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Welcome to the discussion for our April 2012 group read of...

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

I hope you enjoy the read!...and whether you do or don't please pop back here anyway to tell us what you thought.

This is a favorite of mine. Unrequited love. Sebastian is a tragic figure, but I love him. Poor Charles. Enjoy.

I'm looking forward to this one - I didn't quite make the head start but hey ho. Here's a few questions to start us off...

What is it about Sebastian that attracts Charles?

What part does class play in the book and is it a bigger or smaller part than that played by religion?

Is charles a reliable first person narrator?

I'm looking forward to re-reading this one. It's been quite a number of years since I've read it, and Waugh is a favorite of mine. I'll answer questions after I've started reading the book. Thanks so much!

What is it about Sebastian that attracts Charles?

Sebastian is "special" - everyone seems to gravitate toward him. He is eccentric. He takes an interest in Charles (and falls in love with him), treats him as an equal, indeed treats him "special."

Sounds very simple - I've just read the prologue and chapter one this afternoon. My immediate thoughts are that Sebastian is a bit...well...wet! - He's childlike, needy and self-indulgent and I don't know why charles isn't more derisory of him but instead he seems to feel something akin to 'awe' or at the very least is intrigued. Why would that be? if Sebastian hadn't been listed in Debretts would having him be sick on your 'middle class' carpet be more annoying???

Sebastian is everything that Charles isn't and really has no opportunity to be. So of course Charles is going to like that initially. The extravagance and the fun he seems to have is all appealing to Charles. After the initial meeting and spending time together, I think there is additional appeal because none of Charles's family wants him to spend time with Sebastian. Sebastian likes Charles because he's so different than himself and doesn't know anything about his family and social structure.

Sebastian is definitely childlike, Ally. I think that's part of the appeal too. He's just fun and not growing up, whereas Charles seems to always have been pushed towards something. The fun and drinking and Aloysius are all part of that. I think if Sebastian hadn't been upper class, Charles would still have been interested in him because they've had such different upbringings. Though, if Sebastian weren't rich and brought up how he was, he wouldn't be him and so who knows if that Sebastian would even have gotten sick on Charles's rug to begin with.

I'm still early in the book so can't yet really comment on the religion vs. class aspect (I don't remember it all well enough either).

In a lot of ways Charles isn't reliable just because he's so swept up in the whole Brideshead thing, but at the same time he can be quite harsh and honest about what he thinks of people. I've always had issue with trying to analyze whether or not the narrator is reliable or not, in school and in reviews, etc. I tend to just read things and not analyze that much. It's told from his perspective so I'm submerged into that way of seeing things. I don't think he ever means to be unreliable, but his complete infatuation with the house and the family and Sebastian does definitely play a part.

I need to get back to reading this. I've gotten too much into Game of Thrones, lol.

I've just started this. I'm greatly enjoying it, but it's too early for me to say much about the questions. I do find Sebastian a bit. . . odd. The teddy bear is something else. I just found an entry about it in Wikipedia saying it's modeled on a friend of Waugh's who also brought his teddy bear to Oxford.

I think one reason many of us are attracted to Sebastian is not only because he is eccentric, but also, we are attracted to his childlike behaviour, behaviour that brings out a kind of "protector" or "parental" feeling in us. I have not read this book since high school (aeons ago), but I remember feeling as though I wanted to protect and shield Sebastian, not only from himself, but also from his family (and maybe shield myself from my own family, I did sometimes feel a bit like Sebastian, still do, contra mundum, against the world).

There's definitely a protective feeling, Gundula. Without spoiling anything for first time readers, even Sebastian comments on that later, that he feels good taking care of someone himself, rather than just being taken care of by others.

What about 'the parents' - what are our first thoughts about Charles' dad and then, we hear about Sabastian's mother and father before we see them - does this cloud our eventual opinion of them? do we automatically adopt Charles' opinion of all three since everything is filtered through him as the narrator?

I finished the book over the Easter weekend and then watched the film version with Emma Thompson. I was quite surprised by the way the film depicted the Sebastian/Charles relationship as overtly homosexual, which, for me, undermined the nuance Waugh created and jarred terribly with my own interpretation while reading. Of course, it could be said that if Waugh was writing today he may have felt confident about writing overtly homosexual relationships and the book could have been entirely different. But it could also be said that Waugh captured the spirit of an age where close same sex friendhips were part of upper class and public school life in a way that was unremarkable at that time. I'd be very interested in the thoughts of others on this aspect of the book.

