On Satire: 'A Handful of Dust' by Evelyn Waugh

Close Readings

In 1946 Evelyn Waugh declared that 20th-century society – ‘the century of the common man’, as he put it – was so degenerate that satire was no longer possible. But before reaching that conclusion he had written several novels taking aim at his ‘crazy, sterile generation’ with a sparkling, acerbic and increasingly reactionary wit. In this episode, Colin and Clare look at A Handful of Dust (1934), a disturbingly modernist satire divorced from modernist ideas. They discuss the ways in which Waugh was a disciple of Oscar Wilde, with his belief in the artist as an agent of cultural change, and why he’s at his best when describing the fevered dream of a dying civilisation.

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Further reading in the LRB:

Seamus Perry:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v45/n16/seamus-perry/isn-t-london-hell

John Bayley:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v16/n20/john-bayley/mr-toad

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