Port Moresby
Community Member
Member # 10544
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posted
I'd like to start a thread that deals with novels.
The idea is to read a book which already has received myriad accolades and share with the denizens of this small community a review of the plot, the style of prose, an overall rating, and a Christian perspective of the work under review.
To get things rolling, I shall start with a review of a book I just finished today: “A handful of dust” by famed novelist Evelyn Waugh.
The title is borrowed from T.S. Eliot's epic poem “The Waste Land”
The stanza from which it is taken reads:
I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
The story is set in interbellum England.
It begins with introducing us to life in the British upper class, which is devoted to the upkeep of ancestral estates, dinner parties, fox hunting and so on.
The protagonist, Tony Last, wishes for nothing else but to have a pleasant, traditional life with his beloved wife and young son and to ensure that his vast manor, Hetton, is kept up so he can bequeath it in all its Gothic splendor to future generations of Lasts.
Brenda, Tony's wife, doesn't share Tony's antiquated proclivities and yearns for a more modern life.
She makes ever more frequent trips to London, starts an affair with a socialite-wanna-be and winds up having her own little apartment in the big city which she needs (so she tells Tony) to enable her to more rigorously pursue her study of Economics.
Tony is a sympathetic man, but by all accounts, he is a sap and almost the only decent character to appear in this story.
The accidental death of their young son is seized upon by Brenda to divorce Tony, after which she endeavors to extract the maximum amount of alimony from our not-to-clever main character.
Finally, Tony realizes what is going on and he decides to take a break and follow a rather eccentric adventurer into the heart of the Amazon to find a hitherto undiscovered city.
From hereon the narrative takes a harsh turn and we travel with Tony into the heart of the Brazilian wilderness with his strange companion. This part of he novel feels a bit like reading “Heart of Darkness” and the plot development reminded me of a Paul Bowels novel like “The Sheltering Sky” and “Let it come down”.
The reader gets the impression early on that nothing good awaits the 2 intrepid explorers.
Waugh's prose is really good, eloquent and quite effective. The story has a good length and a fine arch.
I learned a lot about life in the British upper class. (My word! what a bunch of shallow, idle and useless twits they are!)
Waugh's condemnation of the emptiness and moral bankruptcy of Brenda and her cohorts is searing.
Waugh is a satirist, and he (mercifully) allows for some biting humor in this otherwise rather cruel depiction of poor Tony's lot.
From a Christian perspective, what I found poignant ( and also quite hilarious ) was Tony's meeting with the local Church of England clergyman, after the death of his son, when he is making funeral arrangements. He complained to his wife that “ he (the clergyman) wanted to talk about religion at a time like this”.
This, to me, showed how many people who call themselves Christians merely use church-going as window-dressing; something one is supposed to do on Sunday while they can barely stay awake through the sermon.
Waugh's theme is the changing of an era in England.
It is therefore rather symbolic that Tony finds himself entrapped, deep in the mosquito-infested Amazon, by an elderly man who insists Tony stay with him as a de facto prisoner to endlessly read out Dickens novels to him. Tony, no matter how adventurous his travels, is held hostage by the past he so treasured in the beginning of the book.
“A hand full of dust” is a powerful, well-written novel, which thoroughly grasped my attention (which is not an easy thing to do considering my monumental AADD HDTV)
The only criticism I can level at Mr. Waugh's creation is that the story feels too cruel.
Tony didn't do anything to deserve this horrid a fate.
I award “A hand full of dust” 8 out of a possible 10 stars.
If you have any thoughts to share on this novel, please deposit them here.
Happy reading,
Port
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Reach out, pierce the thin veil of the sheltering sky
Posts: 18 | From: New Orleans | Registered: Feb 2013
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