Brideshead Revisited in Classics Without All the Class

May 30, 2008 Cecily rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: humour, classics, historical-fict-20th-cent, god-religion-faith, sexuality-gender-lgbtqi, film-good-or-better-than-book, landscape-location-protagonist, class-etiquette, miscellaneous-fiction

Evocative and nostalgic tale, infused with religion and (homo)sexuality, and hence passion, betrayal and guilt.

The later part, about Charles and Celia and then Charles and Julia is more subtle, realistic and sad than the light frivolity of Oxford days.

Hollinghurst's "The Stranger's Child" has many echoes of this (review here: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...).

It's five years since I last read this, but a few ideas that have come back to me by discussing it elsewhere:

SEGREGATION
People we ...more

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May 25, 2017 Janice rated it it was amazing

Shelves: classic

An unforgettable tale, beautifully told. It's definitely among the top 100 best books I've ever read. Amazing writing; compelling story. ...more

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Aug 08, 2011 Ben rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: owned-calibre

Overall:

This book reminds me of what I love best about reading. (view spoiler)

Things I liked:

Characters: were distinct, believable and used effectively to move the story along Overall:

This book reminds me of what I love best about reading. (view spoiler)

Things I liked:

Characters: were distinct, believable and used effectively to move the story along.

Words: were well chosen, skillfully employed and prosaic. I particularly remember a section about pigeons in St Marks Square Venice where I stopped and thought even though he's using all these fancy words and long sentences; he's actually expressing the idea better than any shorter sentences and less fancy words could. I think that is an ideal way for an author to express themselves (despite my own lack of ability ;-)

Story: Although the book is short compared to some of the weighty fantasy/sci-fi fiction I normally read, it doesn't feel rushed. There's a poetry to the interplay of the different elements of the story that I didn't predict and greatly enjoyed.

Things I thought could be improved:

Sometimes the story jumps between scenes quite dramatically (one incident I remember the narrator is remembering a dinner they attended years ago and in the next paragraph is involved in a similar dinner party at the present day). I found that a bit hard to follow at times and found myself 'checking back' to make sure I hadn't missed something on several occasions.

(view spoiler) ...more

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Sep 20, 2018 Ebster Davis rated it really liked it

I sometimes think when people wanted to hate God they hated Mummy . . .You see, she was saintly, but she wasn’t a saint. No one could really hate a saint, could they? They can’t really hate God either. When they want to hate Him and His saints they have to find something like themselves and pretend it’s God and hate that.

I listened to an abridged version of this story (3 hours instead of 11). I was expecting this story to be about Edwardian naughtiness, I was not expecting it to be as much abou I sometimes think when people wanted to hate God they hated Mummy . . .You see, she was saintly, but she wasn’t a saint. No one could really hate a saint, could they? They can’t really hate God either. When they want to hate Him and His saints they have to find something like themselves and pretend it’s God and hate that.

I listened to an abridged version of this story (3 hours instead of 11). I was expecting this story to be about Edwardian naughtiness, I was not expecting it to be as much about God as it was (or rather, about spirituality, and religion, and the importance of cultivating a relationship with the divine).

I feel like a lot of stories that try to do this end up feeling being really out-of-touch, either because they end up moralizing, and missing the big picture, or they throw as many spiritual sounding words as they can think of on a page, hoping it will cover up the fact that they don't really know what they're talking about.

There's a genuineness to it that really struck me. I don't expect everyone who reads it would be able to understand it, and I think if the message didn't resonate with me so much I would hate it for the duchebag characters. As it is I couldn't bring myself to hate any of them by the end.
Cordelia is my favorite though. Every time she's around you know you're in for a treat.

Second time around: Listened to the unabridged version with Jeremy Irons as narrator. I actually am surprised at how little was left out of the abridged version. If anything, this longer version made the characters a bit more cringeworthy at some points. Like, Mr Waugh really wants to hound it in what a duchebag Charles is being to his wife and how infantile and pathetic Sebastian is. Both of them are of excellent quality literary-wise, and the message comes through in both. I am glad that I read the shorter version first, but I really can't say I prefer it to the long version because they're both so beautifully written. I didn't mind spending 11+ hours in the company of this book. ...more

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Feb 11, 2013 Alice rated it really liked it

Shelves: classic-fiction, fiction, classic-challenge-of-2013, 2013-12-classic-challengelen, april-2013-classic-challenge, the-1001-books-yo-read-before-you-d

I liked the book but, enjoyed the Masterpiece Theater more than the novel. Yes, the television series would not exist if not for the book. However, there it is.

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