00:08 Frank: Hello, and welcome to Novel Conversations, a podcast about the world's greatest stories. I'm your host, Frank Lavallo, and for each episode of Novel Conversations, I talk to two readers about one book. And together, we summarize the story for you. We introduce you to the characters, we tell you what happens to them, and we read from the book along the way. So if you love hearing a good story, you're in the right place. This episode's conversation is about the novel A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh, and I'm joined by our Novel Conversations readers, Megan Canty and Anthony Mahramus. Megan, Anthony, welcome.
00:41 Megan: Great to be here, Frank.

00:43 Frank: Thanks for having us. Glad to have you both here for this conversation. Before we get started, let me give a quick introduction to our novel. A Handful of Dust is a classic satirical novel by Evelyn Waugh. Published in 1934, it tells the story of a few rich characters living in England who have tragically comic lives. The main protagonist is a man called Tony Last. He's an English county squire who lives a happy but uneventful life. He lives in Heaton Abbey with his wife Brenda and their eight-year-old son, John Andrew. Brenda thinks the abbey is dull and boring, much like how she feels about her marriage. The novel was well-received by critics, and it's a popular book for studying the art of satire. Waugh based A Handful of Dust on his own experience of divorce and unhappiness. He's believed to have been the most influential satirical novelist of his time, and he died in 1966. Megan, our story doesn't actually start with Tony Last, his wife Brenda, or even their great manor, Heaton Abbey.

01:37 Megan: It actually starts by introducing us to John Beaver and his mother. John lives with his mother in the unfashionable district of Bayswater in reduced circumstances. She has an antique shop. John is 25, unpopular, and he has no occupation.

01:53 Anthony: No job, no prospects. He does some odd jobs for his mother and makes just enough money to buy an occasional meal at his gentlemen's club. This is a club where he knows Tony Last. In fact, Tony and Brenda Last are also former clients of his mother.

02:07 Megan: His main job seems to be as a plus one. When somebody needs a body to round out a table or fill an event seat, he gets a call.

02:15 Frank: And Anthony, isn't that how he ends up at Heaton Abbey with Tom and Brenda last?

02:19 Anthony: Yeah, as you mentioned in your introduction, Brenda thinks the Abbey is dull and boring, much like how she feels about her marriage. She's disillusioned and sick of spending all her time in this cloistered place. She encourages Tony to invite people around to make things more interesting.

02:34 Megan: Content with country life, Tony is unaware of Brenda's boredom and dissatisfaction, and of John Andrew's waywardness. In jest, he invites John Beaver to visit. He doesn't expect John to take his invitation seriously, but he does. He also invites his friend, Jock Grant Menzies. Jock brings his shameless blonde girlfriend, Mrs. Rattery, to Heaton. She arrives by airplane.

02:59 Frank: But before we get John Beaver to Heaton Abbey, Anthony, tell us a little bit about this manor, Heaton Abbey.

03:04 Anthony: Yes, Heaton Abbey is a Victorian, neo-Gothic pastiche of a place described by a local guidebook as architecturally devoid of interest, and described by Brenda as ugly. Yet, Heaton Abbey is Tony's pride and joy.

03:18 Frank: So John Beaver does show up at Heaton Abbey.

03:21 Megan: John arrives for the weekend as their guest. Everyone feels uncomfortable, but Brenda tries to be hospitable to Beaver.

03:28 Anthony: In time, John Beaver takes Brenda to dinner. Brenda, despite acknowledging that he is a dull and insignificant man, is attracted to John and they make the opening moves of a flirtation. She soon begins a sexual affair with him right under Tony's nose.

03:43 Megan: Brenda tries to show Tony on many occasions that she isn't happy and that she's seeing someone else, but he remains oblivious. Even when she wants money for a flat in London, which she intends to share with John, Tony doesn't think there's anything strange about this.

04:01 Anthony: She then starts spending her weeks in London and persuades Tony to finance the small flat, which she rents from Mrs. Beaver, John's mother, who is a canny businesswoman. Very canny.

04:12 Megan: Very complex web happening here. The relationship develops into an adulterous affair and becomes the subject of social gossip in London, even though people really wonder what she sees in him. Although the affair between Brenda and John is known to their social circle, Tony still remains oblivious.

04:32 Anthony: Brenda moves into the flat and then announces to her husband that she's going to take up some sort of study courses.

