Literary Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

[sun surfer]

This is the MR Literary Club selection for June 2015. Whether you've already read it or would like to, feel free to start or join in the conversation at any time! Guests are also always welcome.


Goodreads • Amazon AU • Amazon CA • Amazon UK • Amazon US • Kobo • Audible US


So, what are your thoughts on it?

[sun surfer]

I'm going to read the book rather than listen, but as I was gathering the links for the first post I thought it was odd that Audible US has the unabridged audiobook (narrated by no less than Jeremy Irons who starred in the mini-series) while AU & UK don't despite having three or four abridged versions.

[Bookpossum]

How odd. I'm reading my rather venerable Penguin copy so it's not an issue for me, but that would be annoying for people wanting to listen to the full thing.

[Bookworm_Girl]

Overdrive has an abridged version narrated by Nigel Havers. Fortunately one of my libraries had the ebook version, and it was available with no wait. I was surprised it was not at my other library options.

[fantasyfan]

I'm going to (very reluctantly) put this one on hold (though I will get to it eventually). The general book club has chosen Gaiman's American Gods and that's one I really very much want to read being a long time fan of that author.

I'll keep an eye on the comments the rest of you have on Brideshead Revisited.

[Bookpossum]

That's a pity, but I hope you enjoy American Gods.

[Strether]

And after you've read the book, the BBC production with Jeremy Irons as Charles Ryder and John Gielgud as his father, is not to be missed. Gielgud nailed the part and is hilarious.

Jim

[Bookpossum]

It was a brilliant series.

[caleb72]

I finished this on Friday and loved it. It's one of those books where surprisingly little happens but I'm totally absorbed in the story anyway - the sneak attack.

There were a few themes in there that I thought were worth exploring: the nature of religion (particularly Roman Catholicism) and its hold over its members, the decaying aristocracy of England at that period and how hollow it seemed to be, the calm before the storm of World War II, the civil and mannered response to adultery in society, the lack of passion in English society (upper classes) at that time. There seems to be quite a bit to discuss in this one.

Also, for me personally, there is another shade to this story that has been calling to me. The almost coming-of-age relationship between Charles and Sebastian and the later fall of Sebastian provides a distant echo to some events in my own life. Now, having read the book, it plays out quite a bit differently - but there is still some resonance there.

Anyway - how is everyone else going with the book?

[Bookworm_Girl]

I haven't even started yet! I have been too busy with work and travel this month. Hoping to start it tomorrow night, but I'm definitely going to need to extend my library loan.

[Bookpossum]

I am about three-quarters of the way through I think. One of the delights is Waugh's beautiful prose, and the slow pace of the story unfolding. I rated it at five stars when I listed it on Goodreads, and I don't think I'll be changing that rating.

I'll post again when I finish it.

[bfisher]

Originally Posted by Bookpossum

I am about three-quarters of the way through I think. One of the delights is Waugh's beautiful prose, and the slow pace of the story unfolding...

Well said. I finished it yesterday, and the quality of the writing is amazing; I could not put it down. It's the best thing I've read since A Dance To The Music Of Time.

[Bookpossum]

I have finished reading and thinking over the experience before writing. I loved it as much as on earlier readings: Waugh's style is always a joy, and I love the gentle melancholy of the book. My antique Penguin has a Preface by Waugh, written in 1959, in which he writes:

It was impossible to foresee, in the spring of 1944, the present cult of the English country house. It seemed then that the ancestral seats which were our chief national artistic achievement were doomed to decay and spoliation like the monasteries in the sixteenth century.

The feeling of this sense of impending loss is palpable. Waugh was writing of a past that would never come again, and he grieved for its departure. I loved this opening to Chapter 1 of Book Three:

My theme is memory, that winged host that soared about me one grey morning of war-time.

These memories, which are my life - for we possess nothing certainly except the past - were always with me. Like the pigeons of St Mark's, they were everywhere, under my feet, singly, in pairs, in little honey-voiced congregations, nodding, strutting, winking, rolling the tender feathers of their necks, perching sometimes, if I stood still, on my shoulder; until, suddenly, the noon gun boomed and in a moment, with a flutter and sweep of wings, the pavement was bare and the whole sky above dark with a tumult of fowl. Thus it was that morning of war-time.

Superb.

Like others I found this book a pleasure to read. Having watched the previously mentioned television adaption. I would not normally have been interested in reading the book, especially given how well done that series was and it's length (11 hours of programming according to IMDB) suggesting that little of the story was lost in translation to television. However, in this case I was curious about and had hope that some issues that the series left ambiguous might be further clarified in the book.

The first was the complete nature of the relationship between Charles Ryder and Sebastian Flyte? That is did the book go beyond implying a physical homosexual relationship and state it more explicitly? It turns out that the television series faithfully followed the book in leaving the question ambiguous. Though after reading the book, and with that essentially being able to experience the total story in detail twice, I came to realize that that question is not so important. The defining relationship for Charles was his with the entire Marchmain family, and what they represented. When that ends Charles is left alone and with little hope for the future, yet the book closes with a suggestion that the previously agnostic (if not atheist) Charles has found hope in the Catholic faith. In fact it seems that (accepting Catholicism) was the redemption of the entire Marchmain family. Given my views of religion I was once more disappointed that Lord Marchmain at the moment of his death, and out of fear at that, abandons his view of the Catholic Church in the final moments to ask for final rites. Even Sebastian finds his perhaps final place of shelter in a Catholic monastery.

[bfisher]

Originally Posted by Hamlet53

In fact it seems that (accepting Catholicism) was the redemption of the entire Marchmain family. Given my views of religion I was once more disappointed that Lord Marchmain at the moment of his death, and out of fear at that, abandons his view of the Catholic Church in the final moments to ask for final rites. Even Sebastian finds his perhaps final place of shelter in a Catholic monastery.

Waugh converted to Catholicism, so the ending of Brideshead Revisited is in line with his beliefs. At the end of his life, he disagreed with the elimination of the Latin Mass in the Vatican II reforms, and his requiem Mass in 1966 was said in Latin. I think there is a parallel there between his attachment to the old faith and ceremonials and the themes in his works, a rejection of the modern, of the Age of Hooper.