Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh

"Brideshead Revisited" is one of Evelyn Waugh's most well known novels and it recently occured to me that I had never read it despite having read some of his other work. I expected "Brideshead Revisited" to be similar to Waugh's earlier satirical work such as "Decline and Fall" and "A Handful of Dust". Although there is an element of satire, the major theme of Brideshead is Catholicism. "Brideshead Revisited" was published in 1945 and Waugh himself was a Catholic convert. The book follows an aristocratic and Catholic family, the Marchmains, through the eyes of Charles Ryder, an agnostic friend of the ...  Read the complete review

Quoniam dicebant: Spiritum immundum habet. The Gospel According to Mark, iii, 30. A little over three decades ago Evelyn Waugh (1903-66) died on the lavatory from the cumulative effects of excessive drinking and drug-taking. If he is at this moment peering exophthalmicly down on the earth from the traditional Roman Catholic heaven he espoused in his lifetime, he would not be pleased by any comparison with the death of a rather more famous American: and yes, such a comparison would be most unjust. Waugh's excesses were in "bromide and chloral and crème de menthe";[1] he did not eat hamburgers, nor did he wear satin jump-suits, nor was he a ...  Read the complete review

The story unfolds as Charles Ryder finds himself stationed, with his army unit, in the grounds of stately home - then he realises that he has been there before... Casting his mind back to his days at Oxford, Charles recalls his relationship with Sebastian Flyte, his teddy bear and Sebastian's struggle with life, love and alcohol. And then there is Sebastian's strange and sometimes troubled family: their self-torturing beliefs, and their enveloping attractiveness, which Charles soon finds himself unable to resist. If you have seen the television adaptation of this classic English novel and then decide to read the book you will not be ...  Read the complete review