Brideshead Revisited

Brideshead Revisited is a curiously lopsided book. Waugh has a thorough command of tone and a distinctive and (usually) elegant prose style. However, he has no depth as an artist. The characters are flat; the tone is didactic. Waugh has some Big Ideas about truth, beauty, youth, history, time, love, faith, and more, but he has no particular interest in using the novelistic form to convey them. Instead what we get are little potted speeches and laboured paragraphs that hammer out his themes in obvious and needlessly baroque language. One gets the sense that Waugh means to evoke a certain feeling more than anything else: wistful nostalgia for simpler days, when the rich were rich, the poor were grateful, love was tragic, and beauty show more sublime. Catholicism is the great unifying force behind these ideas, but I do not see in Waugh any great spiritual insight. Rather, Waugh simply seems to like Catholicism for the vibes--what other religion opens up such grand vistas of guilt and redemptive suffering, and with such a sense of inevitability? How else to imagine the Brideshead clan, lounging in anemic repose, relishing their melodrama? Less charitably, Catholicism is just Very Old, and Waugh frequently seems to infer from the fact that things are old that they are good.

Whether the novel works for you will depend on your level of enchantment with Sebastian Flyte and his family of tragic, doomed aristocrats. The novel's drama hinges on the spiritual crisis of his family, and of interwar Britain as a whole, and if you do not find it terribly interesting to agonize over whether precious, charming Sebastian will return from his troubled wandering to the fold, you will find much of the book tedious. I found Sebastian to be insipid and uncompelling, and so was generally unmoved. Waugh seems to find these little dramas fascinating simply because the people involved are sophisticates. But he has no interest in the broader human race, and so it is hard to take his preoccupations seriously.

Two things elevate the novel. First is the unexpected exploration of queer love in an environment (1920s Oxford) that you might think would be entirely hostile to it. This is cool and interesting. Second is the doubt that seeps in around the corners of the novel. Anthony Blanche, the novel's best character, tells our narrator near the end of the novel: "I took you out to dinner to warn you of charm. I warned you expressly and in great detail of the Flyte family. Charm is the great English blight. It does not exist outside these islands. It spots and kills anything it touches. It kills love; it kills art; I greatly fear, my dear Charles, it has killed you." I wonder what Waugh would have to say about this passage. Charles, our narrator and clear stand-in for Waugh, has just been chastised for the blinkered narrowness of his artistic output, for his all-too-English fascination with the neat and tidy over the true and the beautiful. No doubt Waugh sees himself as standing apart from Charles in some way--Waugh gave himself fully over to Catholicism whereas Charles remains merely Catholic-curious. My best guess is that Charles represents to Waugh a possible version of himself: here's what I might have turned out to be, had I not turned to the true faith, to the love of the beauty and power of God. But really what he has put in Blanche's mouth is the most damning criticism possible of the novel it occurs in. Brideshead Revisited is a paean to charm, an utterly credulous and infatuated account of the cultivated, artificial delicacy of the rich and very fancy. It is valuable as a document of a uniquely conservative brand of aestheticism; not so much as a novel. show less

The story opens with a Prologue. During WWII, Captain Charles Ryder of the British Army has arrived at Brideshead Castle, which has been requisitioned by the government and converted to a military encampment. Charles has a long history with this place, and the rest of the novel flashes back to relate his experiences with the Marchmain (Flyte) family, owners of the estate. Part II recounts Charles’s time at Oxford as a student of art, starting in 1922, where he befriends classmate Sebastian Flyte, the second son of Lord and Lady Marchmain. Sebastian leads a dissolute lifestyle, and Charles is enthralled with him. He meets the rest of the family, Sebastian’s elder brother, ”Bridey,” and sisters, Julia and Cordelia. Lord and Lady show more Marchmain are separated. Lady Marchmain is devoutly Catholic and she refuses him a divorce. Lord Marchmain now lives in Venice with his mistress. Charles is not religious, and he finds himself in the middle of the various family viewpoints (and a few arguments) about religion.

