A review by jbartak
A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh

4.0

I found Waugh's criticism of 1930s Britain to be quite compelling. Much of what gets hyped up about this novel is the ending, which I won't touch on in too much detail, though I did find it quite ironic and bitter.

A far more interesting theme to me was the role of divorce in the novel. Tony and Brenda do not have a clean break, and everyone in the posh peanut gallery of London seems to have a vested interest in their split. The way the supporting cast casually discusses how the end of a marriage brought them social capital was the most powerful part of the book for me. Pretty disgusting, and it's an interesting observation Waugh was making.