Brideshead Revisited

By Evelyn Waugh

One of the best and most poignant novels of the twentieth century.
 
Charles Ryder’s life is changed when he meets Lord Sebastian Flyte, an eccentric, troubled young aristocrat, and his family. They are strongly Catholic, but their faith is not uncomplicated. Unhappy marriages and searches for love crash up against strict moral teachings. Where and how will Charles and the Flytes find happiness, and what does that mean for their futures?
 
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• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Jan 17, 2017
• ISBN: 9780735252950

Evelyn Waugh

Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966) estudió historia moderna en Oxford, donde llevó, según sus palabras, una vida de "pereza, disolución y derroche". Publicó en 1928 su primera novela, "Cuerpos viles", "¡Noticia bomba!" y "Merienda de negros", publicadas en esta colección, que le establecieron como el novelista cómico inglés más considerabe desde Dickens. Después de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, el influjo de su conversión al catolicismose hizo muy acusado; destacan entre las obras de dicho periodo "Retorno a Brideshead", la trilogía "La espada del honor" y también "Los seres queridos", en la que regresó a la veta satírica de sus primeras novelas.

Reviews for Brideshead Revisited

[adaorhell · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

look, its alright to be catholic and gay, but never rich.

[bookomaniac-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Op en top een Britse roman: de colleges van Oxford, adembenemende landhuizen, extravagante adellijke figuren, spitse conversaties, sprankelende natuurobservaties. Daarbovenop nog prachtige, gedragen romances (in meerdere betekenissen van het woord), de intrigerende aantrekkingskracht en beknelling van het katholicisme binnen de Bridesheadfamilie, en dat alles overgoten met een melancholische saus (op zoek naar de verloren tijd). Alleen het slot is er wat over.

[pauntley · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The wonderful and quite inexplicable thing about Evelyn Waugh, is the brilliant surface of his prose. His achievement is all the more remarkable because so much that this brilliant surface encloses - his characters, their lives and his indulgences of their faults - is soft, rotten and overripe. Brideshead is remarkable because the inward corruption of the novel is so precariously contained by its surface tension. It is worth recalling that Waugh revised the book, to curb some of its more indulgent excesses. after WW2 . By the time of the trilogy, Men At Arms, et al, the prose surface can no longer contain the rot within. The novels of the trilogy suppurate. The late novel, Gilbert Pinfold's Ordeal, is the nearest Waugh came to redemption.

[kaitanya64 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I'm really not a fan of Waugh's style, which is classic for the period. There is a self-importance to writers of this period that is hard for readers of my generation to stomach. Nevertheless, I was drawn into the story of an upper middle class boy who falls into a close relationship with an aristocratic family. His disillusionment and that of the other characters may be emblematic of the time period, but it is also a coming of age story. I do not plan to read a lot more from this author, but I did enjoy this one.

[nicky_too_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Strange how I never picked up on the fact the brilliant BBC series was based on a book.Now I did, I'm not quite sure what to think. Knowing the series influenced me in a positive way. The characters are almost 100% identical to the book.I just think there's too much Charles and not enough Sebastian. :-)For some reason I find myself wondering what it's all about, but maybe that is the writer's intention...It's sad. A very sad story, but so very well written.Oh, for the record, don't even think about watching the film. It's dreadful and doesn't even resemble the book in anyway.

[jwarren42 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed the first section quite a lot, even when it was melancholy. Book 2, though, was drab and dragged on and on--the thing that saves this section is that it is clearly meant to be drab compared to the lavish settings and colorful people of the earlier section. I think I will miss most the extremely early relationship between Sebastian and Charles--it was very sweet. As Antoine cautions both Charles and the reader, charm is quite seductive The metaphor that links the mansion to faith is much more subtle in the first section than the second, as well. Much like the narrator, I find the Flytes tedious by the end, which is obviously meant to be the case. If you're in to reading proto-queer-lit, make sure this one is on your list. Not for the casual reader, though.

[thatotter-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A book of staggering narrative beauty, with a plot that didn't go the way I wished it could've.