The tone is nostalgic, as an older Charles relates the experiences of his younger days. Religious faith plays a relevant role as a source of meaning for many of the characters. Others have taken the agnostic path. The primary conflicts arise due to family dynamics and different views of religion. The first part of the book is focused on Charles and Sebastian’s relationship (it is obliquely implied that it may be romantic, but always falls back into friendship.) The second half is dominated by Charles and Julia’s relationship, and Sebastian’s increasing alcohol addiction.

“I had seen him grow wary at the thought of his family or his religion; now I found I, too, was suspect. He did not fail in love, but he lost his joy of it, for I was no longer part of his solitude. As my intimacy with his family grew I became part of the world which he sought to escape; I became one of the bonds which held him.”

Waugh employs rich and evocative language. He deftly manages to insert wry humor into the narrative, providing a nice counterbalance to the many serious topics. The country estate is almost a character unto itself. It represents many elements of Charles’s life – his youthful adventures, development as an artist, and romantic involvements. This book is a classic. In my opinion, it holds up due to its many universal themes – friendship, family, memories, art, addiction, class, and love. show less

A novel told in retrospective, Charles Ryder shares the tale of his two decades of relationship with the Catholic Marchmain family and their sparkling way of life that slowly disappears on the cusp of WWII. Beginning with his fascination and friendship with Sebastian at Oxford and his later attraction to Julia, Ryder's narrative meanders through memories that are as beautiful and as fleeting as the moments themselves.

Waugh's novel is rich in textures with truly brilliant turns of phrase suddenly appearing out of nowhere. Given that a substantial portion of the novel takes part in the 1920s, comparisons with [The Great Gatsby] are inevitable. However, the work has a distinct flavour, not only because sections occur during the 1930s and show more WWII, but because Charles Ryder's development is far more rich than Fitzgerald's narrator. The characters are fascinating from Sebastian and his teddy-bear, Aloysius, to Lady Marchmain and her devout Catholicism to Julia and her sparkling sadness. Ryder's attempts to understand and bond with these last standard-bearers of a society that is disappearing is equally intriguing. A novel that glimmers with the glamours of a bygone era and a reminder that "we possess nothing certainly but the past." show less

When I first started reading this book, I was puzzled, lost even in my effort to find what exactly the author was attempting. As time and pages passed, I grew horribly angry with it all, and wondered if I would be able to finish and review the story without a note of fury running through it and wrecking what analysis I could present. Now that I've finished, I find myself saddened by the entire experience. With that in mind, let me explain.

This story had a great deal of potential in it, oblique mentions of heartrending stories of religious guilt and tortured shame and individual souls beating themselves bloody on the walls of an uncaring sociocultural framework, and it is largely this potential that kept me going through pages of insipid show more characters running around, trampling on everyone without the slightest attempt to understand their desires or care about the ones of others. To put it plainly, I loathed every single one of them, the narrator most of all, who made great friends with the person whose storyline could have redeemed the entire book, and instead wasted countless pages on selfish pursuits of 'love' and 'art' and philosophical meanderings that were the most pitifully idiotic things I have seen in a long time. Why is he alone? Why does life pass him by? What is beauty, history, and why has he been driven from Arcadia? Because he's an emotionally stunted git who makes friends and discovers passions and finds love and doesn't care about any of it, or if he does chooses to expound on it in the most unbelievable of ways, drawing upon learning and knowledge that are nothing more than information dumps formatted in purple prose more laughably ridiculous than beautiful.

And then I thought to myself, wait. It isn't just the narrator that suffers from this, but the entire cast of characters, the whole story even, a whole flat mess of caricatured nonsense that is trying to convey a message in the most contrived of methods. Which means only one thing. This is the author that is failing miserably at delivering, and there's no wonder why.

This is the kind of book that English classes would adore, or at least the teachers would, as while the work is not so great in itself, it is the perfect springboard for discussion of all matters of issues. Best of all, the flat characters that drown their passions in meaningless prattle, the obvious distinctions between when the author is droning out plot and when he is attempting at themes and meaning, the constant hints at powerful emotions of religious suffering, cultural decay, and sexual deviancy? All perfect material for discussions and essays, as there are barely any obvious overtones that students could grasp at, a paltry amount of quotes for easy access to what teachers would consider to be "critical thinking". Chances are, this is what the author took away from the classroom, and these are the methodologies by which he chose to write his book.