04:39 Megan: One night, Tony and his friend, Jock Grant Menzies, get drunk at their club and threaten to call on Brenda, who's at the flat with Beaver. They go to a seedy nightclub instead. Because why not? Brenda stays at the flat during the week and only goes home on weekends.

04:57 Anthony: Attempts by Brenda, her sister, and her friends to set Tony up with a mistress are absurdly comically unsuccessful. Brenda hopes to distract her husband with her pushy neighbor Princess Jenny Abdul-Akbar, but Tony does not like her.

05:11 Megan: In time, there's a hunt at Heaton Abbey during which young John Last is killed by a frightened horse. Brenda is in London when their son is killed in the riding accident. On being told John is dead, Brenda at first thinks that it's Beaver who has died. And on learning that the dead John is actually her son, John Andrew, Brenda betrays her true feelings by uttering an involuntary, thank God.

05:38 Anthony: I mean, not only that reaction, but it was somewhat light, fine, adultery, but it's somewhat light up to this point. And then I was like, they killed the kid? I had to go back. I couldn't, it really took a turn.

05:48 Frank: And she was afraid it was her lover. Yeah. And that was more important. Yeah, it sure seemed that way, right? And that's, I was gonna say that's the straw that breaks Tony's back, but not quite yet.

06:00 Megan: You would think that would, but not quite. I think that's a, as you said, it's still pretty, like darkly comedic, you know, the affair. But it is, you know, a bit funny as you're realizing, like, just how much he's not noticing and how, you know, how easily she's doing whatever she wants. And then this happens and it kind of shifts it into this isn't just frivolity and this isn't just someone unhappy in a marriage. This is really people whose priorities are very different than we think or that there's a much deeper issue going on there. And it does rattle. It's finally something that rattles him after so many things have just not had an impact.

06:44 Frank: And I would argue that while John Beaver is in it for maybe some of the fun, some of the lightness that you're mentioning, Brenda's in love. Yes. All right, readers, with that start, let's take a break here. And when we return, we'll talk about the fallout from the death of young John Andrew and Brenda's incredible utterance. Welcome back to Novel Conversations. I'm your host, Frank Lavallo, and today I'm having a conversation about the novel A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh. All right, Meg and Anthony, everything has changed for Tony last. His son is dead, and he's finally become disillusioned with his wife and his life.

07:29 Anthony: After the funeral, Tony confronts her and she tells him that she wants a divorce so she can marry John Beaver. Tony is shattered, but not necessarily surprised. He agrees to protect Brenda's social reputation by allowing her to divorce him and to provide her with 500 pounds a year.

07:45 Frank: Not only does Tony lose his son, he's now lost his wife. However, he still loves her and he does want to protect her social reputation.

07:53 Megan: Tony even decides to concoct evidence to suggest he's been unfaithful, which would let Brenda petition to divorce him. Tony arranges to take a prostitute from the nightclub to Brighton for the weekend to provide evidence for a divorce. And this is where I think we start to really, you know, kind of see the impact of family falling apart. And also just, you know, the fact that Tony, he does still love her, but also that he just seems very resigned to kind of the pointlessness of what's happening.

08:26 Anthony: It's even sadder because he loves her so much that he's willing to go through with this to give her social reputation, leave it unharmed. And then looking at this story too, this is just such a perfect farce. This whole setup could just be a whole movie that you would think was made decades later. Right, more recently, right. Even just the introduction of, oh, and I do have a daughter. It's so silly, but they commit to it. Wait, wait, wait, I've got to say, who has a daughter? Millie wants to bring the daughter. It's just such a wrench in the operation. Like it should have went so smoothly, but she did that. And now we've got, okay, I'm here with a kid. Wait, that doesn't make sense. And then not to mention that he just lost a kid and now he's hanging out with another kid. So he's kind of a parental figure and this is getting so you're laughing, but you also feel bad for him.

09:09 Megan: I think more than most authors, Evelyn was always, you know, he He can really skewer, you know, upper class England in this time period. And, you know, this is kind of you feel horribly that all of these things are happening. And you can see it as he loves his wife and he's trying to be a gentleman. But it's also when you look at her reaction to the son's death and the fact that he's lost. It's like the thing that seems to matter is protecting a social circle. That would be something of importance is, you know, really just highlighting, you know, the ridiculousness of the priorities.

09:45 Frank: Yes. I think Waugh starts to show us the consequences of this adultery. It's no longer, as you said, just maybe a passing fancy.