[jmchshannon · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Often, my book club selections require splitting the reading into manageable chunks. This means that it may take me weeks, if not months, to finish our selected book. Part of this is strategic on the part of the book club because we hope to encourage participation in the discussion when each person has only fifty or so pages to read each week. Part of it is strategic on my part, allowing me to read the required number of pages and then move on to something more modern I may want to read. It definitely allows me to mix things up a bit in my choice of reading.Imagine my surprise on a Sunday when I emerged from reading Brideshead Revisited and discovered I was almost finished with it. At 315 pages, it is one of the shorter novels we have read for the book club, but after five years, I read along with the reading schedule as much as possible. So why did I start and finish the book this weekend? I attribute my voracious reading to the book itself. Essentially, I fell in love with the sensual, lush, and poignant storytelling with its undercurrent of sorrow and Charles Ryder's fascinating life story.The characters in Brideshead are so...undescribable. From Sebastian and his teddy bear to Charles' father and his mind games, each character shines brightly and remains unlike any other characters I have ever read. Each bursts onto the page, with his or her light remaining long after they exit the scene. Conversely, Charles himself remains shrouded in mystery throughout much of the novel, only to have everything, including the prologue set in wartime England, make sense at the very end. Still, a reader is left with so many questions about Charles and his motivation in life. Was he in romantic love with Sebastian? Was he with Julia, or was it love for Brideshead itself? Why give up his life as a painter? Wasn't there anything else in the Army he could have done?There is a pathos to the entire novel that I personally find compelling. Charles is, in this reader's opinion, a very unhappy man, but he is only reflecting the unhappiness of Waugh at the time of his writing the novel. The history of Brideshead Revisited is fascinating and directly contributes to the emotions flowing throughout the book and experienced by the reader. The unhappiness and longing of Waugh is palpable and makes itself felt in Charles' actions and thoughts. In addition, Waugh offers his audience a different take on military service and wartime preparations - one that seemingly opposes the idea that people wanted to serve their country and fight the Germans - by showing us that not everyone was fighting out of a sense of duty to his or her country. This fact only compounds the feelings of helplessness that reach the reader.Written at a time when patriotism was of the utmost importance, Waugh's longing for the lost pre-war era is curious and yet brave. World War II did change society forever, and society has a right to mourn that loss. Waugh's mourning is felt in his descriptions of picnics, dinners, parties, and the excess of everything that permeated pre-War society. In addition, Waugh bravely tackles the situation of homosexuality with tact and compassion, making it an essential albeit subtle essence of the plot. I cannot finish a review without discussing Waugh's presentation of Catholicism and Charles' conversion to it, as it is another central theme throughout the book. As a Roman Catholic myself, I found Waugh's discussions of this particular religion both fascinating and thought-provoking. He does an amazing job of presenting all of the arguments and questions both for and against, describing the struggle for faith, and yet showing the beauty of the religion that one cannot help but ascribe some of the details to his own personal struggle. This challenge to believe does not distinguish itself solely to Roman Catholicism either for it is an age-old struggle between faith and common sense to which anyone with any familiarity of organized religion can relate. Put together, Brideshead Revisited is a unique and addicting read for anyone who loves to read classics. There are enough surprising plot twists that prevents the reader from predicting the ending. The language and descriptions require, and deserve, time to savor and enjoy, as they do much to establish the feeling of loss that permeates the book. Having devoured the book in one day, I now understand and support the critical acclaim Waugh received because of this novel. It is well worth the time to discover Charles Ryder and Brideshead.

[marysgirl · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I had vague memories of the PBS series and looked forward to reading the source material. This did not disappoint. The writing is lyrical, the characters complicated and interesting, the setting that almost mythical time after the "War to End All Wars" among the British aristocracy made so popular by the BBC. The book was published in 1945, begins in that year, then moves backward in time twenty years to follow "The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder" - the subtitle of the book. "Sacred and Profane" are the keys to the book, it is essentially about religion (in general) and Catholicism (in particular) and how it affects the lives of the aristocratic Flyte family and by extension their friends and lovers. Very much enjoyed this one and recommend it.

[jayne_charles_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

There is no doubt that Waugh can write, and write spectacularly well. The first few pages confirmed that - I loved the image of the truffling pig. The difficulty was that the story failed to grab me, and once I got about two thirds of the way through I realised I didn't care about any of the upper class twits who populate this novel. I did finish it, but only because I refuse to leave a book half-read.

[michaenite · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is one of the top ten books on my reading list and I have read many books. The poetic use of language, psychological insight into the religious mind, and the upper class concerns of "between the wars" English aristocrats result in a superior novel.

