A Handful of Dust draws heavily from the collapse of Waugh’s first marriage which might explain why it is unusually bitter even by his standards. It begins jauntily enough, appearing to promise more satirical fun at the expense of the upper classes in the manner of his earlier novels. Gradually, though, it develops into something much darker and more unsettling. Despair is the key word here and the quote from Eliot’s most despairing poem entirely appropriate. But this book is much more than fictionalised autobiography and Waugh’s anguish at the failure of his marriage opens out into a bleak portrait of - as he saw it - a failed society: the landed gentry are going broke and being usurped by the materialistic upper middle class; people are facile, amoral, and rarely what they seem; religion, at least in its Anglican form, is a threadbare and meaningless joke. Ugliness is everywhere, in Gothic mansions, chromium-plated soulless flats, and, above all, the human heart. Better perhaps for a good man to be trapped forever in the Amazon than remain free in this godless wasteland.

A vision of Hell disguised as a comedy of manners: short, nasty, and quite brilliant. ( )

In this dark cold winter of turbo-COVID-induced lockdown number three, while struggling to sleep and starting a new job from my living room, I am finding it very difficult to read or review books. Rather than wholly break the habit of more than seven years, though, I'll phone this one in. I found 'A Handful of Dust' mordantly funny. It started slowly with annoying men, then continued with more interesting and energetic women making dubious decisions. Indeed, everyone's decision making was doubtful. Waugh reminded me of Muriel Spark in his witty depictions of people's foibles, although he throws in more racism and antisemitism, as well as a perceptibly more conservative pre-WWII class sensibility. Nonetheless, the bleak humour and arbitrary tragedy are brilliantly sharp. Details and dialogue make it memorable; I particularly loved the economics course as a cover story for marital infidelity. The characters have such convincing flaws that one cannot help suspecting Waugh was inspired by his own circle of unbearable interwar aristocracy. If that was the case, I can imagine a fair bit of offense being taken by those who recognised elements of themselves. No-one comes off well, but I was much amused by their doings. ( )

"Why would any novelist put the most important and impactful moment right in the center of the book?" That is the question I kept asking myself after I finished A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh. The part that I'm referring to is no doubt tragic and well written, but the fact that it is put where it is makes the rest of the reading experience ineffective.

Besides the fact that the structure of the plot was not great, the dialogue was superb. The way that Evelyn Waugh makes a conversation so interesting and yet realistic is a gift from god himself. Unfortunately, the faults outweigh the strengths within this novel, which is why this is one of the lower-rated books on my shelf. ( )

A cautionary tale on the subject of adultery. Devastating dialogue, highly refined satire.

I wish I could understand how this book ended up at 34 on the Modern Library's list of the best 100 novels of the twentieth century. I obviously missed something, but what it was I've no idea. The first half is at least somewhat amusing (in a sort of P.G. Wodehouse way), but the second half...I don't know if that was supposed to be amusing as well, or dramatic, or what--the novel's epigraph, from "The Waste Land," would seem to suggest that the novel is something much more serious than i could possibly make it out to be. ( )