Melofarce

A HANDFUL OF DUST--Evelyn Waugh --Farrar & Rinehart ($2.50).

Five years ago Evelyn Waugh wrote an unusual first novel (Decline & Fall) which scandalized some readers, tickled many more. In 1930 came Vile Bodies, more of the same, which seemed to establish its author as one of the really funny satirists of the day. But his next, Black Mischief, sandwiched in between some disappointingly pedantic travel books, had an inferior taste, a gritty quality that set some teeth on edge. Last week readers of his latest novel were loudly disagreeing with each other about whether this new departure was or was not in a right direction. Critics had to scratch their heads to classify A Handful of Dust. In essence a satire, the story rises from farce to high comedy, reverses itself in melodramatic leaps into what most plain readers would call tragedy. As up-to-date as this week's London smartchatter, A Handful of Dust is no tragicomedy but a melofarce.

Tony and Brenda were happily married, though Brenda. a recent toast of the town, felt exiled in the kind of hearty country life to which Tony was wedded. When John Beaver, a beautiful specimen of the unpopular sponger, spent a weekend with them. Brenda amused herself by being nice to him. One thing led to another and soon Brenda found herself having a full-time affair with the not-too-enthusiastic Beaver, while innocent Tony moped for her at home. The sudden death of their little son brought Brenda into the open. She announced to the stunned Tony that she was in love with Beaver, wanted a divorce and a lot of alimony--so much, in fact, that Tony would have to sell his beloved ancestral estate. No fool when faced with facts, Tony decided to let her want, went off to Brazil with an incompetent explorer to discover a legendary city. The inevitable happened: the crazy expedition came to grief; Tony's estate went to poor relations; Brenda married one of Tony's obliging friends.

Every smile-raising writer, from Dickens to Wodehouse, would envy Author Waugh many a scene, many a character in this book. Like other less scrupulous authors, Waugh uses some of his funniest incidents (Tony and Mrs. Rattery playing a card game while his little son is lying dead upstairs) to point his pathos. A Handful of Dust is a cunningly contrived cinema of cold wit, tender humor, impersonal satire, shameless, but effective hokum. Only a rare reader will be able to sit it through unmoved either to a smile or a sigh. The total effect is sinister. Author Waugh must be credited with having written a novel truly representative of an age which is partly melodrama, partly farce.

The Author. Evelyn Waugh looks deceptively like Alice's White Rabbit dressed up for the party, but his writing is astutely stoat-like. His father is chairman of Chapman & Hall, London publishing firm. Evelyn went to Oxford, then followed his older brother into authorship. At Oxford he read history, dabbled in art. Alec Waugh had made a precocious splash with The Loom of Youth (1917); Evelyn obliterated the ripples with Decline & Fall. Now at 31, one of the smartest of London's smart young literary men, he has followed the fashion of his set by 1) getting a divorce. 2) joining the Roman Catholic Church. 3) traveling widely in unlikely places.

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