Brideshead Revisited: A Review

'Just the place to bury a crock of gold,' said Sebastian. 'I should like to bury something precious in every place where I've been happy and then, when I was old and ugly and miserable, I could come back and dig it up and remember' P. 29

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But as I drove away and turned back in the car to take what promised to be my last view of the house, I felt that I was leaving part of myself behind, and that wherever I went afterwards I should feel the lack of it, and search for it hopelessly, as ghosts are said to do, frequenting the spots where they buried material treasures without which they cannot pay their way back to the nether world.' P. 219

Where to begin with this book? I felt like it was constantly changing its form and focus, which makes it very hard to pin down. I had a friend describe their experience when reading Decline and Fall as thinking it was one of the best books they had read, and then after about halfway the book, found it dropped quite a bit. I think I shared this experience with Brideshead Revisited. Despite my three star rating, I am glad I read it, and I would encourage people to read it because it is just so hard to describe. It does a lot of interesting things but it feels a bit like one of those books that is 5 stars to analyse, but a 3 star read from a story perspective.

I was completely struck by how intimate the portayal was of between Charles and Sebastian. In the first half of the book - when Charles is spending most of his waking and sleeping moments with Sebastian - I was in need of constantly reminding myself that this book was first published in 1945.

That day was the beginning of my friendship with Sebastian, and thus it came about, that morning in June, that I was lying beside him in the shade of the high elms watching the smoke from his lips drift up into the branches.

And we would leave the golden candlelight of the dining-room for the starlight outside and sit on the edge of the fountain, cooling our hands in the water and listening drunkenly to its splash and gurgle over the rocks.

These two quotes above serve to reflect this quiet intimacy and domesticity Charles and Sebastian are shown to have. It was really quite beautiful, and Charles reflecting how he wished to 'remember Sebastian, as he was that summer, when we wandered alone together through that enchanted palace'. I love the oxymoron of 'alone together' as it perfectly encapsulates that short era Charles and Sebastian have at Brideshead where there are simply no troubles except for deciding how best to waste away the days. This is why I kept finding myself forgetting it was published in 1945! As the book progresses and Sebastian becomes much less of a part in the narrative, Charles falls for Julia who he remarks he finds attractive because she looks almost exactly like her brother Sebastian. This conversation between Julia and Charles near the end of the book I found to be the most compelling:

“I was glad when I found Celia was unfaithful,” I said. “I felt it was all right for me to dislike her.” “Is she? Do you? I'm glad. I don't like her either. Why did you marry her?” “Physical attraction. Ambition. Everyone agrees that she's the ideal wife for a painter. Loneliness, missing Sebastian.” “You loved him, didn't you?” “Oh yes. He was the forerunner.” Julia understood.

What I find fascinating is that Charles moves through queer circles (his own cousin warns him that he's in with the supposed 'wrong' crowd and people are talking about that), he has this relationship with Sebastian that the whole family seems to be aware of, and yet near the end of the book when he finds himself in a gay bar with University friend Anthony, he draws such distinctions between himself and Anthony. Indeed, Anthony is presented as quite the caricature of queerness, and Charles is not overly pleasant about him in conversation, and yet Sebastian has such this commanding place in Charles' heart. It may be that Sebastian surpasses the boundaries of a man in that he represents the last grasps of unadulterated privilege and excess, the Catholic land-owning gentry and so their relationship cannot be confined by labels etc. My question is after looking briefly at what academia say about Charles and Sebastian, why is it even a debate that Charles and Sebastian were romantically entangled? Of course the shape of that entanglement, the scope of it, the depth, what it represents, how it manifests, are all perfectly debatable subjects, but I was shocked by the amounts of maybe's and perhaps's.

'Perhaps our loves are merely hints and symbols; vagabond-language scrawled on gate-posts and paving-stones along the weary road that others have tramped before us; perhaps you and I are types and this sadness which sometimes falls between us springs from disappointment in our search, each straining through and beyond the other, snatching a glimpse now and then of the shadow which turns the corner always a pace or two ahead of us.'

I had not forgotten about Sebastian. He was with me daily in Julia...'

After all that, I shall caveat and say that there were some painful reminders of when this book was written. Some of the language was quite uncomfortable to read and the entitled belittling of any kind of Other to them was tricky to digest. It filtered into the context of interwar Britain, deciding where it stood with the rise of Fascism in Europe, and Britain's own ties with Fascism. With the privileged world of the Flyte's and Marchaim's, their connection to Britain's colonial empire was strong, especially is northern Africa. It is an interesting source for considering how Britain viewed itself to many other nations in a time of division and deep nationalism.

There were some really interesting insights into what it might have been like as things escalated in Europe - how people were preparing in 'case of an emergency' with a sheer reluctance to consider the prospect of another war. The story of Kurt, Sebastian's companion, was so tragic and actually one of the hardest things to read and accept about the book. Also, at the end, as Charles returns to Brideshead with the military, and the lawn has been carved up, the fountain drained and wired up where 'all the drivers throw their cigarette-ends and the remains of the sandwiches there', my heart broke because I'd come to laud what Brideshead represented through the romanticising eyes of Charles Ryder.

Brideshead Revisited is a fascinating look into a world of rapid change that may not deliver an entirely satisfying plot, but offers plenty of ways to think about the text from a multitude of perspectives.