Re: Waugh and Voltaire Answers
I'm putting the answers here since anybody who is going to try to answer it has, I'm sure
1. What is the controversial structural feature of Evelyn Waugh's novel <em>A Handful of Dust</em>? 25pts
Interesting that this question aroused the most interest, at least among those who were interested. (What obnoxious conjugating
) Sorry to be late with this, but at least I got some provocative views on HOD from you guys. Anyway, the short answer is the seemingly unconnected jump from the story set in Edwardian England to the jungles of the Amazon. Note that the question states "controversial <em>structural</em> feature." When HOD first came out, critics were in an uproar about how the book seemed to be two unrelated stories mashed together. In fact, they kind of were. Mathman is right that the last section of the book, "In Search of a City," the Amazon sequence, was originally published in the US as a short story before Waugh's work on the novel began. The novelist Henry Yorke felt HOD was too "fantastic.... The first part is...a real picture of people one has met and may at any moment meet again," while the last part was simply unbelievable. Prior to writing HOD, Waugh himself had traveled in South America (he actually met the original Mr. Todd there), and in his letters, Waugh replied to Yorke that for him savages were indeed such people as one has met and defended the last section by saying the Amazon stuff had to be there to make the subversion work. According to Waugh, his intention was to show "Gothic man in the hands of savages--first Mrs. Beaver [John's mother] etc. then the real ones." (Remember how the book begins, with Mrs. Beaver talking about a near-tragic fire in terms of how she would profit from the damage.) The Amazon sequence also thematcally continues the first part of the novel because Tony and Brenda Last and Brenda's lover, John Beaver, live in a world where nobody accepts responsibility and nobody takes the blame, because it's a world beyond the individual's control. In the final image of HOD, Tony's cousins, who have inherited Hetton, contemplate how one of the vixens on their silver-fox farm keeps having her brush bitten off. Thus barbarism can never really be kept at bay. According to Waugh, what Tony ultimately learns but fails to understand is that London is no more real than El Dorado. In his letters, Waugh cites the words of the Epistle to the Hebrews, "We have not here a permanent city but we seek that which is to come"--i.e., all is impermanence--in discussing the use of Tony Last's pursuit of El Dorado. As one critic wrote, "Waugh's strength as a novelist is that, precisely as a sophisticated inhabitant of the city of man, he was prepared to face all the consequences of its being, in the end, an illusion."
Other HOD tidbits:
Evelyn Waugh takes the title from T.S. Eliot’s "The Waste Land":
. . . I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
HOD also offended some reviewers because of what they saw as the arbitrary ending. But as one critic said, "I suspect Waugh did not see Tony Last and his family traditions as the center of his story. He used them to show ancient, trusting British tradition--and then he used Brenda, Beaver, and Mr. Todd to show the rise of a new class to which tradition meant nothing compared to selfish greed." Interestingly (oops, another one), an American serialization of HOD that came out after the book has a different ending than the British version. In the US version Tony returns to London, is reunited with Brenda, and takes over her flat in London in order to engage in his own infidelities. The US version is more urbane, but basically it restores rather than subverts civilization, which is the opposite of what the British version does.
HOD also does indeed evoke the legend of King Arthur, although of course Waugh subverts this too. I never knew this before, thanks Show! (Waugh is a self-taught author for me.) Rereading HOD over the last two days, I found great Arthurian references throughout, i.e., <em>A whole Gothic world had come to grief...there was now no armour, glittering in the forest glades, no embroidered feet on the greensward; the cream and dappled unicorns had fled...</em> p209
Another controversial tidbit re Waugh's books in general is that in his book <em>The Western Canon</em>, literary critic Harold Bloom lists the following novels as those he feels deserve to go into the "canon of great literature":
<em>A Handful of Dust</em>
<em>Scoop</em>
<em>Vile Bodies</em>
<em>Put Out More Flags</em>
Bloom does not include <em>Brideshead Revisited</em> and doesn't say why. But then Bloom discusses very few of his choices. A Waugh websit recommends his best works as <em>Scoop; The Loved One; A Handful of Dust;</em> and <em>Brideshead Revisited</em>.
Waugh tidbits, according to
www.doubtinghall.com:
EVELYN WAUGH (1903-1966)
"You have no idea how much nastier I would be if I was not a Catholic. Without supernatural aid I would hardly be a human being."
Did you know?
During his first teaching job Waugh attempted suicide by swimming out to sea but turned back to shore after being stung by jellyfish.
Critical verdict:
Waugh was writing short stories from the age of four; his first published work was an essay on the Pre-Raphaelites, followed by Decline and Fall, which brought overnight success at a brat-pack age. An immensely skilled, consummately dry writer, his oeuvre includes social satire, war novels, travelogues and black comedy.
Mathman--I think most people probably reacted the way you did re <em>Brideshead</em> vs. <em>HOD</em>. One modern critic described HOD as a horror story.
2. What famous English author plays a role in <em>A Handful of Dust</em>? 25pts
Charles Dickens. In the Amazon, Mr. Todd makes Tony Last his reading slave, since Todd cannot read but loves the stories, especially those of Dickens. Last looks down on Dickens, which in itself is ironic on several levels since in a novel by Dickens the fate of the Last family would have been settled in sound dramatic terms and certainly would never end with a member of the British upper class up the Amazon without a paddle.
3. What other great writer is thought to have died on the same day as Shakespeare? 25pts. Any quixotic guesses?
4. (a) In what work by what author does the character Cunegonde appear? 5pts. <em>Candide</em> by Voltaire, as you all got, which is why it's only worth 5pts
(b) What character of Dante's does Cunegonde reflect? 10pts. Beatrice
(c) What part of Cunegonde's anatomy gets eaten off? 10pts. Righto, Sk8m8, one buttock.
5. What poem did Chaucer consider to be his masterwork? <em>Troilus and Criseyde</em>, which shows that Geoff couldn't tell his poems from a hoe in the ground. According to Harold Bloom, Chaucer considered <em>T&C</em> to be his masterwork, despite the fact that it is less original and canonical than <em>The Canterbury Tales</em>. It is thought that perhaps Chaucer undervalued the <em>The Canterbury Tales</em> precisely because of its originality. Nobody knows for sure, of course, but for some reason, Chaucer thought <em>T&D</em> was the superior work. <em>T&D</em> is one of a handful of great long poems, but compared to the <em>Tales</em> it just ain't all that.
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Still up for grabs:
What play by another famous Irish writer also evokes <em>Hamlet</em>? 25pts Hint re the writer: Vladimir and Estragon are waiting, but not I.
How are <em>The Odyssey</em> and <em>Hamlet</em> used in <em>Ulysses</em>, especially since the characters of Odysseus and Hamlet have virtually nothing in common? 100 pts. C'mon, somebody try, just for the hell of it.
Rgirl
PS Sk8m8--Way to have a killer memory! Same for Show--You sure know your poetry!