[andreablythe · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Upon finding himself stationed at Brideshead during the second world ward, Charles Rider begins to remember how his life has weaved in and out of the Marchmain family who once lived there. Charles was best friends with Sebastian Marchmain in university and visited with this wealthy and dysfunctional Marchmain family at Brideshead.This book is rather tragic as it mainly deals with the fall of the old aristocracy with the Marchmains as the representative family. Sorrow upon sorrow seems to be heaped upon them, and Charles shares in it due to his close connection with the family.It's a wee slow in some areas, but it's also rather beautiful in the way of nostalgia. The book in a way serves the same function as Charles' paintings of old houses, manners, and castles, as a kind of relic to a way of life that doesn't quite exist in the same way any more, while also creating deep characters that for one reason or another will not allow themselves to be happy.

[christinelstanley · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The book tells the story of Charles Ryder and his infatuation with the doomed Flyte family, especially the colourful Sebastian. I have read Brideshead several times and love it. It's beautifully written with long sentences, full of breath-takingly rich descriptions. The first half of this book is total perfection.

[thornton37814 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Charles Ryder is serving in the Army in World War II. His tour of duty leads him to Brideshead, a place which has a history for him. He spent many days there during his college years. He also visited there a few years later. It's a story of the upper class and one which deals with love lost. Catholicism plays an important part in the narrative. The prose is beautifully written. It's a shame that I didn't enjoy the actual plot more.

[smiler69 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Charles Ryder, engaged in the army during WWII, comes upon a great big palatial house fronted by a neglected ancient Italian fountain during a manoeuvre which brings back memories of his youth. As a young Oxford student, he fell in love with the equally young Sebastian Flyte, a strange young and beautiful aristocrat hailing from the Marchmain clan inhabiting Brideshead castle, where Charles eventually came to meet Sebastian's family, including older brother Brideshead, sisters Julia (who is very elegant and practically a Sebastian lookalike) and the youngest, Cordelia. Sebastian's mother was deeply religious and had raised her children in her Catholic faith, but Sebastian seemed to hate her and take after his father who had left them all behind to take up with his mistress in Venice, and like him soon sinks into deep alcoholism from which there is no helping him and into which he escapes from his troubled family and especially his overbearing mother. As Sebastian accuses his friend of spying for his mother, the friends inevitably grow apart. Later, Charles's career as an artist expands. He eventually comes to meet again with Julia on a transatlantic journey, and though they are both married, they have a passionate extramarital affair and plan to eventually marry. The story follows the travails of the young men as they travel around and evolve throughout the 20s and 30s, and through Julia's marriage to a rich Canadian politician who has made his home in England, though the main focus is on Sebastian's on again, off again relations with the Marchmains over the years. I came to know Waugh's writing through his earlier works which all have a distinct manic and satirical humorous tone and found this book to have a very ponderous and slow serious pace, which in itself would have been fine, but Waugh's insistence here on making the religious question one of prime importance in the story became overbearing and took away much of the reading pleasure for me. Perhaps I'll read it again sometime, if only because I've become a fan of Waugh's and I know this is recognised as one of his finest works. But at this time I cannot say I was overly impressed. Loved my Folio Society edition with fine Leonard Rosoman illustrations, but perhaps another time I might try Jeremy Irons narrating the audio edition.

[laytonwoman3rd · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

What a schizophrenic little novel this is. The story, in reminiscence, of the youth and young adulthood of Charles Ryder, a painter currently in the British wartime Army, making bivouac at a manor house he once frequented in "happier times", it is at times lovely, funny, touching; at other times melodramatic, monotonous, cringe-worthy. To be fair, Waugh does warn us with his subtitle, "The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder".I think my greatest objection to the whole book is that it isn't a "whole". It's just parts. Things don't develop, they just happen. Our narrator is all about Sebastian (and just what does he SEE in him, anyway?) for 200 pages and then suddenly Sebastian is out of the picture, left to his inevitable disintegration apparently without qualm, and Charles has a wife we've never heard of before. Oh...wait...she's Boy Mulcaster's sister, just by the way. We've met Boy...but did he have a sister? Didn't matter if he did. But now it does. Then, suddenly, there's Sebastian's sister Julia back in Charles's life. And passion ensues. Inconvenient wife and unseen children dispatched easily enough...very little fuss. Younger sister, the lovely, delightful little Cordelia (who might have been the inspiration for Alan Bradley's Flavia DeLuce) has grown up quite changed, for the author's convenience, I suppose, as again we do not SEE any development there...just the end result. But she's necessary to tell us, in a tedious monologue, just what's become of Sebastian while our backs were turned.I enjoyed it thoroughly, especially the audio, for the first two-thirds; the final book, however, was a trial. Irons was still excellent in his narration, but even he couldn't make Julia's "living in sin" monologue palatable in any way. As a portrait of dissolute Sebastian Flyte, Brideshead works very well. As a "mannerly" novel, again, much of it is fine, fine, fine. But as Story, it failed utterly for me. I wouldn't care if it hadn't seemed to be trying to tell a story.