I agree, Ally. When I read it the first time, I was reading it at lunch one day and my co-worker only knew that they were supposed to be gay, but that's it. I had to explain that it's so much more than that, and that it was so much just how things were to a certain extent. I do think Sebastian's probably gay, but I don't think Charles really is. I thought the movie was too obvious as well. The older mini does a much better job, I felt.

Ally wrote: "I finished the book over the Easter weekend and then watched the film version with Emma Thompson. I was quite surprised by the way the film depicted the Sebastian/Charles relationship as overtly homosexual..."

I haven't seen the movie, but just finished the book. I've been surprised, actually, to see opinions in various reviews that Sebastian and Charles might not have had a homosexual relationship. It seemed to me obvious that it was, but in that sort of Bloomsbury-ish way where it was quite normal to have homosexual relationships and then later heterosexual ones. Or what did Cara say in the book - "I know of the romantic friendships of the English and the Germans. They are not Latin. I think they are very good if they do not go on too long."

I agree that it's an interesting aspect of the story, especially in that it seems both understated and matter-of-fact, both in how Waugh handles the issue and in how the characters do. Sebastian generates a lot of controversy for other reasons, but not because of homosexuality.

I didn't see the Emma Thompson movie. I did see the PBS version years ago (probably with the BBC or some British production) with Anthony Edwards. I don't remember it as being overt.

I had the impression that Charles was more infatuated with Sebastian and his whole family, for that matter.

I don't know that I'd go so far as to say that school boy bromances [I hate using such silly slang, but it does seem to fit] were the norm. However, they were not uncommon. In this book it is obvious to me that both Sebastian and Anthony Blache are overtly homosexual.

I thoroughly enjoyed the Emma Thompson film. The sexual aspect of the Sebastian/Charles relationship was much more pronounced in that film (though not over done). Sebastian was BMOC (big man on campus), rich, beautiful, erudite and quite smitten with Charles - the attraction was simply too much for Charles to resist. They enjoyed a relationship that wasn’t exactly unrequited (which perhaps made it worse in the end for Sebastian). I'm reminded of Auden: "If equal affection cannot be, Let the more loving one be me." What was a fling or dalliance for Charles (something young men do, but outgrow), was an all-consuming passion for Sebastian.

Charles (very much like Waugh) was infatuated with the whole family. The relationship of Charles and Julia was too much for Sebastian. His was a fragile soul under constant attack from his mother; this new outrage drove him deeper into depression, despair and alcoholism.

What would have become of Sebastian or Julia had Charles Ryder simply gone away?

...on the subject of Sebastian's alcoholism, what do you think was the main cause?

It seemed to me while reading that Sebastian was crushed by the status of his family and his mother's overbearing character. When it came to Charles (and indeed his other friends earlier in the novel) he just wants something of his own that is entirely his to control. When Charles comes under the spell of the family it hurts him. For me though, Julia comes much later - I'm not sure we can blame her really. As for Catholicism and homosexuality, I never really felt that there was any comment in the writing on the 'wrongness' of Sebastian's homosexuality (...which is rather a stereotype of Cathoicism and the way that it was portrayed in the film). Overall, Sebastian's alcoholism dominates the story and although there are many things that can be said to be contributing factors I'm still unable to pin it totally on one particular thing. Is it just that Sebastian had an addictive sort of personality?

Well, being an alcoholic [I've been sober 21 years], I can say from personal experience, there never is "one particular thing." However, I was raised a Southern Baptist and can say that a contributing factor was religious condemnation - both institutional and in the home (my mother) - of my homosexualty. That's a soul crusher - it instills deep within you a sense that you are unworthy to receive love, that you don't deserve to be loved because you're "dirty" and that the love you have to give is filthy and even your thoughts and feelings are an abomination - and even God doesn't love you. If that doesn't play havoc with a childs self esteem, I can't imagine what else would. It took years for God and I to patch things up; going back through the Bible and reading the word and meditating on the lessons provided in scripture. Now when I hear people spewing their hate speak I ask myself this one simple question: "Does that really sound like something God would say?"

But I digress.

Thanks for sharing that personal info Ivan (it must take a lot of courage!) - it does throw light on the types of thoughts and feelings of someone like Sebastian's character.

Do you think that this 'soul crusher' of religious condemnation is either inferred or overt in the novel? - it's just that, although I can understand it might be there in the type of setting Waugh creates, I never read the novel this way myself.

