Poor Tony Last. All he wants to do is live the life of a country squire, the life his father lived, his grandfather, and so on, puttering about the massive garden, going to church, and sitting across from his wife Brenda as they read the Sunday papers. That’s it. He doesn’t want too much. He loves his wife. He loves his massive house, even though it’s ugly and uncomfortable. He loves the ritual of walking to church and then talking with the Vicar afterwards. He doesn’t care for travel. He loves England. So why does Life deal him such a cruel deck? Why does he end up in the jungles of Brazil, far from civilization, feverish, being forced to read the entire works of Charles Dickens to an insane old farmer who holds him prisoner? How on earth does this happen to a man so … blameless? So harmless?
When an entire culture is rotten, then someone must pay. And it will be the rich old-school types like Tony Last who don’t see the writing on the wall, that the rules of the game have changed, and that he will be the fall guy. His marriage to Brenda is companionable and humorous. They have a young son, John, whom they love, although it is really Ben, the farm hand, who looks after him, causing some consternation when words like “silly old tart” come into John’s vocabulary.
“Now listen, John. It was very wrong of you to call nanny a silly old tart. First, because it was unkind to her. Think of all the things she does for you every day.”
“She’s paid to.”
“Be quiet. And secondly because you were using a word which people of your age and class do not use. Poor people use certain expressions which gentlemen do not. You are a gentleman. When you grow up all this house and lots of other things besides will belong to you. You must learn to speak like someone who is going to have these things and be considerate to people less fortunate than you, particularly women. Do you understand?”
“Is Ben less fortunate than me?”
John’s incomprehension of the machinations of class shows his innocence, and also shows the future. Tony Last is the one who is out of touch here, although not out of any reactionary malice. He is that type of Englishman who believes in being “considerate” to those “less fortunate”, and who does practice what he preaches – Tony has his foibles, but being rude or boorish is not one of them – and yet, like the current-day term “tolerance”, he doesn’t realize how condescending his attitude is towards those “less fortunate” than he. John, a child, sees Ben the farm hand as more free than any of the rich adults in his parents’ life. He doesn’t understand. The relationship with Ben is a great concern to Tony and Brenda, although Brenda laughs things off more.
Brenda is an interesting character. If I had to diagnose her, I would call her a sociopath. A fascinating portrait of selfishness. Ego. Unthinking adherence to trends. All of this adds up to terrible cruelty, although she, too, has a baffled air of plausible deniability: why won’t Tony just be sensible? She is completely cut off from the real pulsing world of love, fellow feeling, compassion, empathy, grief. She is an incomplete human being. Her sudden decampment to London, her immersion in a fashionable set (a despicable group), her affair with the worthless John Beaver (merely because it is the fashion for women of her status to take on a lover), takes Tony Last by surprise. What has happened to his life? He cannot get his mind around it. He reminds me a bit of poor Paul Pennyfeather in Decline and Fall
“Oh, Mr. Last,” she said, “what a sweet old place this is.”
“I’m afraid it’s been restored a great deal,” said Tony.
“Ah, but its atmosphere. I always think that’s what counts in a house. Such dignity, and repose, but of course you’re used to it. When you’ve been very unhappy as I have, you appreciate these things.”
Tony said, “I’m afraid Brenda hasn’t arrived yet. She’s coming by car with Lady Cockpurse.”
“Brenda’s been such a friend to me.” The Princess took off her furs and sat down on the stool before the fire, looking up at Tony. “D’you mind if I take off my hat?”
“No, no … of course.”
She threw it on the sofa and shook out her hair, which was dead black and curled. “D’you know, Mr. Last, I’m going to call you Teddy right away. You don’t think that’s very much of me? And you must call me Jenny. Princess is so formal, isn’t it, and suggests tight trousers and gold braid …. Of course, “she went on, stretching out her hands to the fire and letting her hair fall forwards a little across her face, “my husband was not called ‘Prince’ in Morocco; his title was Moulay – but there’s no proper equivalent for a woman so I’ve always called myself Princess in Europe … Moulay is far higher really … my husband was a descendant of the Prophet. Are you interested in the East?”
“No … yes. I mean I know very little about it.”
“It has an uncanny fascination for me. You must go there, Teddy. I know you’d like it. I’ve been saying the same to Brenda.”
