Brideshead Revisited
Evelyn Waugh
1945
Around 405 pages
I am starting to have abandonment issues with how many authors we are saying goodbye to lately, leaving us with only Henry Green for company. This was actually the first Evelyn Waugh novel I ever read, back when I thought he was a woman. Then I read this and realized no woman would write her female characters that way. I still enjoyed the novel though.
Our protagonist is Charles Ryder, a soldier who is ordered with his battalion to the country estate Brideshead. Charles recalls his youth, when he spent time with the Flyte family who own Brideshead. Charles was friends with the generous alcholic Sebastian Flyte, who was reminiscent of the uncle in The Razor's Edge. He falls for Sebastian's sister, Julia, but their relationship is complicated by many factors, including religion, social class, and timing.
This is the best we have seen from Waugh, which is impressive as a novelist. Not everybody continues to improve the more they write. We've certainly seen many authors here peak too soon. By now, Waugh has full mastery of his comic timing and sly wit. He also infuses the entire story with a melancholic perspective that is impressive given we are only in 1945 and the world hasn't processed what happened.
Another author bites the Handful of Dust! HA
Official Waugh ranking:
1. Brideshead Revisited
2. A Handful of Dust
3. Vile Bodies
4. The Decline and Fall
RATING: *****
Interesting Facts:
In letters, Waugh refers to the novel a number of times as his magnum opus, then in 1950 he wrote to Graham Greene that "I re-read Brideshead Revisited and was appalled." As a writer, that sounds about right.
In 2005, Alabama Representative Gerald Allen proposed a bill that would prohibit the use of public funds for the "purchase of textbooks or library materials that recognize or promote homosexuality as an acceptable lifestyle." Just shut up already.
An adaptation is planned starring Andrew Garfield and Joe Alwyn.
UP NEXT: Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake
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