Brideshead Revisited in Reading List Completists

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Brideshead Revisited

Evelyn Waugh

Start date: October 1, 2021

Finish date: October 31, 2021

Discussion: Group Reads

Why we're reading this: October 2021 Completist Poll Winner
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What Members Thought

Jul 14, 2020 Sue K H rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, 000-classics-grp-read, modern-library-100

鈥淚t seems to me that I grew younger daily with each adult habit that I acquired. I had lived a lonely childhood and a boyhood straitened by war and overshadowed by bereavement; to the hard bachelordom of English adolescence, the premature dignity and authority of the school system, I had added a sad and grim strain of my own. Now, that summer term with Sebastian, it seemed as though I was being given a brief spell of what I had never known, a happy childhood, and though its toys were silk shirts ...more

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Oct 15, 2018 Jason rated it liked it · review of another edition

An evolving story-line, that is ultimately human and of a time, of a transitional time and also a transitional culture..., but in the end largely about religion... right? This may be a case of high expectations setting a read up for mild disappointment, but also expectations of something that was quite different in themes than the book ultimately centered around (though I think perhaps that had largely to do with me reading things into something that was never there?). A book that should be righ An evolving story-line, that is ultimately human and of a time, of a transitional time and also a transitional culture..., but in the end largely about religion... right? This may be a case of high expectations setting a read up for mild disappointment, but also expectations of something that was quite different in themes than the book ultimately centered around (though I think perhaps that had largely to do with me reading things into something that was never there?). A book that should be right up my alley, but somehow slipped away from me - I read this wrong.

The writing is probably near flawless in itself, reflective of the characters and backdrop. I thought this was a book of the love of a man towards another, of the entire Flyte family, and further that of a culture that was ending (or at least turning into something... less?), and I guess maybe that is there, but it felt a bit more like an infatuation with an idea to me, more than of individual true love with any authentic depth.

If you asked me now who I am, the only answer I could give with any certainty would be my name. For the rest: my loves, my hates, down even to my deepest desires, I can no longer say whether these emotions are my own, or stolen from those I once so desperately wished to be.

The pacing was excellent, constantly having the reader wanting to know what would happen next, how things would end, but for me it was a slow decent that didn't satisfy and turned back to the subject that my own prejudices probably had me the least interested in - religion. I am not sure what I am to feel about many of the characters, they are all products of their families and their religion or lack there of. There is a constant struggle for some to be individuals and to live a more hedonistic type of life, but religion and guilt keep circling back and by the end what is one to take from this story? Lady Marchmain seemed an enigma, at turns both well-meaning and manipulative; the matriarch, a woman who needled, controlled, but to what ends? I don't know, I feel like I'm left with a surface deep debate of the role religion plays in every facet of our lives, a more English Dostoevskian tale that isn't at all that either.

I've always been bad. Probably I shall be bad again, punished again. But the worse I am, the more I need God. I can't shut myself out from His mercy. ... Or it may be a private bargain between me and God, that if I give up this one thing I want so much, however bad I am, He won't quite despair of me in the end.

It was an enjoyable book that I should probably re-approach with a different mindset at some point, but I am not sure if I will...
...more

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Oct 16, 2021 Brooklyn rated it it was amazing

Shelves: great-books-groupreads-completist, classics, gay-ish

Just finished - was definitely a classic and well written. Slightly at odds with the religious overtones though could deal with it as spiritual. Waugh is too good a writer to be bogged down in solely religious debate. I see the story as a story of grace and redemption - and an elegy for a lost past destroyed by the War and the philistine Rex and Hoopers of the world. There are some magnificent passages of gorgeous writing- stand alone - Julia鈥檚 rant on her sin- Lord Marchmain鈥檚 death bed soliloq ...more

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Oct 31, 2019 Liane rated it really liked it

Timing was perfect for this book. I was traveling across Europe - through Venice and Milan, so some of the travel parts really touched a chord.

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Mar 01, 2018 Jess Penhallow rated it liked it

Shelves: uk, usa, italy, 1930s, 1920s, 1940s, boxall-s

A few years ago I developed a short-lived interest in the TV show Made in Chelsea. I asked myself why I kept watching it when I hated every person on the show and found their shallow lives very boring most of the time. I had the exact same feeling when reading this book.

I hated all of the characters in this book except Cordelia and Anthony. I didn't care about their first world problems and hypocritical lives. (view spoiler) ...more

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Jun 19, 2013 Mmars rated it really liked it

Shelves: classics

Not sure if this book has made it to the reading lists for people who love Downton Abbey, but it should. Why, well, other than focusing on another fading manse during the same time period, it's a sort of reality check. Or, perhaps, it presents a broader view of British society post-WWI. A bit more of the seedy side, the stain under the patina told with the tongue solidly stuck on the cheek. It's also interesting in that the male subjects are the first of the "too young to serve in WWI" generatio Not sure if this book has made it to the reading lists for people who love Downton Abbey, but it should. Why, well, other than focusing on another fading manse during the same time period, it's a sort of reality check. Or, perhaps, it presents a broader view of British society post-WWI. A bit more of the seedy side, the stain under the patina told with the tongue solidly stuck on the cheek. It's also interesting in that the male subjects are the first of the "too young to serve in WWI" generation. They are surprisingly naieve and seemingly carefree, but perhaps they misbehave and are confused and depressed because they didn't get to prove their manliness in war. And....they are quite well off, but they're inheritance is fading off.

I'm afraid I'm not painting the proper picture of the story itself. Young, impressionable first year university man becomes enamored with another first year wealthy, intriguing and young man. Impressionable man becomes embroiled in wealthy family affairs. Life's adventures and misadventures ensue much to his confusion. Of course that's a nutshell synopsis.

But it's so good. Waugh just leads you on with his hapless narrator, mystified by what is happening. It must be mentioned that Catholicism plays a huge role in this story. Catholicism or lack of outlines the actions or nearly all the characters in their secular lives. And Waugh shows how it's bewildering for one who has grown up without religion to understand the expectations, guilt and deep underpinnings that one who has grown up with strict religious parents is never able to shed. Thankfully, he largely does this with humor. Rex, an in-law-to-be and shallow politician, will do anything to marry, including becoming a Catholic. This incident is absolutely hilarious. He thinks he will learn everything he needs to know in a day. The priest is nearly driven to wits end.

If you don't live on the British side of the pond be forewarned, this is a book of its times, and there are lots of unfamiliar terms and references. It proved a bit of a distraction for me, reading it today, so I shouldn't dock it a star for that, but I am because, it made it drag a bit for me. Just seeemed a bit overdone. 4 stars. ...more

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