It's disappointing, really, to see the effects of classroom indoctrination in something deemed a classic, which raises the question of what a "classic" really implies. I've read many that are certainly worthy of the title in my mind, novels that pushed and pulled at my sensibilities, opened my mind to gorgeous forms of prose and powerful emotional themes, changed my worldview countless times while managing to achieve the simple goals of making me laugh, cry, feel for characters that I will never truly know but love nonetheless. This book, though. It fulfills the aspects required for the average education well enough, and is worthwhile in its own way. But it could have been so much more, and the fact that it isn't is a tragedy in itself.

Back when I was still feeling angry with the story, I considered not reading the rest of the author's works that I have added. I've decided that I will, but not for a while, and only for the hope that he made some improvements. It's not his fault that the education concerning literature is not what it could be, and shows itself so plainly in his writing. I can only hope for improvement in the future. show less

http://wineandabook.com/2012/04/17/review-brideshead-revisited-by-evelyn-waugh-s...

GENERAL SPOILER ALERT: If you've never read Brideshead Revisited, and would like to discover it with no previous knowledge of the plot, I suggest you stop here. Since it was published in 1944, I'm writing with the assumption that I'm the one late to the party and many of you lovers of literary fiction have probably either read it already or are super familiar with the plot. So, if not, stop. Now. You've been warned.

Confession time: Until a few years ago, I thought Evelyn Waugh's name was pronounced Eh-vah-lynn Wow, and that he was a she. I wish I were kidding. One of the great epic fails in book snobbery. Regardless, every time I passed the "W" section show more at the bookstore or library, I'd see her his titles with their gorgeous cover art...but upon reading the back summary and coming to the words "set against the backdrop of World War II," I usually put the book back on the shelf. With few exceptions, I love historical fiction...as long as the book doesn't take place entirely in the trenches. Before you yell, please note that I'm sure my bias has kept me from discovering a great many tomes. I just have a hard time getting into several hundred pages of war and destruction and blood and death and politics and guns and moral turmoil and brotherly bonding/bromance, etc. I know full well that there are many notable works of literature (mostly by dead white dudes) with fabulous plot lines and gorgeous prose (A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls...well, just Hemingway in general, War and Peace, All Quiet on the Western Front), and I'm sure I'll slug through a few of them for the general-betterment-of-self/expansion-of-overall-cultural-literacy at some point...it's just not my favorite.

BUT a few months ago, I DVR'd (yes, I still DVR) Brideshead Revisited when it aired on Ovation and fell in love with the story. And when Waugh's name came up again in the Mitford biography I'm reading (he was friends with Nancy Mitford and is said to have taken inspiration from the Mitford kids among other Bright Young Things of the era), I read up on him and decided to add this and Vile Bodies to my 30-before-30 literary bucket list.

Brideshead Revisited is, in fact, set in the 1920s, 30s and 40s, the years leading up to World War II, though only the prologue takes us anywhere near the trenches (phew!). Charles Ryder, our narrator, and his unit are stationed at Brideshead, which serves as catalyst for Charles to reflect on how he came to know the house and to tell the story of his two great loves who grew up there: Sebastian and Julia Flyte.

I know there's debate as to whether the nature of the deep relationship between Charles and Sebastian had a sexual aspect....in my opinion, Charles' love for Sebastian (and vice versa) was absolutely romantic (see the definition), in terms of their relationship being imbued with their desire for adventure and their idealization of and total dependence on the other, often steeped in a reality exclusively their own. Also, I think they probably had sex at one point. Or at more than one point. Or at least fooled around. It was an era of experimentation (booze! jazz!), and it wasn't super uncommon for young men to experiment that way in boarding school or when away at college, or because they were, in fact, gay or bisexual, etc. (n.b. Tom Mitford, brother of Nancy Mitford et al, for example, is thought to have had at least one homosexual relationship in his youth and according to this Telegraph UK article, Waugh may or may not have been involved at one point with a gentlemen who has been said to have inspired Sebastian). I loved the contrast Waugh was able to strike between the love shared by Charles and Sebastian and the love shared by Charles and Julia. Charles and Sebastian's relationship imploded because, in a way, they preferred to cling to the idealized version of the other (it's hard to live in the reality where the person you feel closest to is an alcoholic with some fairly deep emotional problems. I think, in many ways, Sebastian's flight to Morocco, etc. occurred out of love for Charles, to protect Charles from destructive force he knew he had become. Maybe on some level, Charles understood it as the gift of a unmarred, idyllic past, as he says on page 203 "These memories, which are my life--for we possess nothing certainly except the past--were always with me."). Charles and Julia's romance imploded because they failed to move beyond the reality of their situation (i.e. Julia's deeply entrenched Catholic belief system was a tad restrictive, and then there was her nagging insistence upon avoiding eternal damnation...a bit prohibitive to a divorce/second marriage to another divorcee who also happens to be an agnostic). It's a book as much about denial as it is about desire, and how both can be acts of love.

