affairs, leaving behind children who are raised by nannies or relatives when their parents cannot muster the interest to raise them or even notice them. Their interest in current events is spotty at best, and as the Second World War develops around them they cannot believe that England would ever go to war with Germany now that the Great War is over and everything is so fun and nice. Even when war does come, they seem to see it as a sort of game. The ending in A Handful of Dust really highlights this mindset.
There is a lot of drinking in this sort of elite society novel, so I liked that in this novel we see characters whose drinking is recognized as a problem.
As of now I've finished all the Waugh books on the 1001 list and on the Guardian list. I think my favorite would be Men at Arms and the trilogy that book is a part of, but I definitely enjoyed most of what I read from this author and will probably read the rest of Waugh's work that is not on the Lists.
I gave A Handful of Dust 4 stars on Goodreads.