I've read it twice - but not this go round. As I recall this was all inferred. In my mind the novel has become one with the film versions and also Mad World: Evelyn Waugh and the Secrets of Brideshead - they all coalesce for me.

*potential spoilers*

Given some of the discussion, I wondered if when I read it as a younger man I'd somehow papered over some of the homosexual content. I've just finished it, and now I have to say - is this even what the book is ABOUT?

One may easily infer that some homosexual attraction was there between Charles and Sebastian. And clearly there is Anthony, who is as overt as the conventions of the time would allow. There are clear references to homosexual relationships. In fact, some of this rather makes me doubt that Waugh would have pulled his punches if Charles and Sebastian, and a romance between, were intended to be the Main Event.

Instead, the 'main event' of this book seems to concern Charles and Julia. No need to attempt a summary, but the themes seem to wrap around one's life progressing as one ages, love of lost youth, love of a family, love thwarted by circumstance, religion, society, etc. Sebastian is a major character in the book, but mainly offstage, an echo, an idea.

I think this book is far too beautiful and complex to reduce to one idea.

Charles, I agree. Charles and Julia, and the Catholicism are large points in the book too. It's really Charles's relationships with all different people. And we get to see so much of people through how others see them. At the beginning with Hooper(?) describing the house and Cordelia (right?), Sebastian with the house and the rest of the family, Anthony with Sebastian. It's all relationships, of which Charles and Sebastian's is only one.

eta: And I reduced it to one idea again, lol.

Gary wrote: "*potential spoilers*

Given some of the discussion, I wondered if when I read it as a younger man I'd somehow papered over some of the homosexual content. I've just finished it, and now I have to s..."

This is indeed a multilayered novel and should be appreciated as such. I fear we went down the rabbit hole discussing one particular aspect, though it wasn't our intent to reduce it to one idea.

Gary wrote: "*potential spoilers*

Given some of the discussion, I wondered if when I read it as a younger man I'd somehow papered over some of the homosexual content. I've just finished it, and now I have to s..."

I agree with what you've said. In my reading of the book, I felt pretty sure that Charles and Sebastian had a homosexual relationship, but I also felt that the fact that it was homosexual didn't seem to be that big of a deal to the characters (surprising, maybe, given the era, but maybe not given Waugh's own history). No one in the book seems that concerned about it. They are a lot more concerned with other things, Sebastian's drinking, for example. I do think, though, that the relationship between Charles and Sebastian - and, as you say, the echo or idea of it - was crucial. It has repercussions throughout Charles's life and in his relationship with Julia.

I wonder how it might have changed our perception of things if Sebastian had been female?

I had not heard what this book was about prior to reading it and was surprised afterward when I was reading comments on the book how much people brought up the question of Charles' homosexuality. To me that was hardly the target of the book and except for the sly question of "were he and Sebastian or weren't they?" didn't even factor in.

For me, I wanted more clarification as to why Julia was suddenly struck with her religious piety enough to break up with Charles after going through all the trouble of getting a divorce (especially in those days). And I was very surprised when they got together in the first place.

And why was Lady Marchmain so mean and controlling of everyone who was around her?

I also really enjoyed the character of Anthony Blanche.

"Julia decides that in order to be a good Catholic, she needs to make a sacrifice, and she chooses to sacrifice her happiness with Charles."


Kinda of what happened in The End of the Affair which came out in 1951.

Why was Lady Marchmain so mean and controlling? Why are so many people that way? It's hard to say.

Wonderful comments. Thanks to you all. I am 50 odd pages in and I am in raptures. It's so beautifully written. It also plays into a theme that always works for me: an idealised and lost youth seen through the prism of maturity.

I think I read half of it when was on but, for whatever reason, never finished it. In my mind's eye I still see Charles and Sebastian as Irons and Andrews who were so perfectly cast.

Ally wrote: "What is it about Sebastian that attracts Charles?"

When confronted by his cousin Jasper, in an early chapter, Charles recognises that Sebastian is giving him the childhood he never had. In addition to being in love with Sebastian, this - at least in the early stages of their relationship - is a key part of the attraction. And, which of us would not follow the same path at that age and with the same live experiences?

That was the show that got me to read the book. They were even on the cover, as I recall. It took me years, in fits and starts, to get through it. It just sat on a shelf or in a box for most of that time.

Jan C wrote: "That was the show that got me to read the book. They were even on the cover, as I recall. It took me years, in fits and starts, to get through it. It just sat on a shelf or in a box for most of that time. "

Why was that Jan?