09:54 Anthony: And so Tony, he spends that weekend with Millie, the prostitute, but they don't have sex. Meanwhile, Brenda uses this leverage to bully Tony into giving her more money. She wants so much money that Tony might need to sell Heaton Abbey.

10:07 Megan: Tony learns from Brenda's brother that Beaver will not marry her unless she receives a large settlement as alimony. Brenda is now demanding 2,000 pounds a year. a sum that would require Tony to sell Heaton Abbey. Any illusions Tony still had at this point are destroyed. He decides he doesn't want to be the scapegoat in this divorce anymore.

10:28 Anthony: So he contacts the prostitute again, and Millie agrees to help him. The prostitute turns up with her own child. The child also spends the weekend with Tony, so they can say that there was no adultery. They simply spend a nice few days together, taking in the sight of Brighton and eating in some cafes.

10:45 Frank: All their friends and acquaintances know the truth, but what they don't know is that Tony didn't cheat on Brenda. Brenda challenges this evidence, but Tony knows she can't win.

10:54 Megan: Because Millie brought her child with her to Brighton, Tony is able to establish he did not commit adultery. He withdraws from the divorce negotiations and announces that he intends to travel for six months. On his return, he says Brenda may have her divorce, but without any financial settlement.

11:12 Frank: And guys, at this point, the story really changes focus. To me, it's almost a different story once Tony leaves on this expedition, shall we say.

11:22 Anthony: Yes. He thinks he needs time away from all this chaos. He's feeling isolated at Heaton Abbey. He wants to go traveling for a few months to refocus and get some new perspective. For some reason, he decides to go on an exposition to the Amazon rainforest. There's hope of finding a lost city, and he wants to be part of the crew.

11:38 Megan: Tony has met an explorer, Dr. Messinger, and joins him on the expedition in search of a supposed lost city in the Amazon rainforest. On the outward journey, Tony has a shipboard romance with Therese de Vitray, a young girl whose Roman Catholicism causes her to shun him when he admits he is married.

11:57 Frank: And almost immediately on this journey, things go wrong. When Tony reaches the jungle, he's tormented by insects, and he thinks wistfully of home. He almost wishes maybe he hadn't taken this journey.

12:10 Anthony: However, Tony and the chief explorer, Messinger, end up lost in the jungle. In Brazil, Messinger proves an incompetent organizer. He cannot control the native guides who abandon him and Tony in the depths of the jungle, so Tony and Messinger are stranded.

12:26 Megan: Clueless as to how to proceed, the pair wander for a time and try to make the most of the jungle. Messinger is clearly lost and incompetent. Tony catches a fever and becomes delirious. They attempt to trek out, but Tony becomes too ill to even walk.

12:42 Anthony: Messinger leaves in their only canoe to find help, but is swept over a waterfall and drowns. Tony is left with no one.

12:49 Frank: Meanwhile, back in London, John Beaver and Brenda cannot move on because there's been no divorce. And with no prospect of Tony's money, Beaver kind of loses interest in Brenda.

13:00 Megan: Brenda tries to get money from the family solicitor or family lawyer, but Tony has tied up their finances to restore Heaton, and he's made a new will.

13:09 Frank: And as they say on TV too often, meanwhile, back at the jungle.

13:15 Anthony: Tony moves around the jungle aimlessly. He's disoriented. He's dizzy. He expects to die soon. One of the sadder parts in that delirium, he starts to hallucinate and become wistful for home and has one-sided conversations with a Brenda of the mind and really just shows how he's forever attached to her. Tony continues wandering until he is rescued by Mr. Todd.

13:36 Frank: Well, Megan, he's not really rescued. Tell us a little bit about Mr. Todd.

13:40 Megan: Mr. Todd is a, at first, eccentric, we'll say, British expat settler, and he rules a small extended family in a clearing in the jungle. Todd does nurse Tony back to health.

13:54 Anthony: He helps Tony get well in exchange for Tony reading to him. Okay. Although illiterate, Todd owns copies of the complete works of Charles Dickens and forces Tony to read them to him. Tony doesn't know what else to do, and when Tony's health recovers and he asks to be helped on his way, the old man repeatedly demurs.

14:13 Megan: Tony becomes skeptical of the situation as his health improves. He can't understand why someone has so many books if they can't read them. He tries to find out more about Mr. Todd from the native tribe living in a nearby clearing, but he can't get close enough to them. Mr. Todd won't let him leave the hut.

14:32 Anthony: Tony continues with the readings, but the atmosphere becomes menacing as Tony understands that he's being held against his will. As the months go by, Todd thwarts Tony's attempts to leave the jungle.

