#Tony Last

[oscarwetnwilde]

A Handful of Dust: Father & Son.

[hawleywilby]

[undinecissy]

James Wilby as Tony Last in A Handful of Dust （1988）from a Japanese magazine, The British Princes, 1989

[annethepancake]

Oh to be Tony Last

His only child dies

His wife cheats on him and later on divorces him

He wants to be a good man for his ex wife but she and her lover decide to exploit him further

He then enters a midlife crisis and follows a crazy man whom he meets once into deep foreign jungle

Ends up being held hostage at gunpoint

And made to read Charles Dickens for the rest of his life?!

[expo63]

James Wilby as Tony Last in A Handful of Dust (Charles Sturridge, UK, 1988)

Original double-crown movie poster. My new big HQ scan and edit: please reblog, not repost. Thank you

A lovely big German movie poster for A Handful of Dust / Eine Handvoll Staub recently became mine – so naturally I’ve been having fun HQ scanning and Photoshop-perfecting BIG James & Rupert.

Rupert Graves here ;))

[romanica]

[feellikedancingtonight]

James Wilby in A Handful Of Dust >> x <<

[johnreads]

A Handful of Dust- Reviewed

So, Once in a while I like to read a less recent novel that came out at least fifty years ago. I'm not a big fan of the classics, though one of my favorite books is Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles (Which I'll review another time). so taking a break from the current YA novels (Yes, I read a good amount of YA- the first step is admitting it) and instead chose to read Evelyn Waugh's A Handful of Dust.

The story, which takes place in the 1930s centers on Tony and Brenda Last, an upper-class couple who live in the English country with their son in Tony's opulent Gothic house and estate: Hetton Abbey. While seemingly wealthy, The couple's fortune lies mainly in Hetton, resulting in them having to be careful with the money they do have, much to the chagrin of Brenda. A chance encounter with  a man called John Beaver leads to an infatuation on Brenda's side and the subsequent events that follow puts immense strain and Tony and Brenda's relationship, finally resulting in complete chaos and tragedy.

There are few stories that have polarized the characters for me as this one. It is so easy to blame Brenda and John Beaver for the disintegration of a seemingly happy marriage. However, Tony in his obsession with the upkeep of his estate is not entirely an innocent victim. It's difficult to hate these characters because deep down they all have a redeeming quality. Except for Mrs. Beaver, John's mother, who from beginning to end is a bitch and control freak.

While there is little growth in Brenda and John's character, I witnessed immense growth with Tony, from being dependent��on his family and his house, to  eventually spreading his wings and venturing explore outside of the English countryside. He goes exploring in the West Indies and South America, something I hadn't expected from his character and description in the initial chapters The final twist in Tony story is essentially gut-wrenching and very saddening, The end is not really satisfying, though it may be for some of the characters, but the story leading up to it is riveting, hilarious and when Brenda's concerned, oftentimes agitating. 

I often come into an argument with people who say older books don't feature the romance (their words; i'd rather use the term Smut), which more recent books feature. To these people I'd like to say, read A Handful of Dust. It has romance, death, affairs, prostitutes and at one end likable and on the other extremely irritating (To the point that you wish they would just die already) characters. 

Final words: a good novel that highlights the frailty of marriage and people and how they are easily broken down.

Here's a link to where you can buy it (free shipping as always): http://www.bookdepository.com/Handful-Dust-Evelyn-Waugh/9780141183961/?a_aid=Jonathandesouza

[onionjulius]

So like I said earlier today (um yesterday) I finished A Handful of Dust and

I really wish I had read it more continuously because doing a write-up will be hampered by the fact that I can't remember the exact reasons for my impressions and feels especially from the earlier parts of the book

it reminds me vaguely of Vile Bodies in the way the ending just takes a total WTF turn. Although it's not nearly as WTF as Vile Bodies, but I definitely did not really get the whole point of the "In Search of a City" chapter ...

... until I did, and then it was a really rewarding section! I mean, it has to be the most important section.

I kept mentally referencing Tender is the Night because, like that book, this too was about the dissolution of a marriage, but among a variety of differences was how Waugh's break-up projected onto commentary about, IDK Britain and civilization entirely.

And there's something under there about race, I think? Jenny Abdul Akbar, and the dark woman on the boat, and Rosa and the Pie-wies ... but I can't piece it all together.

And then animals too. Jock Grant-Menzies' pigs and the chicken noises in the card game and the animals the little Last boy is raising at the end (I forget what they are) that he puts into cages to restore Hetton to glory or whatnot.

And the fact that Hetton's rooms are named (!) and are named after Arthurian figures at that (!!). It's like the height of British self importance or something?

And Brenda is definitely "newer" than Tony, who's last name, after all, is Last. Brenda likes the hopping London life, Tony likes to be entrenched in his aristocratic estate with rooms named after mythic British legends.

And then in chapter five it's when we see how Brenda and Tony are both, in some sense or other, stuck in a jungle and looking for help? And Tony is both Brenda's prisoner in that she hated living at Hetton, and the victim of imprisonment himself at the hands of Mr. Todd. Tony thinks resentfully of how Dr. Messinger has left him adrift, without any help in the jungle, and Brenda thinks how Tony has done the same by not providing monetarily for her. Brenda of course is rescued and in such a way that I guess you could feel offended on Tony's behalf (and his relatives do, we see), but can you really blame her when you see how it's about survival, just like Tony's?

And man, Tony's fate, the way it unfolded. UFFFFF. That hits hard.

I don't like John Beaver at all, and his mother's a bit annoying too. Like, the headstone thing? How opportunistic, after your son just broke up this man's marriage? IDK man. The way she regarded her son's fling with a married woman as good life-enriching experience, that would enable him to climb the social ladder ...

Obviously there is a lot of satirizing of British society, because it's Waugh what else do you expect.

And there's the fact that Mr. Todd loved Dickens? The premier author of the Victorian era? IDK something there too maybe.

On pure form the randomness of Tony's trip to Brazil does bug me but OTOH it makes this biting comparison possible that's the whole punch of the entire story. And Waugh again is not afraid to leave realism for WTFery to make his point.

And you know, just, the ending is a really bleak black ending, but also cold? It's not mournful or sad, it's just ... like the end of The Stepford Wives, you know? It's terror followed by the sardonic new status quo. IDK if people will find the characters sympathetic enough to like them, but that might be for the best.

IOW, this is definitely a book to read if you're in the mood to laugh at humanity and its absurdities, to the nth degree of ridicule.

I'll write something better later but right now I want to get this out so I don't forget.

[oscarwetnwilde]

A Handful Of Dust (1988): Grief

[oscarwetnwilde]

My feeling when I'm at the end of this movie and he still hasn't left the island.

[oscarwetnwilde]

A Handful of Dust: Grief.

[oscarwetnwilde]

A Handful Of Dust (1988)

"'Everything is all right, isn't it?"

[oscarwetnwilde]

James Wilby as Tony Last in A Handful of Dust (1988)

[oscarwetnwilde]

More gorgeous shots of James Wilby as Tony Last in A Handful of Dust.

[oscarwetnwilde]

Beautiful shots of James Wilby as Tony Last in A Handful Of Dust part 3.