It was a marvellous TV adaptation though. Sumptuous. I wonder what I'd think now, 30 or so years on.

Here's the way I still think of Sebastian and Charles....



I'm about 70 pages in now. Wonderful.

Nigeyb wrote: "Jan C wrote: "That was the show that got me to read the book. They were even on the cover, as I recall. It took me years, in fits and starts, to get through it. It just sat on a shelf or in a box f..."

I am easily distracted by other/newer books and so older ones sometimes get ignored for lengthy periods of time.

Jan C wrote: "I am easily distracted by other/newer books and so older ones sometimes get ignored for lengthy periods of time. "

Ah. Thanks.

Ally wrote: "What is it about Sebastian that attracts Charles?"

Nigeyb wrote: "When confronted by his cousin Jasper, in an early chapter, Charles recognises that Sebastian is giving him the childhood he never had. In addition to being in love with Sebastian, this - at least in the early stages of their relationship - is a key part of the attraction. And, which of us would not follow the same path at that age and with the same live experiences?"

I'm just reading the part in the Old Hundredth where S&C are described as a couple of "fairies". Is part of Charles’s attraction to Sebastian physical? Charles also comments that he and Sebastian took part in "naughtiness high in the catalogue of grave sins."

I think their relationship is probably not sexual. We know that they love each other, and the possibility of sexual relationship doesn’t alter the significance of their relationship in the novel. Their relationship is primarily preoccupied with beauty.

The first thing S&C do alone together is visit the Botanical Gardens � at Sebastian’s suggestion. When Charles returns to his rooms, he realises he dislikes his wall decorations which in retrospect he knows are in poor taste. He turns away the screen of daffodils. Charles, a would-be artist, is attracted to a Sebastian who understands art, beauty and the "glittering world" in which he lives.

It's a marvellous novel. Great questions Ally.

Sebastian, like his family home, is beautiful, magnificent and useless. He has no place in the adult, modern world and clings to the past and his childhood. He wants his Teddy and his Nanny, then retreats from the real world into drinking too much and running off to North Africa.
I think Waugh is giving us a portrait of Sebastian, but not an in-depth psychological analysis. Sebastian has an irritating sanctimonious mother and probably is homosexual and attracted to Charles, but I don't see that as giving an explanation of why Sebastian is the way he is. A physical relationship would be too much grown-up commitment for Sebastian perhaps.
Charles loves Sebastian and is sexually attracted to Julia. The two relationships are quite different. Charles also loves the house. When Julia decides not to marry him he regrets the loss of the house as much, if not more than, the loss of the woman.

Just finished....

An absorbing and sumptuous eulogy for the end of the golden age of the British aristocracy. Beautifully written and with so much to enjoy: faith and - in particular - Catholicism, duty, love, desire, grandeur, decay, memory, and tragedy. At its heart there is a beautiful and enchanting story. The various characters, right down to the most minor ones, are stunningly and credibly drawn - having just finished the book I feel that I have been amongst them and known them. I have read most of Evelyn Waugh's novels and this is his finest. If you haven't read it yet I envy you.

5/5

Nigeyb wrote: "Jan C wrote: "That was the show that got me to read the book. They were even on the cover, as I recall. It took me years, in fits and starts, to get through it. It just sat on a shelf or in a box f..."

Isn't that Rodrigo Borgia standing next to Sebastian?

Ivan wrote: "Isn't that Rodrigo Borgia standing next to Sebastian? "

Alas no Ivan, it's Anthony Andrews.

Ah, I see. Jeremy Irons played Rodrigo in "House of theBorgias" - carried on HBO or Showtime, cable movie channels.

I didn't know he was on that show.

Ah yes. Anthony Andrews was Sebastian - and Jeremy Iron was Charles Ryder. The Rodrigo reference went straight over my head.

Haha, it is. I love Jeremy Irons. :)

Me too.

The 2008 film version directed by Julian Jarrold is on the UK's BBC4 on Thursday 23 May 2013 at 9 pm. According to the Radio Times...

