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= Brideshead_Revisited =
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Introduction
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'Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred & Profane Memories of Captain
Charles Ryder' is a novel by the English writer Evelyn Waugh, first
published in 1945. It follows, from the 1920s to the early 1940s, the
life and romances of Charles Ryder, especially his friendship with the
Flytes, a family of wealthy English Catholics who live in a palatial
mansion, Brideshead Castle. Ryder has relationships with two of the
Flytes: Lord Sebastian and Lady Julia. The novel explores themes
including Catholicism and nostalgia for the age of English
aristocracy. A well-received television adaptation of the novel was
produced in an 11-part miniseries by Granada Television in 1981. In
2008, it was adapted as a film.
Plot
======================================================================
The novel is divided into three parts, framed by a prologue and
epilogue.
''Prologue''
==============
The prologue takes place during the final years of the Second World
War. Charles Ryder and his battalion are sent to a country estate
called Brideshead, which prompts his recollections of the rest of the
story.
''Et In Arcadia Ego''
=======================
In 1923, protagonist and narrator Charles Ryder, an undergraduate
reading history at a college very similar to Hertford College, Oxford,
is befriended by Lord Sebastian Flyte, the younger son of the Marquess
of Marchmain and an undergraduate at Christ Church. Both Charles and
Sebastian had matriculated at Oxford in the Autumn of 1922, Charles
doing so shortly before his 19th birthday. The following year,
Sebastian introduces Charles to his eccentric friends, including the
haughty aesthete and homosexual Anthony Blanche. Sebastian also takes
Charles to his family's palatial country house, Brideshead Castle, in
Wiltshire, where Charles later meets the rest of Sebastian's family,
including his sister, Lady Julia.
During the long summer holiday, Charles returns home to London, where
he lives with his widowed father, Edward Ryder. Charles is called back
to Brideshead after Sebastian incurs a minor injury, and Sebastian and
Charles spend the remainder of the holiday together.
Sebastian's family is Catholic, which influences the Flytes' lives as
well as the content of their conversations, all of which surprises
Charles, who had always believed Christianity was "without substance
or merit". Lord Marchmain had converted from Anglicanism to
Catholicism to marry his wife, but he later abandoned both his
marriage and his new religion, and moved to Venice. Left alone, Lady
Marchmain focuses even more on her faith, which is also
enthusiastically espoused by her elder son, the Earl of Brideshead
("Bridey"), and by her younger daughter, Lady Cordelia.
''Brideshead Deserted''
=========================
The Flyte family becomes aware of Sebastian's heavy drinking, and
attempts to stop him are detrimental. Lady Marchmain falls out with
Charles and he leaves Brideshead for what he thinks is the last time.
Julia marries the rich but unsophisticated Canadian-born businessman
and politician Rex Mottram. This marriage causes great sorrow to her
mother because Rex, though initially planning to convert to
Catholicism, turns out to be a divorcé with an ex-wife living in
Canada. He and Julia subsequently marry without fanfare in the Savoy
Chapel, an Anglican church where marriage between divorcés with one or
more prior living spouses is permissible.
Sebastian descends into alcoholism, drifting away from the family over
a two-year period. He flees to Morocco, where his drinking ruins his
health. He eventually finds some solace as an under-porter and object
of charity at a Catholic monastery in Tunisia. Sebastian's drifting
leads to Charles's own estrangement from the Flytes.
Julia asks Charles to go and find Sebastian because Lady Marchmain
(Sebastian's mother) is ill. Charles finds Sebastian in the monastery
in Morocco. Sebastian is too ill to return to England, so Charles
returns to London to see Brideshead and sort out Sebastian's financial
affairs.
Charles is commissioned by Brideshead to paint images of Marchmain
House in London before its demolition. The paintings are very
successful. Charles talks to Cordelia while he paints and discovers
more about the Flyte family.
''A Twitch Upon the Thread''
==============================
Charles finds success as an architectural painter and visits Latin
America to portray the buildings there. Charles marries and fathers
two children, but he becomes cold towards his wife, Celia, and she is
unfaithful to him. Julia separates from Rex Mottram and Charles
eventually forms a relationship with her.
Charles and Julia plan to divorce their respective spouses so they can
marry each other.