[lukerik-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Excellent book. Waugh's a real show-off and is a good enough writer to pull it offI'd heard that Waugh was worried people wouldn't understand it but I picked it up confident that I would. I normally understand things, but here I think I missed something. There are loads of little connections between one part of the novel and another and sometimes a bell would chime dully because I hadn't been paying attention properly during an earlier passage. I think I missed something critical. Still, tremendous fun to read. I think I'll try the 1st edition text when I next read it.

[citizenjoyce · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I started this book planning to like it very much since I'd read an article by man who said reading it had changed his life. Now I'm wondering how it could have. The book starts off well enough with a little foreshadowing of the devastation to come. Then we get to the heart of the story. Charles Ryder as a young man goes off to university and takes up the the charming but overly affected Sebastian Flyte. Charles is seemingly completely open minded. He falls in love with Flyte (or with his childhood home Brideshead), he's agnostic but polite to the Catholic religion that the family seems so caught up in. The family is caught up in a lot. Sebastian hates his family, especially Mummy, Lady Marchmain whom everyone seems to think of as a saint and that is the only reason people either love or hate her. Lord Marchmain is living in Venice with his mistress of many years and is the only one to have broken away from the church. There's sister Julia, beautiful and snobbish and sister Cordelia who's only 10 but very seemingly loving and open minded herself. Years pass, Sebastian descends into alcoholism which everyone seems to think is just a moral failing. Charles grows up, develops as an architectural painter and a great twit. He becomes completely judgemental and closed minded and a perfect misogynist who refers to his children disdainfully as his wife's children (much the same attitude Waugh himself had toward his son). He views his wife as completely horrible and unworthy of his affections because - why? He begins a long romance with the ever charming and always suffering Julia who is a woman worthy of his affections because - why? Julia in the meantime has married a supercilious, cold hearted, social climber but she thought the marriage would work out - why? Lord Marchmain comes home to Brideshead to die but he doesn't want to leave the palace, mansion, castle to his oldest son, also named Brideshead, because he doesn't like Bridey's wife who is large. He wants to leave it to Julia who couldn't be bothered caring about it. There's lots of to do about religion. The end. Julia pretty much sums the whole thing up: religion and its rules make her bad, the worse she is, the more she needs god, so she turns to religion which makes her bad again. Woe is her, woe is her whole spoiled, self indulgent family. The world is full of people who believe what they believe, don't believe what they don't believe, and just try to get through life the best they can while poverty and disaster conspire to wear them down. The Flytes have everything they could desire, don't believe what they believe, believe what they don't believe, indulge their every whim and are completely miserable. I'm very sorry I wasted my time on any of them.

[nog_5 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An amazingly well written book. Not one word should be changed. If you told me that this is a perfect novel, I would merely nod.

[jmaloney17 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I liked this book immensely. I just read some reviews on LT about it. Frankly, I was surprised by what I read. Most liked the writing but not the story, or thought it good but too depressing.Honestly, I did not find it depressing at all. I liked the story. I liked the religious questions it raised. Waugh was catholic, but he started life as a protestant and in the middle was agnostic. I found it interesting that the people that I thought had the worst lives of the bunch, the Flyte's, had bad lives because they were catholic. They were brought up to feel bad about themselves and their actions. Sebastian and Julia repeatedly say they are bad and do bad things. They think this because they are catholic and their religion says they are bad. Ryder finds the Flyte family to be foreign in the way they think. Ryder is agnostic, so does not have the guilt that the Flyte's do. He feels guilt if he thinks he will upset his father, but quickly comes to terms with it. Ryder is modern definately. I don't find him to be a sad character. Yes, he is reminencient. But I also have the impression that his life with the Flyte's would have been enjoyable and honest and "good" if the Flyte's were not so religious.I see Ryder as a man knowing what was, what could have been and what is. He accepts his present is ok with it.I think my thoughts on this comes from my belief that religion is innately self-centered. Everyone is worried about getting themselves to heaven, so they don't necessarily do what makes sense. The Flyte's are in a neverending passive aggressive fight with themselves because of their religion. What a waste of time and energy. In the end, I think that Ryder is ok with himself and the Flyte's. Life goes on.

