Page 24 of A Handful of Dust


  1. All of the rooms at Hetton are named after characters from Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur, one of the best-known versions of the Arthurian legend. Do you think Hetton is, in a way, Tony’s Camelot?

  2. “What with Brenda’s pretty ways and Tony’s good sense, it was not surprising that their friends pointed to them as a pair who were preeminently successful in solving the problem of getting along well together” (p.26). Do you agree with this as a definition of a good relationship? At the beginning of A Handful of Dust, did you see Brenda and Tony as being a happy couple?

  3. Tony does his best to avoid Beaver for the entire weekend he stays at Hetton, despite having been the one to invite him. In fact, any weekend there are visitors Tony spends it hiding behind his daily routines in order to escape them. Do you think he is ever aware of how this backfires on him?

  4. When Brenda returns to London society, it is clear that she has missed it. Do you think Beaver’s presence in that society is part of what draws Brenda to him? Does Beaver return Brenda’s love for him, or is he taking advan tage of her?

  5. What do you make of John’s attachment to nanny and Ben, the gamesman?

  6. Are there any ways in which you thought John’s death was foreshadowed? Would Brenda have felt as free to leave Tony if not for John’s death?

  7. Do you think it’s fair that all of Brenda and Tony’s mutual acquaintances, including Tony’s best friend, Jock, withhold knowledge of Brenda’s affair from Tony?

  8. Waugh has said that part of his inspiration for A Handful of Dust was that he wanted to write a novel about “the savages at home.” In what ways do Brenda and Tony act like savages toward each other?

  9. Whom do you think Tony loves more: Brenda or Hetton? Can loving a place be as rewarding as loving a person?

  10. Tony is very much a creature of habit, but he throws all of that away when he decides to venture to South America. What drives him to do something so fundamentally against his character? Do you think that Tony was on the edge of great personal change, or angry and looking for a way out of a bad situation?

  11. Does Messinger take advantage of Tony? What is Tony really looking for in South America?

  12. In the days that he goes mad from fever, Tony hallucinates that he is talking to Brenda. Do you think this is proof that he still loves her? Or is it simply an unrelated effect of the madness?

  14. The story included in this reading group guide posits an alternate ending where Tony traveled to South America but never got trapped in the jungle. Brenda repents and in turn becomes pregnant with another child. Which do you prefer? Having seen both ways the story could go, what do you wish for Tony?

  15. The novel takes its title from a section of T. S. Eliot’s poem The Waste Land. Waugh originally wanted to title it A Handful of Ashes . What difference do you think the use of “dust” makes, compared with “ashes”?

  Suggested reading

  Curious to find out more about Evelyn Waugh? Here are some titles worth investigating.

  A Little Learning: An Autobiography, Evelyn Waugh

  When the Going Was Good, Evelyn Waugh

  Waugh Abroad: The Collected Travel Writing, Evelyn Waugh

  The Letters of Evelyn Waugh, edited by Mark Amory

  The Diaries of Evelyn Waugh, edited by Michael Davie

  The Letters of Nancy Mitford and Evelyn Waugh, edited by Charlotte Mosley

  The Letters of Evelyn Waugh and Diana Cooper, edited by Artemis Cooper

  Evelyn Waugh: The Early Years, 1903–1939, Martin Stannard

  Evelyn Waugh: The Later Years, 1939–1966 , Martin Stannard

  Evelyn Waugh: A Biography, Selina Hastings

  Evelyn Waugh: A Biography, Christopher Sykes

  The Life of Evelyn Waugh: A Critical Biography, Douglas Patey

  Will This Do? An Autobiography, Auberon Waugh

  Fathers and Sons: The Autobiography of a Family, Alexander Waugh

  About the Author

  Evelyn Waugh (1903–1966) was born in Hampstead, England, into a family of publishers and writers. He was educated at Lancing and Hertford College, Oxford, where he majored in journalism and modern history.

  Waugh’s first book, Rossetti: His Life and Works, was published in 1928. Soon afterward his first novel, Decline and Fall, appeared and his career was sensationally launched. “In fifteen novels of cunning construction and lapidary eloquence,” Time summarized later, “Evelyn Waugh developed a wickedly hilarious yet fundamentally religious assault on a century that, in his opinion, had ripped up the nourishing taproot of tradition and let wither all the dear things of the world.” Apart from his novels, Waugh also wrote several acclaimed travel books, two additional biographies, and an autobiography, A Little Learning. His short fiction is collected in The Complete Stories.

  Books by Evelyn Waugh

  Novels

  Decline and Fall

  Vile Bodies

  Black Mischief

  A Handful of Dust

  Scoop

  Put Out More Flags

  Brideshead Revisited

  The Loved One

  Helena

  Men at Arms

  Officers and Gentlemen

  The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold

  Unconditional Surrender (also published as The End of the Battle)

  Sword of Honor (omnibus)

  Stories

  Mr. Loveday’s Little Outing, and Other Sad Stories

  Tactical Exercise

  Basil Seal Rides Again

  Charles Ryder’s Schooldays

  The Complete Stories

  Biography

  Rossetti

  Edmund Campion

  Msgr. Ronald Knox

  Autobiography/Diaries/Letters

  A Little Learning

  The Diaries of Evelyn Waugh

  The Letters of Evelyn Waugh

  Travel/Journalism

  A Bachelor Abroad

  They Were Still Dancing

  Ninety-Two Days

  Waugh in Abyssinia

  Mexico: An Object Lesson

  When the Going Was Good

  A Tourist in Africa

  A Little Order

  The Essays, Articles and Reviews of Evelyn Waugh

  Thank you for buying this e-book, published by Hachette Digital.

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  Contents

  Welcome

  Epigraph

  Chapter One: Du Côté de Chez Beaver

  Chapter Two: English Gothic—I

  Chapter Three: Hard Cheese on Tony

  Chapter Four: English Gothic—II

  Chapter Five: In Search of a City

  Chapter Six: Du Côté de Chez Todd

  Chapter Seven: English Gothic—III

  Reading Group Guide

  By Special Request

  Questions and topics for discussion

  Suggested reading

  About the Author

  Books by Evelyn Waugh

  Newsletters

  Copyright

  Copyright

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Copyright © 1934 by Evelyn Waugh

  Copyright renewed © 1962 by Evelyn Waugh

  Reading group guide copyright © 2012 by the Estate of Evelyn Waugh and Little, Brown and Company

  Author photograph © Hulton-Deutsch Collection / CORBIS

  Cover design by Keith Hayes. Cover illustration by Jon Contino

  Cover copyright © 2012 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the aut
hor’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected] Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  Little, Brown and Company

  Hachette Book Group

  237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017

  littlebrown.com

  twitter.com/littlebrown

  First e-book edition: December 2012

  The text of this edition follows, with minor emendations, that of the first edition.

  ISBN 978-0-316-21628-9

 


 

  Evelyn Waugh, A Handful of Dust

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