Evelyn Waugh’s A Handful of Dust
I just finished reading Evelyn Waugh’s A Handful of Dust yesterday. There are enough surprising twists to make the book an interesting read. I really liked the way the complacency of the family depicted was disrupted, and how they were ultimately destroyed by their complacency. The interweaving of elements of Gothic fiction was just icing on the cake, really.
I have read several novels by the Waugh brothers, this one just being the latest in a line of their novels that I’ve read over the years. I don’t often love their books, but there generally is enough there to make them interesting enough to read. There usually will be something worth further thought somewhere on the pages of the books.
One of the things I always enjoy is reading about the places that Waugh (whichever brothers novel I happen to be reading at the time) traveled, and seeing those places through such different eyes than what we might today. The attitudes of colonialism are so prevalent on the pages, even when those attitudes are being mocked, that it is well worth reading novels by the Waugh brothers just to gain a better understanding of an age now past. One of the first stories I ever picked up by the Waugh brothers was Alec’s The Fatal Game. I bought it simply because it was set in Dominica, and so few books ever are. Having spent some time there myself as a teenager, this intrigued me. It was interesting, in that book, to see how different some things are today (or, rather, 15 years ago, when I was last in Dominica), and yet how much things never really change.
A Handful of Dust is well worth the time it takes to read. It is easily read, and it is engaging. It has been a fun read for me.
