- Gebundene Ausgabe: 264 Seiten
- Verlag: Everyman's Library (9. April 2002)
- Sprache: Englisch
- ISBN-10: 0375414207
- ISBN-13: 978-0375414206
- Größe und/oder Gewicht: 13,3 x 2,1 x 21,1 cm
- Durchschnittliche Kundenbewertung: 3.6 von 5 Sternen Alle Rezensionen anzeigen (16 Kundenrezensionen)
- Amazon Bestseller-Rang: Nr. 307.453 in Englische Bücher (Siehe Top 100 in Englische Bücher)
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"All over England people were waking up, queasy and despondent."
Few writers have walked the line between farce and tragedy as nimbly as Evelyn Waugh, who employed the conventions of the comic novel to chip away at the already crumbling English class system. His 1934 novel, A Handful of Dust, is a sublime example of his bleak satirical style: a mordantly funny exposé of aristocratic decadence and ennui in England between the wars.
Tony Last is an aristocrat whose attachment to an ideal feudal past is so profound that he is blind to his wife Brenda's boredom with the stately rhythms of country life. While he earnestly plays the lord of the manor in his ghastly Victorian Gothic pile, she sets herself up in a London flat and pursues an affair with the social-climbing idler John Beaver. In the first half of the novel Waugh fearlessly anatomizes the lifestyles of the rich and shameless. Everyone moves through an endless cycle of parties and country-house weekends, being scrupulously polite in public and utterly horrid in private. Sex is something one does to relieve the boredom, and Brenda's affair provides a welcome subject for conversation:
It had been an autumn of very sparse and meagre romance; only the most obvious people had parted or come together, and Brenda was filling a want long felt by those whose simple, vicarious pleasure it was to discuss the subject in bed over the telephone.Tony's indifference and Brenda's selfishness give their relationship a sort of equilibrium until tragedy forces them to face facts. The collapse of their relationship accelerates, and in the famous final section of the book Tony seeks solace in a foolhardy search for El Dorado, throwing himself on the mercy of a jungle only slightly more savage than the one he leaves behind in England. For all its biting wit, A Handful of Dust paints a bleak picture of the English upper classes, reaching beyond satire toward a very modern sense of despair. In Waugh's world, culture, breeding, and the trappings of civilization only provide more subtle means of destruction. --Simon Leake -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine andere Ausgabe: Taschenbuch .
Pressestimmen
“A vicious, witty novel.” —New York Times
“Waugh’s technique is relentless and razor-edged…By any standard it is super satire.” —Chicago Daily News
“The most mature and the best written novel that Mr. Waugh has yet produced.” —New Statesman & Nation
“A story both tragic and hilariously funny, that seems to move along without aid from its author…Unquestionably the best book Mr. Waugh has written.” —Saturday Review
“Waugh’s technique is relentless and razor-edged…By any standard it is super satire.” —Chicago Daily News
“The most mature and the best written novel that Mr. Waugh has yet produced.” —New Statesman & Nation
“A story both tragic and hilariously funny, that seems to move along without aid from its author…Unquestionably the best book Mr. Waugh has written.” —Saturday Review
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Format:Taschenbuch
In this dead-on perfect skewering of upper class snobbism, Tony Last escapes the savagery of English society, only to wind up amidst real savages with a distinctly English overlord.
This is Waugh at his finest; filing his prose style down to razor sharpness, hurling it with perfect accuracy, and nailing English snobbism right to the wall.
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Format:Taschenbuch
Waugh was a Catholic, a conservative and a snob, which might
make him an unlikely candidate to write some of the books he
did, the most brilliant satires of the 20th century. Though
he is best known for Brideshead Revisited, Handful of Dust
is, in my opinion, his best, closely followed by Vile Bodies,
Decline and Fall, Scoop, etc. These books are a slice to the
very bone of his society (and ours, in many ways), and he was
a genius of style; economical, precise, always on target and
hilariously and horribly funny. Handful of Dust has an unusual
and haunting ending.
make him an unlikely candidate to write some of the books he
did, the most brilliant satires of the 20th century. Though
he is best known for Brideshead Revisited, Handful of Dust
is, in my opinion, his best, closely followed by Vile Bodies,
Decline and Fall, Scoop, etc. These books are a slice to the
very bone of his society (and ours, in many ways), and he was
a genius of style; economical, precise, always on target and
hilariously and horribly funny. Handful of Dust has an unusual
and haunting ending.