[meditationesmartini · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Orwell said of this book, and I'm paraphrasing, that Waugh was as good a novelist as it is possible to be and still be wrong about everything. And politically? Yeah. Fuck. I could go through piece by piece and draw out strands of the deperate envy and desire for the freeness and self-centred moral code that the old English aristocracy were enabled to develop and indulge by their arrogant position at the top. It's a real worry in this life - to what degree are the rich more real than you and me? How long can the working man go on taking the hits to his pride and his hopes and hell, his body that grind him down into a creature of compromise and weariness and insufficient self-love? I've struggled with it in my line - if you love art and literature and travel and not watching the game at Soprano's, then at some level you love the aristocratic sensibility, or to put it in humbler personal terms, Oak Bay and not Esquimalt. But it's systemic injustice that prevents us all from being aristocrats in our own selves, and that I truly believe. Waugh, on the other hand, writes about his young bloods coming back from Paris to jump into the General Strike on the wrong side and beat down the poor, and gives us "ha ha, so young we were, such carefree days of indiscretion." Well, I say damn them.And yet, the craftsmanship is stunning, and you blush with shame to compare it to a novel with similar religious and explicitly working-class themes, like, um Jude the Obscure (yeah, different era, but I actually think it's more appropriate; Waugh is a throwback - he's certainly not a modernist - and the thematic parallels are in some ways striking, although Jude does double duty as Charles and Sebastian). Sebastian Flyte is perfect - I literally met that exact lambheaded younger son in Romania and was bowled over. The religious argument is well balanced, and if it boils down to "the sadness that breathes from our religion is easier to take than the sadness that breathes from your lack, because we have God to help with it," well, that's better than most apologists do, really.But what absolutely slew me was the scene on board the boat. And then, you know that shiver that you get, that turns your stomach to water and your knees to aspic, when you're like "That's right. That's exactly what happens." When Celia is telling Charles that the kids made a welcome banner and he's blowing her off and I'm thinking, "This is not meant to be a sympathetic character," suddenly it hits: This is what this many years of reflexively upholding the expectations of others does. It makes you sad, and selfish, and cruel, and it's the story of the English novel, be it Charles and Julia or the grim and guilty in Greene or Jim Dixon with his spastic faces - hell, flashforward fifty years and in a collective-unconscious sort of way maybe it explains happyslapping and knife crime and the specific kind of British bling culture that Momus, say, always decries - or all the cold satisfaction of the British existential novel, where you end up with freedom andnothing else, and knowing you have to love but just unable - compare Fowles' Nicholas Urfe to whatsisname from The Age of Reason, maybe more pleasant and empty than cold and satisfying, which is maybe very French. Does the stunning drop in English religiosity have to do with the suffocating weight of society and Englishness that generations up to and including the boomers had to suffer on top of the suffocating weight of God?Okay, I'll out with it: I've done some bad things lately, and lost sight of myself, and have been running, driven by guilt, for a long time. And I've been trying to sort it out lately, and I've been saying "It twists you." Guilt, obligations, etc. But my God, what if that just means, "It makes you English?I have no idea how facetious I'm being. Give Brideshead a read and see if anything I've said here makes any more sense.

[lmichet_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Simply the most gorgeous thing I have read in a very, very long time.There were a few passages that managed to stun me. The writing on the whole is better than practically anything else in English, yes. I remember at one point stumbling across a passage so gorgeous that I paused to think for a moment, before suddenly realizing that the passage had all been one sentence, and such a perfect one that I hadn't noticed it. I'm also convinced that this book has the most beautiful writing on the subject of happiness of any book in modern Literature.Reasons for not reading this book are small and silly ones, and I'm sorry I'd listened to them for so long.

