Name: Brideshead Revisited
ISBN: 9780316216449

Evelyn Waugh

Brideshead Revisited

M. Sosotris

While I enjoyed the actual act of reading this story, I feel like I missed something crucial in the story’s resolution. Or maybe I didn’t. I dunno. Feel free to jump in at any time.

The story follows Charles Ryder, an aimless college student with a talent for art (Noooo! Get a business degree! Aaaahhh!) who, through a delightful and self-destructive alcoholic classmate (I had, like, five friends exactly like this in grad school) who’s family hails from the dwindling nobility of England’s upper crust (think last season of Downton Abbey), gets pulled into a wonderful world of privilege and ease that captivates Charles’ attention (translation: its a distraction from Real Life).

Good lord, that is one sentence... Sorry...

There are three big relationships in Charles’ life, but only two great loves. The first is Sebastian (the aforementioned Delightful Alcoholic). And, even though it’s given enough coy stylings so people could ignore it, it’s PRETTY obvious that he and Charles had a Thing. It’s a whirlwind romance in which Sebastian basically uses Charles as a distraction, and Charles has his boring horizons E X P A N D E D.

The second is a Really Dull marriage to “his wife.” I think her name is Celia?? The point is, it’s a proper, respectable marriage, and Celia is polite and predictable, and utterly superficial. It’s the kind of marriage Guy Authors write so that the Reader Totally Agrees with him when he basically says that his main character HAS to have an affair.

Which takes me to Relationship 3: The Affair. Julia is cold and distant and hella goth in terms of her temperament, but she’s also blunt, honest, unsentimental, and exciting. She’s also Sebastian’s sister, and looks kind of like him. Hmmm.

Anyways, there’s a lot of twists and turns, and I genuinely loved how the book threw me for a loop at times. I also REALLY enjoyed the bone dry dark humour that pervaded the story. Nobody really cares about ANYTHING. They’re all fatalistic modernists, and they’ve accepted that nothing matters all that much, but that one must keep up appearances.

The thing that tripped me up, though, was that the Flytes (Sebastian, Julia, et al) are Catholic, and this weirds Charles out. Yes, the Church of England is Protestant, and Catholics are considered an oddity, but it seems more that Charles (dashing through agnosticism on his way to full on atheism) finds it bizarre that this family places any faith in religion at all. To the point where it ultimately alienates him from the family completely. 

Sebastian ends up little more than a drunken church mouse, living by the grace of the long-suffering Moroccan monks who keep an eye on him. And Julia breaks off their engagement, unwilling to give up her faith to be with a man who isn’t “one of them.”

Is the suggestion that he’s not the right class to be with her? Probably not, since Julia doesn’t REALLY care all that much about her title. Is it that she just doesn’t want to have to give up any part of herself for a man? (You go, girl!) Is it that she finds it sad that Charles has no faith?

I don’t really know. I don’t even know if the ending was meant to be ambiguous! I’m sure there are tons of folks out there going, “Psh, of COURSE she dumped him!” Charles sees the end of their relationship coming, and isn’t shocked when she breaks it off, so maybe it’s a bit of everything. He KNOWS he won’t ever fit into her world. He was only visiting. She does ask if, like Sebastian, she is only the precursor to something else.

I guess she’s right.

Sadly, he ends up alone, wandering aimlessly with the army, preparing for the onslaught of WWII.

The only thing I can think of is that it’s sad he never got to keep exploring. War cut off his access to a stable life. Well, actually no, HE did that. He had a wife and kids and a career, and he gave his family up to chase an exciting woman he couldn’t have. He chose excitement over duty. And then, grown up, as a lonely soldier, all he has left is duty...

I CAN’T HANDLE THIS ENDING, YOU GUYS!

He’s a dumb guy (like myself) and he had one chance, and he followed his heart, and ended up chasing a dream. Now war’s coming, and he has nothing. 

But there’s a stability and maturity to him. He’s literally the perfect soldier, married to King and country only. 

So like, the moral is: be stupid, make mistakes, just as long as you ultimately join the rank and file of M A T U R I T Y.

Eew.

But also, Yeah OK.

I think I liked this book, you guys...

Good start to the year. This one gonna be nagging at my cranium a bit. Uncomfortable interaction with a hierarchical nature inside of me eating me. Let’s me think about which catholic I am. Ideally Cordelia but most likely brideshead or Charles 

Brideshead Revisited

Reviews