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| Plot Summary of A Handful of Dust |
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"The mild-mannered Tony Last lives in Hetton Abbey, a large English Victorian-Gothic house. His wife Brenda is bored by their quiet but unexciting life together in the country, and has discovered a more glitzy social life in London. He does not understand that their relationship is on the rocks, that they have grown apart and she is more in tune with contemporary life than he is. Behind his back, she has set herself up in a London flat where she spends more and more of her time being a party gal with the self-indulgent Belgravia set, and also having an affair with the idle John Beaver.
Suddenly their son John is killed in a riding accident. Brenda tells her husband that she wants a divorce. Encouraged to get everything she can, she requests a settlement which will involve the sale of Hetton.
Not wanting to lose his house, he goes abroad on a quest to discover an apparently legendary city deep in the Amazon jungle. It almost ends in a fatal attack of tropical fever from which he is rescued by the eccentric Mr Todd, who holds him prisoner in the jungle and makes him read the novels of Dickens aloud.
"
John Van der Kiste, Resident Scholar
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| Review Analysis of A Handful of Dust |
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Our unique search engine provides a wealth of detail about books by breaking them down into many different literary elements, all of which are searchable (click here).
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Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot
Tone of book?
- thoughtful
Time/era of story
- 1930's-1950's
Family, struggle with
Yes
Struggle with:
- Wife
Is this an adult or child's book?
- Adult or Young Adult Book
Exploring into the wild
Yes
kind of story
- struggle to get home
Main Character
Gender
- Male
Profession/status:
- unemployed
Age:
- 40's-50's
Ethnicity/Nationality
- British
How sensitive is this character?
- sensitive to others' feelings
Sense of humor
- Strong but gentle sense of humor
Intelligence
- Average intelligence
Physique
- average physique
Main Adversary
Identity:
- Female
Age:
- 40's-50's
Profession/status:
- unemployed
How much of work is main antagonist actually present in:
- a moderate amount
How sensitive is this character?
- middling sensitive to others' feelings
Sense of humor
- Mostly serious with occasional humor
Intelligence
- Average intelligence
Physique
- average physique
Setting
How much descriptions of surroundings?
- 5 (an average amount)
Europe
Yes
European country:
- England/UK
The Americas (not US):
Yes
The Americas:
- South
Misc setting
- fancy mansion
Style
Person
- mostly 3rd
Accounts of torture and death?
- generic/vague references to death/punishment
Amount of dialog
- roughly even amounts of descript and dialog
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Note: the views expressed here are only those of the reviewer(s). | |
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