Like the 2005 adaptation of Pride & Prejudice, this take on a literary classic is destined to be compared to the landmark TV serialisation that came before it. ITV's 1981 production of Evelyn Waugh's between-the-wars tale was memorably brought to life by Anthony Andrews and Jeremy Irons as the leads. Here Matthew Goode takes the role of Charles Ryder, a middle-class scholar who is drawn into the upper-class world of fellow Oxford undergraduate Lord Sebastian Flyte (Ben Whishaw). The two men develop a close bond over the course of a summer spent at Flyte's family home, Brideshead. However, their chaste relationship is thrown into jeopardy by Sebastian's erratic behaviour and Charles's growing attraction to Sebastian's sister, Julia (Hayley Atwell). Becoming Jane director Julian Jarrold's film has much to commend it, particularly the performances of Whishaw (charming, camp, dangerous) and co-stars Emma Thompson and Patrick Malahide. And although the bookend sequences do feel rather like awkward appendages, the loss of lesser characters and changes to the book's structure shouldn't offend purists too much.

I feel I should just add to this thread how much I enjoyed 'Mad World: Evelyn Waugh and the Secrets of Brideshead'.

'Brideshead Revisited' is Evelyn Waugh's magnum opus, and I was amazed at the extent to which it was based on Evelyn Waugh's own experiences and those of people he knew.

The real story is far more surprising and tragic than the backstory hinted at in 'Brideshead Revisited'.

It just goes to show how most fiction (even unintentionally) is autobiographical.

I've seen all 13 hours of the miniseries and read the book, several times each. I was dumbfounded, however, to learn that Waugh himself converted to Catholicism late in life. I couldn't then, and still can't, comprehend how someone could write such an eloquent and poetic discourse of the Machiavellian desolation and destruction that religion inflicted upon everyone in its path, only to turn a blind eye to its causal repercussions and eventually acquiesce to its dogmas.

Yes, Sebastian and Charles were in love, but I never got a gay vibe from Charles. Like any other adolescent (or, in this case, a very late adolescent) he was just an innocent young man who longed to reject his own past and leap at the chance for a new life. I also did not get any vibe that it was Sebastian's wealth that was the attraction; he was in love with Sebastian, and it was an inexorable escape. Their relationship was too innocent to have actually had sex. I think their relationship (and the outcomes) would have been quite different if that were the case. Cara said it the most eloquently in Venice. "I know of these romantic friendships of the English and the Germans. They're not Latin. I think they're very good if they don't go on too long. It's the kind of love that comes to children before they know its meaning. In England, it comes a little later, when you are almost men."

Sebastian's homosexuality is more explicit, as ultimately evidenced by his choice of companion, Kurt, later in his life. This could also explain his alcoholism and need to escape. He wasn't just running from his family or his religion, he was running from himself. Cara, again, hit the nail on the head. "When people hate with all of that energy, it is really something inside themselves they are hating."

Personified by Lady Marchmain, religion destroyed almost everything it touched. It destroyed the marriage between her and her husband. It destroyed the love between Charles and Sebastian. It destroyed the love between Charles and Julia. It destroyed Sebastian. It even destroyed Cordelia, dooming that bright and energetic young mind to a dull life of servitude, though her own beliefs would prevent her from ever acknowledging it. These people were not sinners deserving of the wrath wrought upon them, they were loving and caring people.

In the end, all that remained was the ridiculous notion that blind faith itself was the only thing of any real worth. It would be the only thing that would survive this series of tragedies, ignoring the fact that it was responsible for them. I just can't accept that they had no other choice but accept the above as their own penitent transgressions and surrender to the faith that caused them so much pain in the first place.

Oh, and the movie version was a joke and missed the point entirely.

You make very good points Tony, but Waugh said the book was about the operation of grace, rather than blind faith or religion. Lord Marchmain and Sebastian achieve an inner peace at the ends of their lives, Julia and Cordelia during their lives. Lady Marchmain, the strictest adherent to the tenets of faith, never does.
(I'm not sure Waugh entirely convinces even himself of this power of grace; the story could lead to the cynical suggestion that religion is only good for you when you are dying.)

I agree with Val's emphasis on Grace. Evelyn Waugn, in a note to MGM in Hollywood, regarding a possible Brideshead film adaptation states:

"The novel deals with what is logically termed 'the operation of Grace', that is to say, the unmerited and unilateral act of love by which God continually calls souls to himself".

Many of Evelyn Waugh's friends and critics were appalled by the death bed conversion scene of Lord Marchmain. But for Evelyn himself, this scene was the whole point of the book.