[rainpebble_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I know, I really know that I am very much in the minority when I say that I did not enjoy this book. I enjoyed moments of the book, but all in all I found the characters to be flat and worldly and boring people. There seemed to be no plot. The people all seemed so self centered and decadent. I forced myself to do this in one sitting (excepting for meal and potty breaks) because I knew that if I put it down I would not pick it up again. The 2 1/2 star rating I did give it were for the writing only.I wanted to like/love it so very much because all of my LT heros/heroines love it and I do feel totally inept to have to say that I cannot measure up. But, oh well, *hit happens and it usually rolls downhill and I am usually at the bottom. I will simply find something different to read that I can and will love.Sorry, guys. I am sure that if I were British I would have enjoyed this one.

[othemts · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

The William & Mary Boston Alumni Chapter selected the Evelyn Waugh classic Brideshead Revisited (1945) for our May meeting. The novel is the reflections of Charles Ryder upon his relationship with the aristocratic Marchmain family after coming upon their crumbling homestead Brideshead while serving in the military in wartime England.In the first section Ryder flashes back to forming a friendship with the younger son Sebastian Flyte while they both studied at Oxford (I use "studied" loosely here as they spend much of their time partying). Sebastian has two characteristics that stand out: one he is Catholic, and two he is barking mad (or batshit insane as we'd say here in the States). A third characteristic emerges over the course of the novel. Sebastian is a depressive alcoholic and Charles is his codependent enabler.The second part of the novel is much less interesting as Sebastian, the novel's most interesting character, is only discussed second hand. Here Charles returns from traveling abroad for his art, indifferent to his wife and children and instead strikes up an affair with Sebastian's sister Julia. This leads to the climax of the novel in which deus ex machina leads Julia to remember she's a practicing Catholic and calls off the affair and plans for divorce.From what I understand about Waugh, he was a convert to Catholicism and wrote this as a Catholic allegory. Yet the Catholics in this novel are portrayed as lazy, selfish, drunken, and foolish. That the novel is told from the point of view of the unsympathetic agnostic doesn't bode well for a positive image of Catholicism either. One of my book club friends felt the Catholic message of this novel is that "God will get you in the end." That may be. As a critique of England's crumbling aristocracy, the novel's other theme, this book works much better. But overall I'm none too impressed.

[sherriey_5 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

** spoiler alert ** When I picked this up from the library, I was delighted to find that it was narrated by Jeremy Irons. He is an incredible actor and I think that his contribution to this book made me like it even more. I watched the movie adaptation of this a couple months ago, just on a whim. The movie pretty much bored me to tears, so I was not sure how the book would be. I enjoyed the novel so much more, there was so much more to the story that was not adapted in the movie. Anyway, on to th...more When I picked this up from the library, I was delighted to find that it was narrated by Jeremy Irons. He is an incredible actor and I think that his contribution to this book made me like it even more. I watched the movie adaptation of this a couple months ago, just on a whim. The movie pretty much bored me to tears, so I was not sure how the book would be. I enjoyed the novel so much more, there was so much more to the story that was not adapted in the movie. Anyway, on to the book. I truly enjoyed the story of Sebastian, sad as it may be. Sebastian was such an interesting character, and I actually found that after he dropped out of the story, I was not quite as interested in the rest of the Flyte family's affairs. I felt Charles was so self absorbed and I could not believe his attitude towards his children - what a pompous ass! The affair between Julia and Charles was so brief and uninteresting to me. I did enjoy the religious themes throughout the book and had to give Julia kudos in the end for sticking to her morals and not marrying Charles. I also enjoyed the peripheral characters of Cordelia and Nanny Hawkins. So much to enjoy in this book, I'm glad I listened to the audio version so that I could enjoy each nuance.

[azureyes_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

One of the great novels of 20th-century English. In the same subjective but heartfelt vein, Waugh's prose may be unsurpassed. By turns poignant and witty, the book seems to create in the mind of the reader places and spaces as palpable as ones of bricks-and-mortar. It is a novel that has adapted very well to TV and film, but those versions of it - wonderful as they are - can't fully capture the intricacies of the relationships. Sebastian is an irresistibly charismatic character, and many people seem to be disappointed that Charles rather than Sebastian is the more dominant presence in the plot. For me, Charles suffers from the same bland earnestness that I would no doubt exhibit if I were in his shoes. And that's what draws me to him. He's intelligent but inept, sincere but ineffectual, brave but irascible. He has the dolorous romantic vision broad and strong enough to narrate events he never quite understands. Charles is a great narrator because he will never be an insider; the world of the Flyte/Marchmains is as oppressive as it is impressive. Its lines of patriarchal and matriarchal force, its pre-Vatican II Roman Catholic ethos so foreign to most of us in the 21st century to name only two elements that constitute its underlying tension require a character like Charles to make it real to us.

