Should Brideshead be revisited?

Prior to this, I’d never read any of Evelyn Waugh’s books. I’m not entirely sure what I expected from Brideshead Revisited, my 19th book of 20. Something less cuttingly realistic, I think. I had vague notions of it being very proper, perhaps with a little hint of a mystery to it. Whatever my unformed opinions were, this book was a surprise to me.

Plot summary

Captain Charles Ryder is grinding through Army service towards the end of World War II. He’s disgruntled with the inefficiencies and inaction of his service life. He and his unit are rebilletted overnight and he wakes to discover he is now on the land belonging to an old friend.

Swept up by nostalgia, Ryder looks back on the first time he met his friend Sebastian. They were both students at Oxford. Sebastian was charming, but there was something different about him and his family. Ryder is captivated by his first visit to Sebastian’s family estate, Brideshead.

The years pass and Ryder develops a closer association with the family. Love and friendship. Faith and sin. You learn more about the Marchmain family of Brideshead and about the narrator himself. You are left with a feeling of both sadness and justice as you see the final outcome in Brideshead Revisited.

What I liked: revisit a lost world

Part of what made this book gripping was the look into an era of societal flux. Set in the mid-1920s, leading up to the beginning of WWII, Brideshead Revisited covers a fascinating time in history. Society was seeing massive upheaval, particularly in western countries, such as Britain. The economy was struggling and many of the landed gentry were struggling to keep their estates intact. Society became more permissive and faith in God and the more mainstream Christian religions was wavering. New technology such as the radio, the cinema and the car were taking the world by storm. Who knows what might have happened if WWII had not broken out, causing a return to the familiar amidst the terror of another and worse world war.

It was fascinating to read a contemporary account of this time, albeit a fictionalised one. The stereotype of the ‘roaring ’20s’ was nowhere to be found. Nuances of class, sex and religion were explored through the book. Sometimes, there was a subtle and delicate phrasing. Other times it was more blunt that I thought was possible with 1940s censorship rules.

The characters, too, felt very real. I wanted to find out what happened to them. I worried when I saw them taking steps towards bad choices. The ending left me with a feeling which I can only describe as melancholy in a good way. Leaving Brideshead, I felt the loss of world I had never known. I saw the broken parts of what might be seen as a golden age.

What I struggled with: how very naughty

I had done no pre-reading on Brideshead Revisited before I picked it up and I knew nothing about the author, Evelyn Waugh, except that he was a convert to Catholicism. It was therefore a shock to run across some homosexual themes in this book, followed shortly thereafter by extramarital affairs, divorce and alcoholism. Certainly, this book was in no way vulgar or crude. Details are left to hang, so you need not worry about anything too graphic. But there’s plenty for your imagination, so that’s something to watch.

This is not a book you reach for when looking for something lighthearted. But it makes you think. Perhaps the most interesting element of the plot was the one which was barely mentioned: conversion. Waugh wove a conversion story in which a light touch, but it’s always there. It unfolds quietly, before coming to the fore in the latter half of the book. It was this that gave the book a clear note of beautiful truth that sounded faintly beneath the cacophany of regret. Not all good endings are happy.

Would you revisit Brideshead or is it too melancholy for you?