Another book assigned for my Modern British Literature class, Evelyn Waugh's
A Handful of Dust turned out to be something of a mystery to me. Most of the book is about the relationship between Tony and Brenda Last, a married couple in their early thirties who live in the British countryside (I'll estimate the setting to be the late 1920's or early 30's). Tony's obsessed with the upkeep of his ugly house and Brenda's terribly bored, so she takes a lover in London - a somewhat shallow man by the name of John Beaver, who doesn't have much regard with Brenda save for the fact that she makes him popular. This section, which takes up the bulk of the novel, is generally enjoyable - its mockery of the British upper class is skillfully done and the three principle characters are fully realized. When Tony and Brenda split, though, Tony embarks a journey of exploration to South America where he comes to such an end that it becomes difficult to believe that you're really reading the same book. I have absolutely no idea what to make of it, so hopefully when we get to studying it in class some light will be shed on things for me. You might want to give it a shot, though - after all, one of the quotes on the back cover describes it as one of the best novels of the twentieth century.
Another book assigned for my Modern British Literature class, Evelyn Waugh's A Handful of Dust turned out to be something of a mystery to me. Most of the book is about the relationship between Tony and Brenda Last, a married couple in their early thirties who live in the British countryside (I'll estimate the setting to be the late 1920's or early 30's). Tony's obsessed with the upkeep of his ugly house and Brenda's terribly bored, so she takes a lover in London - a somewhat shallow man by the name of John Beaver, who doesn't have much regard with Brenda save for the fact that she makes him popular. This section, which takes up the bulk of the novel, is generally enjoyable - its mockery of the British upper class is skillfully done and the three principle characters are fully realized. When Tony and Brenda split, though, Tony embarks a journey of exploration to South America where he comes to such an end that it becomes difficult to believe that you're really reading the same book. I have absolutely no idea what to make of it, so hopefully when we get to studying it in class some light will be shed on things for me. You might want to give it a shot, though - after all, one of the quotes on the back cover describes it as one of the best novels of the twentieth century.
1 Comments:
One of my favorite novels, perhaps because reading it was an extra-academic experience for me. The sense of dislocation the reader shares with the bewildered Last is in part due to Waugh's recycling of one of his short stories "The Man Who Liked Dickens."
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