Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

Yet another male author I thought was a female until now. (It also happened with the poet Rainer Maria Rilke.) I watched the mini-series based on this book years ago but I had forgotten the story and details. A friend referred to this book as her favorite that she read over and over so I became curious what would make it so good.

I remembered it being about two young British men in WWII times. It is much more than that, of course. For one thing, the story begins with Charlie Ryder meeting Sebastian Flyte but when he finally meets Sebastian’s family, you realize the story is about the whole family, their home, the way they live, the war, the culture, the effect of riches and loss of riches, religion, a whole world. In the preface of this particular edition*, Evelyn Waugh says its theme is “the operation of divine grace on a group of diverse closely connected characters.” (page ix *)

I kept thinking of an old Sesame Street skit making fun of “Chariots of Fire,” where the two muppets kept calling each other “Ol’ Bean” and “Ol’ Chap.” I love Britishisms and was happy to read many of them. It’s been ages since I read and watched “Gone With the Wind” and “The Great Gatsby,” but I thought of them, too. The world of the Brideshead Revisited seems to be a world that no longer exists, like the South in “Gone With the Wind.” And the love between Charlie and Sebastian’s sister Julia made me think of Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan.

The Flytes’ nanny still lives in her room in the Brideshead mansion after the children are all grown and gone. How curious a life to contemplate, and this passage gives you a feel for the life and world.

Sebastian’s nanny was seated at the open window, the fountain lay before her, the lakes, the teample, and, far away on the last spur, a glittering obelish; her hands lay open in her lap, and loosely between them, a rosary; she was fast asleep. Long hours of work in her youth, authority in middle life, repose and security in her age, had set their stamp on her lined and serene face. (page 37 *)

Sebastian is a curious, odd character. He has a teddy bear called Aloysius, and every time he refers to it (as if it’s a living human), I would think, “What the heck?” I just don’t get it. Why? I love his way of talking. It often made me laugh. One letter began with the usual heading of location and date, but with a twist:

Brideshead Castle,
Wiltshire.
I wonder what the date is. (page 79 *)

He blythely writes, “I wonder what the date is,” without bothering to find out.

Charlie Ryder seems blessed (ha!) with the rather fevered imagination I have. As he is traveling to visit Sebastian, who's been in an accident:

…fear worked like yeast in my thoughts, and the fermentation broght to the surface, in great gobs of scum, the images of disaster, a loaded gun held carelessly at a stile, a horse rearing and rolling over, a shaded pool with a submerged stake, an elm bough falling suddenly on a still morning, a car at a blind corner; all the catalogue of threats to civilized life rose and haunted me; I even pictured a homicidal maniac mouthing in the shadows, swinging a length of lead pipe. (page 82 *)

That writing!!

The Flyte family practices Catholicism. I started to write “were devout Catholics,” but I’m not sure that would be accurate. I’m not sure they can be defined as “devout.” They have a chapel, they attend services, and their actions and morals are firmly, heavily based on Catholic beliefs, but are they devout? I don’t think so. Here is Sebastian’s mother talking about God, wealth, and religion.

“When I was a girl we were comparatively poor, but still much richer than most of the world, and when I married I became very rich. It used to worry me, and I thought it wrong to have so many beautiful things when others had nothing. Now I realize that it is possible for the rich to sin by coveting the privileges of the poor. The poor have always been the favorites of God and his saints, but I believe that it is one of the special achievements of Grace to sanctify the whole of life, riches included. Wealth in Pagan Rome was necessarily something cruel; it’s not anymore.”

I said something about a camel and the eye of a needle and she rose happily to the point.

“But of course,” she said, “it’s very unexpected for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, but the gospel is simply a catalogue of unexpected things. It’s not to be expected that an ox and and an ass sould worship at the crib. Animals are always doing the oddest things in the lives of the saints. It’s all part of the poetry, the Alice-in-Wonderland side, of religion.” (page 143 *)

How delicious. “The Alice-in-Wonderland side of religion.” Can’t you just hear her in her English accent saying, “Animals are always doing the oddest things.”? The rich covet the privileges of the poor? Really? Well, in “Camelot,” they sang “What Do Simple Folk Do?” I think they were curious and wondering, but were they coveting the “privileges” of the simple folk? I don’t think so. I like her saying that the poor are “the favorites of God and saints.” Maybe that’s their privilege. And beginning with the Grey-Poupin line, “But of course.” Yum.

Lady Marchmain, Sebastian’s mother (I so do not understand British names and titles. She’s “Lady Marchmain,” the castle they live in is Brideshead Castle, the oldest brother, the heir, is called Brideshead, and their last name is Flyte. Quite confusing to me. But I like it) says, in a painfully true statement about Sebastian’s addiction to alcohol, “It is no good either of us trying to believe him. I’ve known drunkards before. One of the most terrible things about them is their deceit. Love of truth is the first thing that goes.” Oh, my heart.

In the book flap, The Guardian is quoted:

The book is a masterpiece: rereading it you can only gaze in admiration at the brilliant and hilarious details.

I agree. Entirely—as the British would say.

* Brideshead Revisited | The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder, Evelyn Waugh, 75th-Anniversary Edition, Back Bay Books / Little, Brown and Company, November 2020. Original copyright 1944 by Evelyn Waugh.