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
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
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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 permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
Little, Brown and Company
Hachette Book Group
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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