Cordelia returns from ministering to the wounded in the Spanish Civil
War with disturbing news about Sebastian's nomadic existence and
steady decline over the past few years. She predicts he will die soon
in the Tunisian monastery.
On the eve of the Second World War, the ageing Lord Marchmain,
terminally ill, returns to Brideshead to die in his ancestral home.
Appalled by the marriage of his elder son Brideshead to a middle-class
widow past childbearing age, he names Julia heir to the estate, which
prospectively offers Charles marital ownership of the house. However,
Lord Marchmain's return to the faith on his deathbed changes the
situation: Julia decides she cannot enter a sinful marriage with
Charles, who has also been moved by Lord Marchmain's acceptance of the
Last Rites.
''Epilogue''
==============
The plot concludes in the early spring of 1943 (or possibly 1944 - the
date is disputed). Charles is "homeless, childless, middle-aged and
loveless". He has become an army officer and finds himself
unexpectedly billeted at Brideshead, which has been taken into
military use. He finds the house damaged by the army, but the private
chapel, closed after Lady Marchmain's death in 1926, has been reopened
for the soldiers' use. It occurs to him that the efforts of the
builders - and, by extension, God's efforts - were not in vain,
although their purposes may have appeared, for a time, to have been
frustrated.
Catholicism
=============
Catholicism is a significant theme of the book. Evelyn Waugh was a
convert to Catholicism and 'Brideshead' depicts the Catholic faith in
a secular literary form. Waugh wrote to his literary agent A. D.
Peters: I hope the last conversation with Cordelia gives the
theological clue. The whole thing is steeped in theology, but I begin
to agree that the theologians won't recognize it.
The book brings the reader, through the narration of the initially
agnostic Charles Ryder, in contact with the severely flawed but deeply
Catholic Flyte family. The Catholic themes of divine grace and
reconciliation are pervasive in the book. Most of the major characters
undergo a conversion in some way or another. Lord Marchmain, a convert
from Anglicanism to Catholicism, who lived as an adulterer, is
reconciled with the Church on his deathbed. Julia, who entered a
marriage with Rex Mottram that is invalid in the eyes of the Catholic
Church, is involved in an extramarital affair with Charles. Julia
realizes that marrying Charles will separate her forever from her
faith and decides to leave him, in spite of her great attachment to
him. Sebastian, the charming and flamboyant alcoholic, ends up in
service to a monastery while struggling against his alcoholism.
Most significant is Charles's apparent conversion, which is expressed
subtly at the end of the book, set more than 20 years after his first
meeting Sebastian. Charles kneels down in front of the tabernacle of
the Brideshead chapel and says a prayer, "an ancient, newly learned
form of words" - implying recent instruction in the catechism. Waugh
speaks of his belief in grace in a letter to Lady Mary Lygon: I
believe that everyone in his (or her) life has the moment when he is
open to Divine Grace. It's there, of course, for the asking all the
time, but human lives are so planned that usually there's a particular
time - sometimes, like Hubert, on his deathbed - when all resistance
is down and grace can come flooding in.
Waugh quotes from a short story by G. K. Chesterton to illustrate the
nature of grace. Cordelia, in conversation with Charles Ryder, quotes
a passage from the Father Brown detective story "The Queer Feet": I
caught him, with an unseen hook and an invisible line which is long
enough to let him wander to the ends of the world, and still to bring
him back with a twitch upon the thread.
This quotation provides the foundation for Waugh's Catholic treatment
of the interplay of free will and grace in the moment of conversion.
The same themes were criticised by Waugh's contemporaries. Novelist
Henry Green wrote to Waugh: The end was not for me. As you can imagine
my heart was in my mouth all through the deathbed scene, hoping
against hope that the old man would not give way, that is, take the
course he eventually did.
Edmund Wilson, who had praised Waugh as the hope of the English novel,
wrote: The last scenes are extravagantly absurd, with an absurdity
that would be worthy of Waugh at his best if it were not - painful to
say - meant quite seriously.
Nostalgia for an age of English nobility
==========================================
The Flyte family may be taken to symbolise the English nobility. One
reads in the book that Brideshead has "the atmosphere of a better
age", and (referring to the deaths of Lady Marchmain's brothers in the
Great War) "these men must die to make a world for Hooper ... so that
things might be safe for the travelling salesman, with his polygonal
pince-nez, his fat, wet handshake, his grinning dentures".
