Talk:A Handful of Dust

Comparison to "the Waste Land"
I removed the section referring to The Waste Land - it didn't seem to fit the rest of the piece. I also tidied up the plot a little, put in a reference to the American plot, and added a picture of the dustjacket.

--- I added a couple of quotations from Waugh, including the details of the story's provenance, and made one extra point about the allusion to The Waste Land, and - sorry - removed this paragraph again: The novel's connection to The Waste Land does seem to be minor, and Waugh went through a number of titles, including "A Handful of Ashes" and "Fourth Decade" before settling on "A Handful of Dust" at the last minute - it certainly wasn't in his mind as he wrote the book. As it says in the quotation from Christopher Sykes, Waugh's friend and biographer, the allusion seems to have been just a case of publishing expediency, and Waugh himself characterizes the book as being, not about decadence, but about savagery. Although it looks like the paragraph went back up, and it is interesting, it doesn't really seem to fit the piece, as it is quite a distant interpretation, and - perhaps - could be better worked in to a longer discussion of Waugh's sources and themes. thewikiman
 * "The plot is very loosely analogous to Eliot's The Waste Land: It begins among decadent upper-class Europeans, bored and directionless, living in the residues of a nobler history. Brenda turns to frivolity and eventually adultery, as the various female characters do in the second and third parts of the poem.  In the end, one of them seeking more meaning travels to the jungle looking for the remnants of older civilization--as the grail quest and the jungles of India figure into the later parts of the poem."

If you don't like this section (which isn't mine by the way can I encourage you to add to the article rather than just edit out what doesn't fit. Also please add to the talk page chronologically and sign each entry, thanks. :: Kevinalewis  :  (Talk Page)  17:25, 12 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Nah, it's just as well gone. I wrote it, years ago now and had completely forgotten about it. In those days no one on wikipedia worried too much about avoiding original research, but that's what it is, and its day has passed. In my defence, though, I wonder whether Waugh might have chosen that title after noticing the correspondences I pointed out.

Citation for quote
That unattributed quote is mentioned in Life of Evelyn Waugh: A Critical Biography. Unfortunately I can't check for the source of the quote as you can only search inside the book if you have an account with amazon which has bought something. If anyone else has access they can perhaps cite a source and make Wikipedia proud. MeltBanana 14:14, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Dust300.jpg
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BetacommandBot (talk) 21:19, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

A Handful of Dust
The phrase "...a handful of dust...) also appears in John Donne's Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, IV Meditation, 1624,(The Complete Poetry and Selected Prose of John Donne, The Modern Library, Charles M. Coffin, Ed., Random House Inc., Copyright 1952, at pages, 418-420):

"....Call back therefore thy Meditation again, and bring it downe; whats become of mans great extent and proportion, when himselfe shrinkes himselfe, and consumes himself to a handful of dust?..."

71.91.40.89 (talk) 15:25, 3 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes. Eliot got it from Donne, and Waugh got it from Eliot. Hadrian89 (talk) 21:08, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Plot Summary
I added a line to the end of the plot summary, alluding to the new owners of Hetton dedicating a memorial to Tony and planning to restore Hetton. I thought it deserved a mention, as its existence in the story does give a relatively significant semblance of relief. -- An d Re w 04:36, 10 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Nothing about their plans for restoration visible today. But aren't the cousins who inherit Hetton in their way as deluded as Tony? Aren't their dreams of restoration as impractical as his? --Clifford Mill (talk) 11:09, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Article development
A first-class book deserves a first-class article. I shall be working to that end over the next few weeks. Brianboulton (talk) 21:21, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

first paragraph
Shouldn't it read " to demonstrate the futility of humanis'm'"? (It's also in "From today's featured article".)--Mideal (talk) 14:35, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
 * No - to slightly re-work the sentence in question, it 'deals with humanist values, as distinct from religious values'. - SchroCat (talk) 14:46, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

truncated edit summary
it should read "Catholic teaching on matrimony is not a "stance"; no annulment is "guaranteed"." 108.56.199.37 (talk) 02:31, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
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Model for Hetton
Doing some work on Madresfield Court, I've come across a number of sources which cite Madresfield as the model for Hetton, e.g.,,. I wonder if it might be a more suitable example than Ettington Park? KJP1 (talk) 09:30, 21 April 2019 (UTC)