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Jun 20, 2010

Paul rated it:

********Please note - contains spoilers ************

One's head is rather spinning, there are so many terribly good things and likewise so very much abject wretchedness it's hard to begin. Let us try.

1) This book is the twisted story of a homosexual affair, which I was truly not expecting it to be. It's famously set amongst the upper classes, firstly in Oxford, so you get pages of blissed-out descriptions of life amongst British aristocratic students in the 1920s and how m More...

35 comments like (71 people liked it)

Jul 24, 2011

Schmacko rated it:

I just finished rereading Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited, a book I pick up every couple of years or so. This time I read it because of the new movie version movie (the one with Emma Thompson as the Lady Marchmain Flyte). As a critic, I get to see a pre-screening of the new movie on Tuesday; I am taking Dr. Steve. Also, I am a huge fan of the original, very-literal British miniseries from 1981 (it is the first thing that brought Jeremy Irons to international attention, and it had the exce More...

8 comments like (21 people liked it)

Apr 12, 2010

David added it

Disclaimer: The views expressed hereafter by Mr. God's-Love concerning Evelyn Waugh's novel are exclusively his own and should not be interpreted as a disguised or fictionalized representation of my own views. The following, you must understand, is merely an act of reportage. Having not previously read the novel in question, I am ill-equipped to make judgments with respect to the reasonableness of Mr. God's-Love's opinion, although I might point out, relevantly or not, that he has been twice dia More...

9 comments like (25 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Jason rated it:

An English novel dating from near the end of World War II, Brideshead Revisited is an elaborate and fascinating reminiscence of a time passed. A novel told in reverie by eyes looking back.

At the core of the novel is the friendship between Oxford classmates Charles (the narrator) and Sebastian. One thing separates Charles and Sebastian. Class. A ubiquitous theme in the best English novels, portrayed here as well as it is in any counterpart in English fiction. One thing unites them. Af More...

1 comment like (15 people liked it)

Sep 23, 2008

Kelly rated it:

It is difficult to encapsulate a book which strives to reach for so much over the course of its pages. I'm sure I will miss some things, but perhaps that's best with a book like this. An epic style classic, I mean. There's always something more to dig out of it.

The writing style is one of the most striking things about the book, let me just put that out there. This is due to the hodgepodge nature of the thing. The beginning of the book has quite a bit of high Romanticism, of a style More...

15 comments like (8 people liked it)

May 14, 2011

Sandybanks rated it:

BRIDESHEAD REVISITED

There was once a noble house called Brideshead
Of sacred and profane memories
Seat of the last of the Marchmains
An ancient pile with a false dome
Where painted classical deities cavorted
Reflected in gilt mirrors
Echoed in carved marbles
The chapel was Art Nouveau
The drawing room Chinoiserie
And the whole thing flanked by colonnades and pavilions
Lady Marchmain was a lady of religion
Perpetually at her Mati More...

10 comments like (9 people liked it)

Sep 25, 2007

Lauren rated it:

this book hit me, hard. i read it for a course in 'catholic literature' which was the same course in which i read 'diaries of a country priest,' and 'le grand meaulnes.' it was an excuse for my favorite professor to teach a small group of students about his all-time favorite books. he made up the name so he could teach it as a theology/literature course.

we read brideshead, then watched the film version with jeremy irons. growing up immersed in an anglophile household, i was amaz More...

0 comments like (11 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Matthew rated it:

Since I first read it, Evelyn Waugh's masterpiece Brideshead Revisited has unequivocally been my favorite book. It's haunting, melancholy, ironically humorous swan song to all that is elegant and beautiful and pure in this world captivated me. It echoed in eloquent, lucid, and devastatingly satiric paragraphs my firm conviction that true Beauty and Love and even God Himself exist not far beyond the pale glitter of a heartless, selfish, utterly apathetic and drear world. It is an ode to the ideal More...

0 comments like (10 people liked it)

Oct 20, 2007

Sarah rated it:

This is one of the two books I tend to read at least once a year (the other one is Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov). I've probably read it at least 25 times and I get something new from it every time. He's one of those writers who makes the English language sound decadent and beautiful.