“I expect you’d like to see your room,” said Tony. “They’ll bring tea soon.”
“No, I’ll stay here. I like just to curl up like a cat in front of the fire, and if you’re nice to me I’ll purr, and if you’re cruel I shall pretend not to notice – just like a cat … Shall I purr, Teddy?”
“Er … yes … do, please, if that’s what you like doing.”
“Englishmen are so gentle and considerate. It’s wonderful to be back among them … mine own people. Sometimes when I look back at my life, especially at times like this among lovely old English things and lovely people, I think the whole thing must be a frightful nightmare … then I remember my scars …”
“Brenda tells me you’ve taken one of the flats in the same house as hers. They must be very convenient.”
“How English you are, Teddy – so shy of talking about personal things, intimate things … I like you for that, you know. I love everything that’s solid and homely and good after …. after all I’ve been through.”
Let me reiterate: Poor Tony Last. Waugh, as usual, doesn’t make Tony Last too easy a target. Waugh is not interested in easy targets. As a matter of fact, Waugh appears to mourn the world which Tony represents: a world where politeness (even if you are feeling otherwise) was valued, where you did your best to make other people feel comfortable, and where the feelings of others were paramount. The ridiculous Princess, babbling on about her emotional “scars” in a first meeting, is the future. She predicts the world we live in now, where people divulge their most intimate secrets and seem to want to do so on television where all the populace can see. Otherwise, what is personal pain for? She doesn’t even get Tony’s name right, she calls him “Teddy” throughout the encounter, and Tony is too polite to correct her. Politeness such as Tony’s was, I suppose, a byproduct of class and Empire: those who felt they had a responsibility to be kind to those “less fortunate”, and while there is condescension in that, there is something beautiful as well. It represents a class of people who took their position somewhat seriously. They must be examples. Tony Last is a good kind polite soul, and he is also a dinosaur. The 20th century will eat him up. And it does.
Midway through the book a tragic event occurs. So tragic that although I saw it coming, it still took my breath away. Violence and reality sudden and swift, intervening in this pastoral world about to disappear. A loss that will change things forever. I suddenly thought of Nancy Lemann’s sweet lyrical novel Lives of the Saints
Tony Last and Brenda Last are not prepared for “real life”, so when it comes knocking on their door, things shatter. Brenda is incapable of deep feeling. As long as she was living with Tony, and had some protection, that failing in her was hidden, even from herself. Or perhaps her feelings are deep, but what they reveal is the heart of darkness. You would do well to stay away from such a person as Brenda.
There is an entire section of the book that is almost entirely dialogue. Switching back and forth between events, with no segues, no “he said, she said” (or very little of that), and the overall effect is that of an entire chattering class (literally), racing around like chickens with their heads cut off, talking about clothes and parties and affairs … all while terrible events mass up on the horizon. A Handful of Dust was published in 1934, so the threat was already clear to those who were paying attention. Waugh wrote a lot about the manic sense of denial in England at that time, the distractions, the ridiculous distractions, and how silly everyone was: could this lot fight off Hitler? The dialogue-section in A Handful of Dust shows Tony, out drunk with a friend of his in London, trying to connect with Brenda (who has rented a flat so that she can be with her lover), calling her over and over and over, as he gets more and more drunk. He’s not in a rage, he just misses her. He wants to come over, no, never mind, he won’t come over, no, wait, yes, he will come over … Brenda, in bed with her lover, groans about how drunk Tony is, and plays him like a violin, realizing that he is such a good person that if she says just the right thing, HE will end up feeling guilty about behaving so badly. This is just what happens. Brenda, who has abandoned her husband and son, traded them in to hang out with Muslim princesses and unworthy lovers, flitting from party to party to party, understands goodness, because she sees it embodied in her husband Tony, a man willing to say “I was wrong, darling, please forgive me”, and she uses it against him. But again with an air of plausible deniability: she is not calculating and vicious, she seems breezy and unconcerned. Nobody could convict her in a court of law for what she is actually doing: destroying a man’s confidence in himself. She covers her tracks completely.