[seager_4 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I read this recently for the first time. It is hard not to be overwhelmed with the memory of the TV adaptation but still, this is not a great novel in my opinion. Of course Waugh writes like a dream, he is a great writer for sure. But this book doesn't seem to me to be as great as its reputation might have it.The author seems to have an odd attitude to Roman Catholicism. Part admiring and part despising. Neither of these attitudes actually help him make these characters real. The Flytes are cartoonish to me. And the whole atmosphere feels slightly false. It just drips with the kind of snobbery that Oxford and Cambridge breeds in people who worship wealth and aristocracy and can't quite admit it. There is a seductive nostalgia in the Oxford passages, it is certainly brilliant at evoking that strange elusive youthful bliss and its passing. But in the end it feels a bit creepy to me; and more about Waugh's insecurities about class than much else perhaps.

[lkernagh · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Brilliant. I didn't think that would be my reaction when I started listening to the audiobook narrated by Jeremy Irons, but darn it all, these very aloof and rather languid characters of what I consider to be very dysfunctional British upper class upbringing got under my skin, so much so that I was stunned to discover I had reached the end of the story and was pinning for more. How the heck did that happen?! The characters don't make the most logical of choices - or do they? - but I came to develop a bond with Charles and the Marchmain family, contrary to any exceptions I may have had for the story. Waugh has captured perfectly the social-political-economic situations of the time period and, through his characterizations, raised questions regarding a number of topics, including religion, theology, politics, art, society and the war effort. Brideshead Revisited will hold a special place in my heart as witness to a time, place and family that is poignantly captured under the uncensored pen of an author I have been wary to read before now. Educational systems can do that to a reader. Blast them. This is also one of those rare time when I am wary of watching any movie adaptations, for fear that they will ruin what I now feel for this book.

[ameise1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a brilliant story about the upper class, love and religion. The spelling style is fantastic and the listening was entertaining. The story is told in a time span of more than twenty years. It started during WWII when Charles' company made stop at Brideshead and then he is telling the story from it and the family in retrospective. Charles was first friends with Sebastian who has a major problem with his family and its religion. He tried to find his on way of life which wasn't compliant with that of his family. Later there was the story of Charles and Julia but it remained as an unfulfilled love because the Catholic faith of Juli was in the end stronger.

[helenliz_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a beautiful book. In the edition I read, there was an introduction by Waugh that explained how and when he came to write this. It was written just prior to the Normandy invasion in '44, such that the cause of the evident nostalgia for a more peaceful, predictable time can well be imagined. The introduction also said that, in retrospect he thought some of this was overly nostalgic and emotional, but that he decided not to re-write it later. At the start, we join Charles Ryder as the troops under his command arrive at a new location, it turns out to be a country house, and the name sparks a recollection of his personal connection with the house and the family. Charles first meets the Flytes when he meets Sebastian while they are at Oxford together. He is the epitome of the elite, and Charles is soon under the spell of his charm. As early as the first visit to Brideshead, it is clear that all is not well in the family Flyte. There are oddities all over; the vanished father, the controlling mother, the hearty elder brother, the ethereal sister, the religion, the estate, the ritual for the sake of it. Charles is aware of how different it is, but cannot help but be entranced by it - and through him, we are equally drawn into their spell. The story advances slowly at first, but always through Charles' interactions with the family Flyte. There are long passages of time when he does not detail events, as it does not relate to the Flytes. His marriage, his career, his children are all dismissed in relatively few lines, as they are not relevant to the family. He becomes further and further entwined in their web, yet always remains the outsider. They seem to want to invite him in, yet it has to be on their terms, the outsiders in the story are not well tolerated. Even when he does accept their terms, it is not for long and he is soon the outsider again, forever looking in longingly, like the child with their nose pressed up against the sweetshop window. They stand alone, somehow, they seem distant, both from Charles and from us, but they worm their way in and you want to know what happened - but fear it does not end well. Told in retrospect, it is a love song to an age that must have seemed to be long past at the time of writing; can you imagine any greater contrast between the impending invasion of Normandy and the glorious 20s at Oxford? It is seductive, lyrical, rose tinged and has an undertone of melancholy. Beautiful read.