Val didn't pick up on this point, so I will:

Tony wrote: "I never got a gay vibe from Charles. Like any other adolescent (or, in this case, a very late adolescent) he was just an innocent young man who longed to reject his own past and leap at the chance for a new life. I also did not get any vibe that it was Sebastian's wealth that was the attraction; he was in love with Sebastian, and it was an inexorable escape. Their relationship was too innocent to have actually had sex. "

I've noticed a lot of discussion on whether Sebastian and Charles consummate their love. I don't think it's relevant. The key point is that Charles loves Sebastian, although as we realise later this love is really for the entire Marchmain family. Paula Byrne makes the point that Sebastian is "the forerunner": the forerunner, of a love for the brother and the sister that is somehow the same. It's a brilliant device on Waugh's part: it allows him to express the idea that what Charles is really in love with is the family, not any one member of it, and at the same time it makes Brideshead into one of the great expressions of what might be called the bisexual imagination.

Paula Byrne also makes clear that most of the aesthetes that Waugh hung out with at Oxford were engaging in gay sex despite most of them not continuing to explore this part of their sexuality in later life. So it was partly adolescent experimentation, partly fashion and primarily a lack of access to suitable women. All of which suggests to me that Charles and Sebastian probably did consummate their love but, as I state, it's really neither here nor there and not a key part of the narrative arc.

One other little nugget from Paula Byrne's book, Saint Sebastian is the patron saint of homosexuals, and the inspiration for the naming of Sebastian Flyte. Now you know.

And of course, just as Charles falls in love with the Marchmains, so Evelyn Waugh fell in love with the Lygon family who he drew on heavily for the Marchmains. The big exception is the Lord Marchmain character in 'Brideshead Revisited'. Although Evelyn Waugh drew heavily on Lord Beauchamp (the Lygon patriarch) for Lord Marchmain there was one significant difference. In deference to the Lygon family, he removed almost all traces of Lord Beauchamp's homosexuality. It was this homosexuality that was at the centre of a scandal that caused his downfall, and exile from England. The real story is far more surprising and tragic than the backstory hinted at in 'Brideshead Revisited'.

I agree with Tony that Charles and Sebastian's relationship was too innocent to have actually had sex, as he nicely puts it. Although I also agree with Nigeyb that whether they did or not is irrelevant to the story.
According to Oxford contemporaries of Evelyn Waugh and Hugh Lygon (and according to Paula Byrne), Evelyn and Hugh did have a physical relationship (although I don't think Evelyn Waugh himself ever either confirmed or denied it). Waugh still fell in love with the whole family later.

Tony wrote: "I've seen all 13 hours of the miniseries and read the book, several times each. I was dumbfounded, however, to learn that Waugh himself converted to Catholicism late in life. I couldn't then, and s..."

He was taught to hate himself by his mother and her religion. God's love is often used as a weapon - the threat that God will not love you or that you cannot gain the kingdom of Heaven unless you repent. Only there's nothing to repent. This is the ultimate mind game - it really causes horrible psychological damage - to young people especially.

Their relationship was too innocent to have actually had sex????????????? Oh, really? I take what Cara said to have the opposite meaning from your interpretation. Funny how different people read things differently.

I don't see homosexual relationships as being more 'like children' than heterosexual ones. I took Cara to mean that when they grew up they would have physical, more Latin, relationships, not that they would grow up and turn 'straight'.

I don't know that I'd characterize Charles as gay or even bi-sexual. Like Waugh, I think he just had a schoolboy dalliance. The fact that that's all it meant to him was devastating to Sebastian who is obviously gay and who's feelings for Charles ran much deeper; this coupled with Charles siding with "the family" pushed him over the edge. It was a betrayal.

Interesting Ivan...

Ivan wrote: "The fact that that's all it meant to him was devastating to Sebastian who is obviously gay and who's feelings for Charles ran much deeper; this coupled with Charles siding with "the family" pushed him over the edge. It was a betrayal. "

I'm not sure it was the betrayal that did for poor old Sebastian. I suspect Sebastian was always a doomed character - like his real world counterpart Hugh Lygon. The second son syndrome - no inheritance, no obvious role, plenty of time, and so a slow inexorable decline into alcoholism combined with half arsed, doomed business ventures. Hugh was also gay, like his Dad, and saw what a dangerous combination a role in public life could be with being homosexual if your enemies wanted to exploit it.

I'm not suggesting in Brideshead that Charles betrayal didn't play a part in his downfall, just that he was probably doomed anyway.

Changing tack, last night I started to watch the 2008 film version directed by Julian Jarrold. I'm only half an hour in, and whilst the plot is massively condensed and simplified, so far, I think it's very watchable.