"Handful of Dust" - Evelyn Waugh

p.falk · **Posted:** Wed Aug 03, 2016 8:10 pm

This is my 4th novel by Waugh.... and so far my favorite.

The flow of it is kind of odd though. Like other novels from Waugh there's a lot of satire and comedy. But in this one there are moments (later in the book) that are very dark and serious. The description that Waugh gives for the death of one of the characters is haunting and beautiful... while bumming me the heck out at the same time.

gherkin · **Posted:** Wed Aug 03, 2016 9:37 pm

It's a good and pathetic story, to be sure. He's one of the greats.

Highlander · **Posted:** Wed Aug 03, 2016 10:24 pm

Tried Waugh once. Just couldn't connect.

Why do you feel he is great?

p.falk · **Posted:** Wed Aug 03, 2016 11:02 pm

Highlander wrote:

Tried Waugh once. Just couldn't connect.

Why do you feel he is great?

Which one did you try?
I didn't like The Loved One.
Vile Bodies was good but hard to relate to the characters.
Brideshead was really good... But didn't have any of his satire that I saw in other books.

If I would have first read The Loved One I probably would never read him again.

Highlander · **Posted:** Wed Aug 03, 2016 11:06 pm

Brideshead

kage_ar · **Posted:** Thu Aug 04, 2016 1:16 pm

Highlander wrote:

Brideshead

Ban?

Obi-Wan Kenobi · **Posted:** Thu Aug 04, 2016 1:19 pm

St V hates Brideshead too. :roll:

Doom · **Posted:** Thu Aug 04, 2016 3:47 pm

I have never read Brideshead Revisited and have no intention of ever doing so, that book is not even on my list. :fyi:

Norwegianblue · **Posted:** Thu Aug 04, 2016 8:05 pm

Doom wrote:

I have never read Brideshead Revisited and have no intention of ever doing so, that book is not even on my list. :fyi:

I guess the best one might do when faced with a statement like that is to advance the notion that you may possibly be more to be pitied than censured.

gherkin · **Posted:** Fri Aug 05, 2016 7:01 am

Norwegianblue wrote:

Doom wrote:

I have never read Brideshead Revisited and have no intention of ever doing so, that book is not even on my list. :fyi:

I guess the best one might do when faced with a statement like that is to advance the notion that you may possibly be more to be pitied than censured.

Why not both?

gherkin · **Posted:** Fri Aug 05, 2016 7:03 am

p.falk wrote:

Brideshead was really good... But didn't have any of his satire that I saw in other books.

It does have a good bit of satire, particularly connected with Rex and Mr. Samgrass. But you're right, it's toned way down. Which I think is part of what raises it so far above much of his other work. Not that I'm a snob who thinks comedy can't be great art. But in Waugh's case the comedy is maybe a bit too parochial to really rise to that level. Whereas Brideshead, it seems to me, is genuinely universal despite its extreme particularity.

gherkin · **Posted:** Fri Aug 05, 2016 7:09 am

Highlander wrote:

Tried Waugh once. Just couldn't connect.

Why do you feel he is great?

I don't know how to answer that apart from saying I couldn't really answer it about Dickens, either.

GKC wrote:

When I was a boy I could not understand why the Dickensians worried so wearily about Dickens, about where he went to school and where he ate his dinners, about how he wore his trousers and when he cut his hair. I used to wonder why they did not write something that I could read about a man like Micawber. But I have come to the conclusion that this almost hysterical worship of the man, combined with a comparatively feeble criticism on his works, is just and natural. Dickens was a man like ourselves; we can see where he went wrong, and study him without being stunned or getting the sunstroke. But Micawber is not a man; Micawber is the superman. We can only walk round and round him wondering what we shall say. All the critics of Dickens, when all is said and done, have only walked round and round Micawber wondering what they should say. I am myself at this moment walking round and round Micawber wondering what I shall say. And I have not found out yet.

Obi-Wan Kenobi · **Posted:** Fri Aug 05, 2016 7:12 am

gherkin wrote:

Norwegianblue wrote:

Doom wrote:

I have never read Brideshead Revisited and have no intention of ever doing so, that book is not even on my list. :fyi:

I guess the best one might do when faced with a statement like that is to advance the notion that you may possibly be more to be pitied than censured.

Why not both?

Send him to Antarctica!

gherkin · **Posted:** Fri Aug 05, 2016 7:20 am

Build a bridge out of him!

Obi-Wan Kenobi · **Posted:** Fri Aug 05, 2016 7:39 am

Green! No, blue!

Highlander · **Posted:** Fri Aug 05, 2016 10:12 am

gherkin wrote:

... Whereas Brideshead, it seems to me, is genuinely universal despite its extreme particularity.

Which is really what literature, IMHO, is all about. Making the peculiar or intimate or mundane or even desperate .... universal. Which is why I like John Irving's The World According to Garp -- even if it is peculiarly surrealistic.

gherkin · **Posted:** Fri Aug 05, 2016 10:16 am

I don't know if I have a view on that, but it sounds good to me.

gherkin · **Posted:** Fri Aug 05, 2016 10:17 am

Obi-Wan Kenobi wrote:

Green! No, blue!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

Highlander · **Posted:** Fri Aug 05, 2016 10:21 am

gherkin wrote:

I don't know if I have a view on that, but it sounds good to me.

Of course it sounds good. I was hoping for stupendous, but I'll take good.

gherkin · **Posted:** Fri Aug 05, 2016 10:49 am

"Handful of Dust" - Evelyn Waugh

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