14:45 Megan: When a passing traveler calls, Tony secretly gives him a note begging for help.

14:49 Frank: Let's take another break here, and when we come back, we'll see whether Tony escapes from Mr. Todd and makes his way back to England and to Heaton Abbey. Welcome back to Novel Conversations. I'm your host, Frank Lavallo, and today I'm having a conversation about A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh. Readers, when we left, Tony secretly gives a passing traveler a note begging for help.

15:19 Megan: But sometime later, as a search party of Europeans approaches the jungle settlement, Todd sedates Tony with a local drink and keeps him hidden. Tony is unconscious for two days.

15:30 Anthony: Todd gives the search party Tony's wristwatch because, quote, they wanted something to take back to England where a reward is being offered for news of Tony. Mr. Todd shows them a cross on a grave and sends them away.

15:42 Megan: When Tony awakens, he learns that his hopes of rescue are gone and that he is condemned to indefinitely read Dickens to his captor in the Brazilian jungle, which in this story obviously is depressing, but isn't quite the circle of hell Dante's Inferno kind of sounds like when you say it that way. There are worse things you could read.

16:05 Frank: Yeah, and I wouldn't mind six months to be able to just read some Dickens. I would like to be able to go home at some point.

16:13 Megan: The misery context of it kind of ruins the Dickens.

16:17 Frank: Back in England, Tony's social circle accepts his death. Heaton Abbey is inherited and taken over by Tony's cousin, Richard Last, and his family. A commemorative plaque is unveiled in the Heaton Chapel to record Tony's death as an, quote, explorer. Everyone knows just how much he loved the grounds of Heaton Abbey.

16:35 Anthony: And when news of his death reaches Brenda, what does she do? She marries his friend, Jock Grant Menzies.

16:41 Megan: Meanwhile, back in the jungle, Tony falls into the depths of despair. He knows he's never getting home, and no one knows he's still alive. He will spend the rest of his life reading Charles Dickens novels to the twisted Mr. Todd, and the novel ends without any sense of hopefulness or optimism.

16:59 Frank: All right, Mr. Todd moves from eccentric to, give me a word, readers. Demented?

17:04 Anthony: Demented, crazy. Oh, what's the word? Sadistic?

17:09 Frank: Sadistic. Oh, good word. I like that word. But Megan, the novel doesn't quite end here. Even though that is the end of the novel, there's actually an alternative ending. And I would argue that it's not just an alternative ending, but a completely different ending that changes the whole way we might interpret this novel. It's certainly not an ending that is, as you said, quote, without any sense of hopefulness or optimism. So Anthony, tell me about this alternative ending. Let's start with the why of an alternative ending for Waugh.

17:39 Anthony: Sure. So as the edition of the book we have explains here, that several chapters of the novel were serialized in Harper's Bazaar before the novel was published. One of the chapters was called, By Special Request.

17:52 Frank: And Megan, what is the broad outline of this ending?

17:55 Megan: In this ending, Tony returns from a sea cruise in the West Indies and is met by Brenda, who has been ditched by John Beaver, which no one saw coming. Except everyone, but… They reunite Fort de Meux for want of a better alternative. Tony returns to Heaton Abbey and he secretly takes over Brenda's flat in Belgravia.

18:19 Anthony: The chapter tells us Tony was on a, quote, uneventful excursion. Not for Tony were the ardors of serious travel, desert or jungle, mountain or pampas. He had no inclination to kill big game or survey unmapped tributaries.

18:33 Megan: It continues, he left England because, in the circumstances, it seemed the correct procedure, a convention hallowed in fiction and history by generations of disillusioned husbands.

18:46 Frank: and were told that he put himself in the hands of a travel agency and for lazy months had pottered from island to island in the West Indies, lunching at government houses, drinking swizzles on club verandas.

18:56 Anthony: He achieved an easy popularity at captain's tables. He played deck quotes and ping pong, had danced on decks.

19:02 Frank: And readers, this journey could not have been different from the actual ending of our novel. Yeah. And the alternatives, the differences, don't just apply to his journey. He returns to England and the differences continue.

19:14 Megan: Waiting for him in England is Brenda. She has left John Beaver, who's taken up with Jock's girlfriend, Mrs. Rattery, the shameless blonde, and the London flat behind. Tony is so excited to see her that he promptly falls asleep on the car ride back to Heaton Abbey.

19:31 Anthony: Soon, he even continues to rent the flat from Mrs. Beaver.