According to Martin Amis, the book "squarely identifies egalitarianism
as its foe and proceeds to rubbish it accordingly".
Charles and Sebastian's relationship
======================================
The question of whether the relationship between Charles and Sebastian
is homosexual or platonic has been debated, particularly in an
extended exchange between David Bittner and John Osborne in the
'Evelyn Waugh Newsletter and Studies' from 1987 to 1991. In 1994 Paul
Buccio argued that the relationship was in the Victorian tradition of
"intimate male friendships", which includes "Pip and Herbert Pocket
[from Charles Dickens' 'Great Expectations'], ... Sherlock Holmes and
Doctor Watson, Ratty and Mole ('The Wind in the Willows')", and
Tennyson and Arthur Henry Hallam ('In Memoriam'). David Higdon argued
that "[I]t is impossible to regard Sebastian as other than gay; [and]
Charles is so homoerotic he must at least be 'cheerful'"; and that the
attempt of some critics to downplay the homoerotic dimension of
'Brideshead' is part of "a much larger and more important sexual war
being fought as entrenched heterosexuality strives to maintain its
hegemony over important twentieth century works". In 2008 Christopher
Hitchens derided "the ridiculous word 'platonic' that for some
peculiar reason still crops up in discussion of the story".
The phrase "our naughtiness [was] high on the catalogue of grave sins"
is also seen as a suggestion that their relationship is homosexual,
because this is a mortal sin in Roman Catholic doctrine. Attention has
also been drawn to the fact that Charles impatiently awaits
Sebastian's letters, and the suggestion in the novel that one of the
reasons Charles is later in love with Julia is her physical similarity
to Sebastian. When the two become a couple in the novel's third part,
Julia asks Charles, "You loved him, didn't you?" to which Charles
replies, "Oh yes. He was the forerunner."
Waugh wrote in 1947 that "Charles's romantic affection for Sebastian
is part due to the glitter of the new world Sebastian represents, part
to the protective feeling of a strong towards a weak character, and
part a foreshadowing of the love for Julia which is to be the
consuming passion of his mature years." In the novel, Cara, Lord
Marchmain's mistress, says to Charles that his romantic relationship
with Sebastian forms part of a process of emotional development
typical of "the English and the Germans". This passage is quoted at
the beginning of Paul M. Buccio's essay on the Victorian and Edwardian
tradition of romantic male friendships.
Principal characters
======================================================================
*Charles Ryder - The protagonist and narrator of the story was raised
primarily by his father after his mother died. Charles's family
background is financially comfortable but emotionally hollow. He is
unsure about his desires or goals in life, and is dazzled by the
charming, flamboyant and seemingly carefree young Lord Sebastian
Flyte. Charles, though dissatisfied with what life seems to offer, has
modest success both as a student and later as a painter; less so as an
Army officer. His path repeatedly crosses those of various members of
the Marchmain family, and each time they awaken something deep within
him. It has been noted that Charles Ryder bears some resemblance to
artist Felix Kelly (1914-1994), who painted murals for aristocratic
country houses. Kelly was commissioned to paint murals for Castle
Howard, which was used as a location in the television series and is
where Ryder is depicted painting a mural for the Garden Room.
*Edward "Ned" Ryder - Educated at Oxford University himself, Charles's
father is a somewhat distant and eccentric figure, but possessed of a
keen wit. He seems determined to teach Charles to stand on his own
feet. When Charles is forced to spend his holidays with him because he
has already spent his allowance for the term, Ned, in what are
considered some of the funniest passages in the book, strives to make
Charles as uncomfortable as possible, indirectly teaching him to mind
his finances more carefully.
*Lord Marchmain (Alexander Flyte, Marquess of Marchmain) - As a young
man, Lord Marchmain fell in love with a Roman Catholic woman and
converted to marry her. The marriage was unhappy and, after the First
World War, he refused to return to England, settling in Venice with
his Italian mistress, Cara.
*Lady Marchmain (Teresa Flyte, Marchioness of Marchmain) - A member of
an ancient Recusant Roman Catholic family (the people that Waugh
himself most admired). She brought up her children as Roman Catholics
against her husband's wishes. Abandoned by her husband, Lady
Marchmain rules over her household, enforcing her Roman Catholic
morality upon her children.