And so poor Tony Last decides to explore the world, because that is what a man does when he doesn’t know what else to do. He hitches along with a crazy incompetent explorer named Dr. Messinger, who basically doesn’t know WHAT he is doing, and the end result is that Tony, dying from malaria in the jungles of Brazil, becomes imprisoned by a strange exiled Englishman named Mr. Todd who has lived in the jungle for decades, and will not let Tony leave to get help. Instead, he puts Tony to work, making him read all of Dickens’ books outloud. Tony, sick and weak, cannot understand events, cannot understand his own life, how it has come to this.
They took down the first volume of Bleak House and that afternoon Tony had his first reading.
He had always rather enjoyed reading aloud and in the first year of marriage had shared several books in this way with Brenda, until one day, in a moment of frankness, she remarked that it was a torture to her. He had read to John Andrew, late in the afternoon, in winter, while the child sat before the nursery fender eating his supper. But Mr. Todd was a unique audience.
The old man sat astride his hammock opposite Tony, fixing him throughout with his eyes, and following the words, soundlessly, with his lips. Often when a new character was introduced he would say, “Repeat the name, I have forgotten him,” or “Yes, yes, I remember her well. She dies, poor woman.” He would frequently interrupt with questions; not as Tony would have imagined about the circumstances of the story – such things as the procedure of the Lord Chancellor’s Court or the social conventions of the time, though they must have been unintelligible, did not concern him – but always about the characters. “Now why does she say that? Does she really mean it? Did she feel faint because of the heat of the fire or of something in that paper?” He laughed loudly at all the jokes and at some passages which did not seem humorous to Tony, asking him to repeat them two or three times; and later at the description of the sufferings of the outcasts in “Tom-all-alones” tears ran down his cheeks into his beard. His comments on the story were usually simple. “I think that Dedlock is a very proud man,” or “Mrs. Jellyby does not take enough care of her children.”
Tony enjoyed the readings almost as much as he did.
England is dying. Tony Last is its last and best representative. It is a fitting tribute to England and its tradition that its best member would be trapped in a jungle, dying, and reading Dickens out loud. A monument to their culture, to what it can (and did) produce.
When the cataclysm comes, and Waugh knows it will, what will be left behind? What will survive?
So good. Where are the piles of money these book essays should be bringing you?
Sigh. I know. :( Oh well! I do love doing it, and glad that people enjoy them!!
Doc is right – this is a work of art in itself.
I was going to say life’s not fair but then maybe in the end it is – all our well-compensated cultural cannibals will never feel the sense of accomplishment and joy in creation that is your reward for work like this.
Miker – You made a similar comment once about my film reviews. If you think that film critics are well-paid, then you don’t understand what is happening – in film criticism in general. The only reason to do it is because you love it, and you hope cinephiles will find your content, and maybe you can get paid opportunities through building up a following. But to think of critics as fat cats is ridiculous. They are losing their jobs left and right. Similarly, to say that people who write book essays professionally are “well compensated” is incorrect.
Cannibals? Huh? Don’t mean to come down hard, but this is a theme in some of your comments, and needed to correct your misunderstanding of how well critics are paid.
Again, glad you like. If you pick up Handful of Dust because of something I’ve written, then I am well compensated indeed.
From another amateur critic, thanks for this reminder of one of the great reads of the last century. This novel was assigned to me in an undergrad 20c British fiction course I took and I loved it as much as I cringed at it. Three decades later, I sense I’d cringe even more at Waugh’s merciless dissections. You might like this review of Alexander Waugh’s “Fathers & Sons,” the collective biography of the family. In it, you can find out more about the avuncular, terrible inspiration for Mr. Todd.
John – Yes, Handful of Dust seems less elegiac than Brideshead, and certainly more rage-ful than Decline and Fall. It certainly is funny at points (the ridiculous “affair” that Tony has with that random woman, just so he can get his divorce), but in general, I found it pretty bleak. A portrait of a surface-conscious society, going down into the flames, and not even realizing it. Amazing!!
Thanks for the link – I’ll read when I get a chance.
Of course this post caught my eye because the book title reminded me of mine, but what really drew me in was the description of reading Bleak House aloud. That book is so rich, and yet so elusive….It’s one of the few that I can read over, and over, and over again.
You might get sick of it if you were forced to read it while being imprisoned in the jungle dying of malaria. :)
This is the best, truest take on Waugh I can ever recall reading. Have to go back myself and in light of this.
Please know you are firmly bookmarked, whoever you are.
clem