My favorite character by far was Cordelia, Sebastian Flyte's young sister, and I died laughing at scene where she talks Catholicism with Charles upon their first meeting:

"[Cordelia says] 'D'you know, if you weren't an agnostic, I should ask you for five shillings to buy a black god-daughter.'
[Charles] 'Nothing will surprise me about your religion.'
[Cordelia] 'It's a new thing a missionary priest started last term. You send five bob to some nuns in Africa and they christen a baby and name her after you. I've got six black Cordelias already. Isn't it lovely?' "(p. 82)

She's so precocious, and fancies herself to be so forward thinking, yet she acts almost as a mirror against which Waugh is able to reflect back everything he saw wrong with the Catholic church at the time (and possibly with religion in general, but given that he and I never discussed the matter, this is purely conjecture), but she's also such a likable character due to her youth and wit. Through Cordelia especially, Waugh shows us how no person is only one thing; that no thing is either solely good or bad.

Waugh was such a dynamic and flexible writer. He possessed such a gift for characterization and voice! I wish I had even a fraction of his stylistic dexterity! (Just a fraction! I'm not greedy!) Even at the most tragic moments, Waugh's wit (I can't help noting these observational zingers as evocative of Oscar Wilde at his best in The Picture of Dorian Gray) shines through. For example, when Lord Marchmain is dying, his mistress Cara says this of his condition: "His heart; some long word at the heart. He is dying of a long word." (p. 288)

Rubric rating: 8.5. I need to read a few more titles by him before I definitively and officially induct him into the personal pantheon, but DAMN was he talented! show less

Fancy Oxford of long ago, students yelling T.S. Elliot poems out of windows and trying to out-quote one another over their wine. I found this high-class set almost impossible to relate to but fun to read about, with their bizarre quirks and idiosyncrasies.

Charles Ryder is obsessed with the Flyte family and their estate, primarily the younger son Sebastien who bears the hallmarks of having suffered some form of abuse. Sebastien has an enduring fondness for the comfort of his teddy bear Aloysius and frequently attempts to dissociate from his family, reluctant to return home for visits. He enters a downward spiral once his mother's reach extends even into his life at Oxford. The abuse in this case is overbearing parenting, the inability show more to escape his mother's constant analysis and judgements.

Narrator Charles is fully present in the story, generally tolerable, but he's a self-centered twit. I can respect him making a mistake in whom he marries, but not his attitude toward his children whom he coldly refers to as his wife's 'project' and expresses zero interest in. From that moment I didn't particularly care about him anymore. It crystalized the fact for me that his only empathy is for Sebastien, and his later obsession with Julia feels like a sad extension of that. show less

No doubt much religious advocacy ends with an unconvincing appeal to unreason, and that's the spirit that the final deathbed drama here had for me, but it's one of the few jarring moments in this precise and poised saga of the interwar years. Years, in Waugh's telling, of gilded decay. Rereading now, 30 years on from Granada TV's glossy production, I'm stuck by how much more expansive it's scope is than just a squiffy toff vomiting decorously. From an Atlantic liner to a 'pansy bar', from pointless wartime encampments to the General Strike to the travails of the crumbling aristocracy, all with careful descriptions, details, and restraint. As with 'Decline and Fall' but less farcically, Waugh sees through the veneers of society, but is show more sceptical of all that's novel or modish; the ways of the Establishment, one senses, make for the worst system apart from all the others. show less