*"Bridey" (Earl of Brideshead) - The elder son of Lord and Lady
Marchmain who, as the Marquess's heir, holds the courtesy title "Earl
of Brideshead". He follows his mother's strict Roman Catholic beliefs,
and once aspired to the priesthood. This manifests itself once or
twice through a considered sense of justice and fairness. For example,
during the General Strike he refuses to oppose the strikers, despite
the general opposition within his peer group. However, he is unable to
connect in an emotional way with most people, who find him cold and
distant. His actual Christian name is not revealed.
* Lord Sebastian Flyte - The younger son of Lord and Lady Marchmain is
haunted by a profound unhappiness brought on by a troubled
relationship with his mother. An otherwise charming and attractive
companion, he numbs himself with alcohol. He forms a deep friendship
with Charles. Over time, however, the numbness brought on by alcohol
becomes his main desire. He is thought to be based on Alastair Hugh
Graham (whose name was mistakenly substituted for Sebastian's several
times in the original manuscript), Hugh Patrick Lygon and Stephen
Tennant. Also, his relationship with his teddy bear, Aloysius, was
inspired by John Betjeman and his teddy bear Archibald Ormsby-Gore.
*Lady Julia Flyte - The elder daughter of Lord and Lady Marchmain, who
comes out as a debutante at the beginning of the story, eventually
marrying Rex Mottram. Charles loves her for much of their lives, due
in part to her resemblance to her brother Sebastian. Julia refuses at
first to be controlled by the conventions of Roman Catholicism, but
turns to it later in life.
*Lady Cordelia Flyte - The youngest of the siblings is the most devout
and least conflicted in her beliefs. She aspires solely to serve God.
*Anthony Blanche - A friend of Charles and Sebastian's from Oxford,
and an overt homosexual. His background is unclear but there are hints
that he may be of Italian or Spanish extraction. Of all the
characters, Anthony has the keenest insight into the self-deception of
the people around him. Although he is witty, amiable and always an
interesting companion, he manages to make Charles uncomfortable with
his stark honesty, flamboyance, and flirtatiousness. The character is
likely based on Brian Howard, a contemporary of Waugh at Oxford and a
flamboyant homosexual, although the scene in which Blanche declaims
extracts from 'The Waste Land' through a megaphone from his college
window was inspired by Harold Acton. When Sebastian and Charles return
to Oxford, in the Michaelmas term of 1923, they learn that Anthony
Blanche has been sent down.
*Viscount "Boy" Mulcaster - An acquaintance of Charles from Oxford.
Brash, bumbling and thoughtless, he personifies the privileged hauteur
of the British aristocracy. He later proves an engaging and fondly
doting uncle to "John-john" Ryder. As with Lord Brideshead, his
Christian name is never revealed.
*Lady Celia Ryder - Charles's wife, "Boy" Mulcaster's sister, and
Julia's former schoolmate; a vivacious and socially active beauty.
Charles marries her largely for convenience, which is revealed by
Celia's infidelities. Charles feels freed by Celia's betrayal and
decides to pursue love elsewhere, outside their marriage.
*Rex Mottram - A Canadian of great ambition, said to be based on Lord
Beaverbrook, Lord Birkenhead and Brendan Bracken. Mottram wins a seat
in the House of Commons. Through his marriage to Julia, he connects to
the Marchmains as another step on the ladder to the top. He is
disappointed with the results, and he and Julia agree to lead separate
lives.
*"Sammy" Samgrass - A fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, and Lady
Marchmain's "pet don". Lady Marchmain funds Samgrass's projects and
flatters his academic ego, while asking him to keep Sebastian in line
and save him from expulsion. Samgrass uses his connections with the
aristocracy to further his personal ambitions. Samgrass is an
unflattering portrait of Maurice Bowra. Waugh was annoyed when friends
did not recognize Bowra, and additionally annoyed to hear that Bowra
claimed to enjoy the caricature.
*Cara - Lord Marchmain's Italian mistress. She is very protective of
Lord Marchmain and is forthright and insightful in her relationship
with Charles.
