A Handful of Dust – Evelyn Waugh

The Pulteney Arms. May 31, 2012.

First published in 1934 A Handful of Dust deals with issues of class, social change, loyalty and faith, to name but four. Despite this, it's a shortish novel, written in an accessible style and with a deceptive lightness of touch. Today it is cited by some authorities as one of the great English novels of the 20th century. But what did the Bath Blokes make of it?

A mixed response, it's fair to say. The humour that Waugh uses to make his narrative slip down more easily left some cold. Others enjoyed this aspect of his writing (the description of the Master of Hounds standing in a distant field nibbling forlornly on an ginger nut…) finding it understated and more effective for it. Some found the writing style fairly anonymous, not really making a case for remark – again, others thought the writing highly skilled, the words and themes meticulously chosen, and the book an achievement in covering so much ground in relatively few pages.

To what extent was Waugh's subject matter relevant to us today? The degree to which the narrative was steeped in 1930's upper-class terminology made it harder for some to identify with the characters, and the apparent fickleness with which relationships were regarded raised a barrier to empathy. Some of the characters seemed plain unbelievable (Princess Abdul Akhbar, anyone?).

But there was genuine interest in the legal matters surrounding the plot – the impending change in the divorce laws, and the seemingly ridiculous subterfuges that were required beforehand to effect a legal separation.

On one hand, there was a sense of profound change in established ways of life and expectations – houses being split into flats, the future of Hetton in doubt (becoming a school perhaps – Chris W was very informative about the huge numbers of stately homes and estates that had to be sold to cover death duties pretty much until the 1970s), apparent lack of respect for the sanctity of marriage, and even in Brenda's case for her son's life and death.

As for Waugh himself, it was notable that we did spend quite a lot of time relating what we though about the book to what we thought about him – more than we normally would, I think. Perhaps this was partly because he's a well-documented writer, known to be irascible, perhaps pompous, not suffering fools gladly… but also from a middle class background himself and therefore arguably aligned more with Beaver than anyone else in the book. Ras wasn't impressed by Waugh's war record. We wondered, to what extent did the book's use of racially pejorative terms (shocking to us today) suit his literary purpose, or did they simply reflect the times he was writing about, and did he himself find them easy to use?

It's perhaps no surprise that, as the book's nominator, Steve was a fan - a masterclass in effective and elegant writing, though admittedly stretching credibility on occasion for 21st century consumers. Most support came from Neil and Mark Th, sadly neither of whom were there on the night! With all scores now in it averages 6.48, which slots in between Case Histories and Suite Francaise - mid-table anonymity.