It definitely contains the single best passage about food that I've ever seen - the scene with Charles Ryder and Rex Mottram eating pressed duck and caviar blinis in a little restaurant in London. The way More...

1 comment like (7 people liked it)

Feb 08, 2008

Suzanne rated it:

Read this book after the PBS series years ago. The series was true to the book and depicts the elegance and tragedy of a lost period in British life. It is the story of two young men, their family, and the intertwinement of their lives. Life was slower, people dressed for dinner, there was thoughtful conversation. Nonetheless there is illness, repression, alcoholism. Read the book and rent the DVD. Timeless classic.

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Sep 09, 2011

Joe rated it:

Two totally separate, virtually unrelated books with over-the-top narration and no arc. Brideshead Revisited is divided into two books that take place ten years apart from each other. The narrator/main character is almost unrecognizable from one to the other, and no real explanation is given. Is a simpering fool in the first book, and a cold jerk in the second. His main obsession in the first book is almost entirely and perfunctorily absent from the second, and vice versa with his obsession from More...

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

Oct 03, 2010

James rated it:

In his letter of 7 January 1945 Evelyn Waugh wrote to Nancy Mitford that (regarding Lady Marchmain) "no I am not on her side; but God is, who suffers fools gladly; and the book is about God." Nancy, in a subsequent letter (17 January 1945) commented that she was "immune from" the "subtle" Catholic propaganda supposedly in the novel. Well, I guess that I am in Nancy's camp, recognizing the excellence of this G.E.C. (Great English Classic) and in my own way fascinated More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Dec 07, 2011

Alison rated it:

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9 comments like (4 people liked it)

Aug 07, 2008

Edan rated it:

I know it's terrible to admit this--but I didn't dig Brideshead Revisited. Well, I did, at first: I liked the descriptions of Oxford after WWI, and Sebastian with his teddy bear named Aloysius (really, if someone had told me about the bear I would've read this novel years ago!). But then the story just meandered and hemmed and hawed through years and years. I found the narrator dull, and his relationship to Julia just didn't matter to me. I had no interest in the Catholic themes, which the entir More...

11 comments like (9 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Julz rated it:

Both the book and the mini-series are compulsively re-read and re-watchable to me.I like Waugh's more acerbic/comic works as well, but this work, which many dismiss as too sentimental, is my hands-down favorite.

In addition to a delightfully complex set of characters and relationships, there are so many quotes which so perfectly evoke the feeling of longing for a time which has long since past:

"I had been there before. I knew all about it."

"It More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

May 16, 2008

J rated it:

One of the great pleasures of my college years was the discovery of Evelyn Waugh. There are a great many authors and books from that time period that shine with a transcendent memory so lasting that to encounter the works in later years is to be just a little disappointed. Part of what made them so effecting was the immediacy and constancy of the feeling one has in one’s early twenties that your mind is a flower always bursting open. The right book in those years can alter your life in a way tha More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

May 09, 2009

April rated it:

This is a thinking book. Initially my first reaction, upon completing the book, was this: "What a bunch of assholes."

After further reflection, I stand by that statement, but I can see how each of the characters was flawed, and how the individual failings of each character were exacerbated by relationships with the others'.

For me, most of the book seemed to be an attack on Catholicism, which caused so many rifts in the Flyte family. Throughout, both Sebastian More...

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

Aug 15, 2008

James rated it:

I enjoyed this book. It was, for the most part, absorbing but I definitely had no trouble putting it down.
The end irritated me a great deal. Waugh used religion to neatly wrap up the story and, at the end, I felt like I'd been force-fed C.S. Lewis. How can there not be a god and all that. Or, at the least, how can you deny or dismiss the faith of others no matter how wrecked their lives are because of that faith.
It's not that I'm against people writing about their religion and, More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 05, 2008

Carrie rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 27, 2008

Avis rated it:

I've never understood what people see in Waugh. Every book by him is both lame in humor and generally unlikeable, with the exception of his autobiography.

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Feb 23, 2009

Ben rated it:

Brideshead Revisited was the 21st book I have read on my quest to complete the list compiled by the Modern Library of the Top 100 English Language Novels of the 20th Century.