Minor characters
==================
*Jasper - Charles's cousin, who gives him advice about student life at
Oxford, which Charles ignores.
*Kurt - Sebastian's German friend. A deeply inadequate ex-soldier with
a permanently septic foot (due to a self-inflicted gunshot wound) whom
Sebastian meets in Tunisia, a man so inept that he needs Sebastian to
look after him.
*Mrs. (Beryl) Muspratt - The widow of an admiral, she meets and
marries a smitten Brideshead, but never becomes the mistress of the
great house.
*"Nanny" Hawkins - Beloved nanny to the four Flyte children, who lives
in retirement at Brideshead.
*Lieutenant Hooper - Newest platoon commander in Charles Ryder's unit.
Waugh's statements about the novel
======================================================================
Waugh wrote that the novel "deals with what is theologically termed
'the operation of Grace', that is to say, the unmerited and unilateral
act of love by which God continually calls souls to Himself". This is
achieved by an examination of the Roman Catholic aristocratic Flyte
family as seen by the narrator, Charles Ryder.
In various letters, Waugh refers to the novel a number of times as his
'magnum opus'; however, in 1950 he wrote to Graham Greene stating "I
re-read 'Brideshead Revisited' and was appalled." In Waugh's preface
to his revised edition of 'Brideshead' (1959), the author explained
the circumstances in which the novel was written, following a minor
parachute accident in the six months between December 1943 and June
1944. He was mildly disparaging of the novel, stating; "It was a bleak
period of present privation and threatening disaster - the period of
soya beans and Basic English - and in consequence the book is infused
with a kind of gluttony, for food and wine, for the splendours of the
recent past, and for rhetorical and ornamental language which now,
with a full stomach, I find distasteful."
Acclaim
=========
In the United States, 'Brideshead Revisited' was the Book of the Month
Club selection for January 1946. In 1998, the Modern Library ranked
'Brideshead Revisited' No. 80 on its list of the 100 best
English-language novels of the 20th century. In 2003, the novel was
listed at number 45 on the BBC survey The Big Read. In 2005, it was
chosen by 'Time' magazine as one of the one hundred best
English-language novels from 1923 to the present. In 2009, 'Newsweek'
magazine listed it as one of the 100 best books of world literature.
Adaptations
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In 1981 'Brideshead Revisited' was adapted as an 11-episode TV
serial, produced by Granada Television and aired on ITV, starring
Jeremy Irons as Charles Ryder and Anthony Andrews as Lord Sebastian
Flyte. The bulk of the serial was directed by Charles Sturridge, with
a few sequences filmed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg. John Mortimer was
given credit as writer, but most of the scripts were based on work by
producer Derek Granger.
To mark the 70th anniversary of its publication in 2015, BBC Radio 4
Extra rebroadcast a four-part adaptation (from 2003), with Ben Miles
as Charles Ryder and Jamie Bamber as Lord Sebastian Flyte. This
version was adapted for radio by Jeremy Front and directed by Marion
Nancarrow.
In 2008 BBC Audiobooks released an unabridged reading of the book by
Jeremy Irons. The recording is 11.5 hours long and consists of 10 CDs.
There is an abridged audiobook version read by Sir John Gielgud
available on Youtube.
In 2008 'Brideshead Revisited' was developed into a feature film of
the same title, with Emma Thompson as Lady Marchmain, Matthew Goode as
Charles Ryder, and Ben Whishaw as Lord Sebastian Flyte. The film was
directed by Julian Jarrold and adapted by Jeremy Brock and Andrew
Davies.
In 2020, it was announced that the novel will be adapted again for
HBO. Andrew Garfield is set to play Charles Ryder, while Joe Alwyn
will play Sebastian Flyte. Sebastian's sister, Julia, will be played
by Rooney Mara. Ralph Fiennes will reportedly play Lord Marchmain,
while Cate Blanchett is said to be in negotiations to play Lady
Marchmain. Production for the film was set to begin in spring 2021,
with filming taking place both in the UK and Italy, but was postponed
indefinitely. In 2022 Garfield confirmed his involvement by stating
that “It’s a matter of time and schedule, and financing”.