Format:Taschenbuch
Now I know where Martin Amis got his writing style from. "Pastoral" would be a kind word to describe this work, as weirdly absorbing as it becomes. The basic premise mirrors that of many comedies of manners from around its time; wife takes apartment in the city and takes a lover, leaving the hapless husband at home. Wife feels guilty. Wife attempts to set husband up with a lover. Husband is oblivious. The repercussions are immense.
I got the feeling that Waugh was trying too hard at the beginning of this book, and that after he stopped trying and started just plain writing, the book got a whole lot better. He spends a relatively unnecessary length of time setting the scene before anything really starts happening, and that scene-setting is interminable. (I should mention that Amis' writing style mirrors those first seventy pages to a T.) However, once Waugh stops attempting to be so damned urbane, and gets on with the task of putting his characters in increasingly unrealistic situations, both the pace and the humor pick up. The obligatory tragedy happens, and when it does, it's a mark of how much better the book has gotten that it's unexpected, and the reader realizes that maybe he feels something more for these characters than a cordial sort of despise.
One could (and one is sorely tempted) compare and contrast Waugh's novel with Amis' _Dead Babies_ as synecdochic of what's happened to British humor over the past sixty years. One will not stoop to such a level, since one is utterly infatuated with Dawn French, and thinks The Vicar of Dibley is the cat's pyjamas where TV sitcoms are concerned. So one will content oneself with saying that Waugh, using understatement and irony, has written a far more humorous novel than Amis, whose main conceits were slapstick and drugs. Still not one of the better things I've read this year, could have used a good editor in the beginning, but not bad, not bad at all.
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Not his best by far
I have read "Brideshead Revisited" and admired it greatly. I thought the characters complex and the insights into English society so lucid and complete that I felt that I... Lesen Sie weiter...
Veröffentlicht am 1. Juli 2000 von Jeremiah Foster
Ho-hum..
Very odd book that turned into a very boring book with a very strange ending, to say the least. While the prose was witty, entertaining and lyrically delightful, the plot was just... Lesen Sie weiter...
Veröffentlicht am 9. Juni 2000 von "shell2128"
Sparkling prose, surprising plot twists
This novel is not satirical, but dead-on accurate in its observations of a certain stratum of English society which is no longer shamed or shocked by its own actions. Lesen Sie weiter...
Veröffentlicht am 24. Februar 2000 von Michael J. McVay
Savagery at its most ironic
Many seem to think that the ending of this novel is merely tacked on, when, in fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Lesen Sie weiter...
Veröffentlicht am 25. Januar 2000 von Paul M. Gunther
Brilliant book, pity about the ending
This book is typical of Waugh, an author who loves the concept of irony and satire, yet in a written interview for the BBC he said that he does not consider himself to be a... Lesen Sie weiter...
Veröffentlicht am 12. Januar 2000 von Laura Strang
I totally agree with any of the negative points made so far
Having read The Loved One last term I was glad to see another Waugh on our reading list but A Handful of Dust did not meet my expectations at all. Lesen Sie weiter...
Am 16. November 1999 veröffentlicht
A brilliant book, witty and poignant
Truly one of the finest novels by one of the finest 20th century authors. At it's heart, it is the story of how trivial events and an attempt to do the right thing can doom an... Lesen Sie weiter...
Am 1. Oktober 1999 veröffentlicht
Should be read only as a class assignment
On a technical level, I can appreciate Waugh's mastery of language, sense of irony, and characterization. As many of the other reviewers note, the book succeeds in these aspects. Lesen Sie weiter...
Am 10. September 1999 veröffentlicht
good beginning, unconvincing ending
I really liked the beginning of the story and the description of the collapse of Tony and Brenda's marriage along with the gossiping that flourishes around it. Lesen Sie weiter...
Am 7. Juli 1999 veröffentlicht
Super Satire, Some Problems
I read this book this past year in a University literature class, and I must say, Waugh is a first-rate satirist and easily one of the best in the twentieth century. Lesen Sie weiter...
Am 16. Juni 1999 veröffentlicht
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