Thumbs up for Brideshead Revisited
There is such a lot of stuff in this book that it seems impossible for any single person to love all of it, or dislike all of it. Young love; dysfunctional family drama; character satire as thick as paste and black as coal; adultery; Catholicism in all degrees. For myself, I found that there was more to love than to dislike, though sometimes I would change my mind from paragraph to paragraph what was what. Part of that was perhaps due to the fact that I was unsure – not to put too fine a point on it – whether the Marchmain family’s Roman Catholicism was meant seriously or satirically. In reading the Wikipedia article I find that Waugh was himself a Catholic and wrote in earnest; in which case I have to agree with Edmund Wilson, who said: “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.” Knowing that beforehand would surely have colored my reading; but I have no doubt that I would nevertheless have found it, as I did, an immensely satisfying book.
“That, my dear, seemed to put a little life into them, and up the stairs they came, clattering. About six of them came into my room, the rest stood mouthing outside. My dear, they looked too extraordinary. They had been having one of their ridiculous club dinners, and they were all wearing coloured tail-coats – a sort of livery. ‘My dears,’ I said to them, ‘you look like a lot of most disorderly footmen.’ Then one of them, rather a juicy little piece, accused me of unnatural vices. ‘My dear,’ I said, “I may be inverted but I am not insatiable. Come back when you are alone.’ Then they began to blaspheme in a very shocking manner, and suddenly I, too, began to be annoyed. Really, I thought, when I think of all the hullabaloo there was when I was seventeen, and the Duc de Vincennes (old Armand, of course, not Philippe) challenged me to a duel for an affair of the heart, and very much more than the heart, I assure you, with the duchess (Stefanie, of course, not old Poppy) – now, to submit to impertinence from these pimply, tipsy virgins… Well, I gave up the light, bantering tone and let myself be just a little offensive.
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