References in other media
======================================================================
*In scene 2 of Tom Stoppard's play 'Arcadia' (1993), one character
refers to another character who attends Oxford as "Brideshead
Regurgitated". Et in Arcadia ego, the Latin phrase which is the title
of the major section (Book One) of 'Brideshead Revisited', is also a
central theme to Tom Stoppard's play. Stoppard's phrase may have been
inspired by the 1980s BBC comedy series 'Three of a Kind', starring
Tracey Ullman, Lenny Henry and David Copperfield, which featured a
recurring sketch entitled "Brideshead Regurgitated", with Henry in the
role of Charles Ryder.
*In the early 1980s, following the release of the television series,
the Australian Broadcasting Commission (from 1983, Australian
Broadcasting Corporation) produced a radio show called 'Brunswick
Heads Revisited'. Brunswick Heads is a coastal town in northern New
South Wales. The series was a spoof, and made fun of the 'Englishness'
of 'Brideshead' and many amusing parallels could be drawn between the
upper class characters from 'Brideshead' and their opposite numbers
from rural Australia.
*Paula Byrne's biography of Evelyn Waugh, titled 'Mad World: Evelyn
Waugh and the Secrets of Brideshead', was published by HarperPress in
the UK in August 2009 and HarperCollins New York in the US in April
2010. An excerpt was published in the 'Sunday Times' 9 August 2009
under the headline "Sex Scandal Behind 'Brideshead Revisited'". The
book concerns the 7th Earl of Beauchamp, who was the father of Waugh's
friend Hugh Lygon. It states that the exiled Lord Marchmain is a
version of Lord Beauchamp and Lady Marchmain of Lady Beauchamp, that
the dissolute Lord Sebastian Flyte was modelled after Hugh Lygon and
Lady Julia Flyte after Lady Mary Lygon. The book, which Byrne
describes in the preface as a "partial life", identifies other
real-life bases for events and characters in Waugh's novel, though
Byrne argues carefully against simple one-to-one correspondences,
suggesting instead that Waugh combined people, places and events into
composite inventions, subtle transmutations of life into fiction. An
illustrated extract appeared in the April 2010 issue of 'Vanity Fair'
in advance of American publication.
*Emerald Fennell's 2023 film 'Saltburn' draws inspiration from
'Brideshead Revisited'.
Related works
======================================================================
*Marchmain House, the "supposedly luxurious" block of flats that
replaced the Flytes' town house, serves as the wartime base for HOO
(Hazardous Offensive Operations) Headquarters in Waugh's later novel
'Officers and Gentlemen' (1955).
*A fragment about the young Charles Ryder, entitled "Charles Ryder's
Schooldays", was found after Waugh's death and is available in
collections of Waugh's short works
*There are many similarities between 'Brideshead Revisited' and an
earlier work, 'A Fellow of Trinity', 1891, by Alan St. Aubyn, the
pen-name for Mrs Frances Marshall.
*It has been suggested that the novel is influenced by 'The
Thibaults' by Roger Martin du Gard, another novel that centres on an
intense relationship between two young men of opposing religious
backgrounds.
Further reading
======================================================================
* Byrne, Paula (2009). 'Mad World: Evelyn Waugh and the Secrets of
Brideshead'. London: Harper Press. .
* Mulvagh, Jane (2008). 'Madresfield: The Real Brideshead'. London:
Doubleday. .
*
External links
======================================================================
* Hutchens, John K. (30 December 1945).
[
https://www.nytimes.com/books/97/05/04/reviews/waugh-brideshead.html
"Evelyn Waugh's Finest Novel"]. 'The New York Times'.
* [
https://bridesheadcompanion.blogspot.co.uk A Companion to the
novel] with exhaustive footnotes on cultural references in the text
*
*
[
http://www.ewtn.com/vondemand/audio/seriessearchprog.asp?seriesID=6602&T1=
Downloadable audio about 'Brideshead Revisited' and 'Evelyn Waugh']
from EWTN
*
[
http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/classics/story/0,6000,1221962,00.html#down
Guardian.co.uk], Article Regarding Waugh and Hollywood.
*
[
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/05/24/sm_waugh24.xml&page=1
May 2008 Telegraph.co.uk], 'Telegraph Magazine', edited extract from
'Madresfield: The Real Brideshead' by Jane Mulvagh (Doubleday)
License
=========
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Original Article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brideshead_Revisited