19:35 Frank: And guys, along with all these alternatives, all these different endings, we're told an amazing fact. It's told in a very brief aside.

19:43 Anthony: Yeah, well, Brenda? She's pregnant. And in fact, she sees a doctor while Tony is settling with Mrs. Beaver on the flat.

19:49 Frank: And Tony's been away, whether he's been on this captain's table adventure or in the deep, dark Amazon forest, he's been away for a good six months. So I think it leaves us to speculate who the father may indeed be of this pregnancy. For sure. What do you think about this alternative ending or even the fact that there is an alternative ending?

20:12 Anthony: I wasn't satisfied with the original ending, as we say here, and not because it was hopeless. It was almost too dead end. It's like, yep, but now he's just there reading. I had trouble coming- Hopeless, no optimism. And also just the literally what he was doing. I honestly thought he was going to die in the delirium that I was talking about earlier. Right. Because it was sort of sad and wistful, and then he's down. I would have been satisfied with that. A dark ending for sure, but now just I picture him sitting there reading the books. I don't see the symbolism and that he's doing that while she's getting to live the life.

20:45 Frank: So you were looking for a little more finality in our original version.

20:49 Anthony: Which we then get, but I don't know if him coming back and everything's sort of clicking all of a sudden. I don't know if I like that either.

20:57 Megan: I find it really interesting. I like being provided with it because I always think it's interesting to see, like we often don't see drafts writers go through or things like that. But this one I thought has kind of an interesting reasoning behind it. And I kind of like both for different reasons, because I think they're both very true to Wa as an author. When he first wrote the book and the ending in the book, you know, he said in an interview years later that, you know, he had written that ending as, you know, that was part of a short story and that this book was initially kind of the attempt to like explain the events that led up to what happened in that short story. And then when it was serialized, there were legal issues with who owned the first short story. And I guess also Harper's Bazaar didn't like that ending. So it was changed and he wrote the ending that's in the serialized version. So it was kind of a complicated thing in that vein. But then later, he also said in an interview that he also enjoyed writing the alternative ending almost as kind of a curiosity. And he didn't say much more about it than that. But I think what I liked about them is the ending in the book to me is very true to the type of departure that this novel made, where, you know, this is one where there's a lot of hopelessness, you know, it's very connected. He's getting his title, you know, from the wasteland. And there's a lot of parallels there with this kind of futility and just, you know, kind of a sense of, you know, despair and just really a very kind of heavy thing. And the fact that, you know, it ends in this just bleak, nothing good is going to happen. There's no way out of this. This is how bleak life is. And I think that the alternative seems like, oh, there's some better things, but it almost is a different version of if he had gotten out, that experience would not have led to a wildly different life. It's going back to you're in the same mess. You're still, not able to see the faults in the decisions you're making and you fall into the old patterns. And so it's still kind of satirizing that, like, even that wouldn't have changed him. That's just how how I read it. But I don't know what he intended.

23:09 Anthony: You've made it satisfying for me. Thank you. Yes, I like that.

23:12 Frank: And just to be clear for our listeners, the alternative ending that we get is somewhat lighter. It's a little bit easier to, I guess, accept. Waugh, in writing this novel, completing this novel, goes really dark, for lack of a better phrase, a better way to say it. He darkens this novel. He does make it, I'm going to repeat myself, but hopeless and with no optimism at all for Tony Last. He's stranded in the Amazon and there is no saving him. He's going to live out his life and probably die of some strange disease or insect bite. Right. And guys, great conversation. Certainly a great way to end our conversation about A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh. Meg and Anthony, I do want to thank both of you for coming in and having this conversation with me today. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Oh, yes. Yes, thank you.

24:01 Megan: Oh yeah, it's a great book and always great conversations.

24:03 Frank: Fantastic. I'm your host, Frank Lavallo, and you've been listening to Novel Conversations. We hope you find yourself in a novel conversation all of your own. Thanks for listening to Novel Conversations. If you're enjoying the show, please give us a five-star review wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find us on Instagram at Novel Conversations. Follow us to stay up to date on upcoming episodes and in anything else we've got in the works. I want to give special thanks to our readers today, Megan Canty and Anthony Moranis. Our sound designer and producer is Noah Foutz, and Grace Sienna Longfellow is our audio engineer. Our executive producers are Brigid Coyne and Joan Andrews. I'm Frank Lavallo. Thank you for listening. I hope you soon find yourself in a novel conversation all your own.