Being nearly devoid of organized religion for most of my life, I was at times fascinated by the overriding theme of Catholic/religious morals versus human needs and desires. I generally find that religion is little more than a nuisance in our society today and I get the feeling that Mr. Waugh shared that sentime More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 17, 2012

Shovelmonkey1 rated it:

Absolutely loved this, and am finding that despite my original half-arse preconceptions I have enjoyed a lot of books from this historical time period. Is this a sign I am developing discerning taste? Am I becoming more open minded? Doubtful, but I can only live in hope and keep on with the mind expanding forays into the more classic side literature. This will not stop me reading trashy smut as well but it means I look more high brow at least 50% of the time.

On the whole Brideshead R More...

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

Aug 05, 2011

Elizabeth (Alaska) rated it:

For the first several pages, I wondered what I'd gotten myself into and if I would want to finish. The formal language felt unfamiliar, but I came to love both the prose and the story. The story is told in the first person by Charles Ryder. In the prologue he is in the British Army at the beginning of WWII moving to a new camp, which he finds is the estate called Brideshead. Yes, he has been here before. The remainder of the novel is the telling of the circumstances of his prior knowledge of thi More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 20, 2009

Dini rated it:

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29 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jul 30, 2008

Scott rated it:

Soup of oseille, sole in white wine sauce, caneton à la presse, caviare aux blinis, lemon soufflé, wines, cognac, and cigars – few scenes in Brideshead Revisited (1945) better capture the sumptuous, decadent texture of the Waugh's encomium and critique of British aristocracy between the wars than Ryder's dinner at Paillard's. Indeed, one of the great pleasures of the book is savoring the novel's rich settings: Oxford, London, Venice, Paris, the Maghreb, and of course Brideshead Castle. We get to More...

2 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jun 10, 2008

booklady rated it:

On the surface it's a book about two friends, the narrator, Charles Ryder, and his wonderful, but bizarre friend, Lord Sebastian Flyte. Eventually Charles befriends the entire Flyte family and it's this unusual friendship as well as the other relationships -- as they evolve over the course of many years -- which form the basis of the novel.

But actually it's a story about the difficulty of being a practicing Roman Catholic aristocrat in England in the 1930s. Charles, an agnostic, More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Apr 29, 2008

Tricia rated it:

I made an effort to find the exact edition that I read with the cast from the PBS TV series on the cover because it was pivotal in my seeking out the book and reveling in every fine sentence it has to offer.

Brideshead follows the story of a sharp young man, Charles Ryder, who befriends a wealthy yet troubled English aristocrat, Sebastian Flyte, during his stint at Oxford University in the late teens and early 20s of the twentieth century. Charles struggles to reconcile his love for S More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 15, 2008

Jeffery rated it:

Waugh's descriptive abilities are formidable, whether used to describe a scene, a taste, a personality, or an emotion. The only other writer I can think of who so effectively and beautifully employed modern English was Fitzgerald. Waugh adds to his narrative abilities a wicked sense of humor, the kind that gives the reader a sly, knowing grin. Somehow Waugh even manages to infuse the novel with "the operation of divine grace", which he says is its major theme. Perhaps the quality o More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 17, 2010

Ivy's Mom rated it:

After 27 years, I decided it was time to revisit Brideshead and read it again. I'm glad that I did. If you've ever visited an old home like Brideshead you know it has lots of flaws...it's cold in the winter, hot in the summer, the roof leaks, the plaster crumbles, the masonry is cracked...but the elegance and beauty of the place help you to overlook the flaws. Well, the novel is like that old house. It is full of flaws but it's so beautiful it's hard to care about them. Every critizism you More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jun 05, 2008

Maureen rated it:

I discovered Evelyn Waugh's funnier, more satirical books when I was going through a P.G. Wodehouse phase. I don't think I should give Brideshead more than three stars, because although the first part of the story is incredibly beautiful, it starts to fall apart round the middle and completely collapses under the weight of the Catholicism issue, which muddies things up towards the end, I still think this book is worth reading, because Waugh is a wonderful writer, and his characters are unforge More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

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