Understanding Brideshead Revisited

A friend of mine recently asked her contacts on facebook for a few recommendations of books to read over summer break. I recommended to her one of the best books I have read over the past year, British author Evelyn Waugh's novel Brideshead Revisited. Her boyfriend (a philosophy major) responded that, while he had also read this novel, its meaning had escaped him. I sympathized, as I did not really begin to understand it until the very end.


~SPOILERS~

 When I had picked up the book, I had been told it was the most Catholic novel of the 20th century. However, I had a difficult time understanding. Many of the characters are Catholic, but they are hardly models of holiness. None of them are excellent examples of their religion. Some are fallen away Catholics living as self professed semi-heathens, others are law-abiding albeit seemingly heartless, while others are perhaps overly compassionate, lacking integration of the intellect and will.

Diana Quick as Julia Flyte, Jeremy Irons as Charles Ryder

So what is the reader to make of all of this? It does not fully come clear until the end of the book, which contains the final conflicts. The first conflict: Julia Flyte and Charles Ryder are having an affair with the intent of eventually marrying once both have settled their divorces with their former partners. Julia is somewhat torn about the marriage due to her Catholic faith. Although she was able to boldly cast her beliefs aside when she married Rex Mortram, she has never been fully able to leave them behind. Guilt and regret continue to gnaw at the back of her mind, resulting in bouts of temper. For almost the entire novel she has been torn in two pieces: her knowledge of the faith and its teachings, and her ambition when she married Rex, which has given way to her love for Charles. She is trapped in the middle, uncertain of what she truly believes. This first conflict is tied up with the second.

The second conflict comes about through the failing health of Lord Marchmain, who has come to Brideshead to die. Lord Marchmain became Catholic when he married Julia's mother, but abandoned the faith when he left her to live abroad with his mistress. Lord Marchmain is slowly slipping away, but he is afraid of death, clinging on to life with an unspoken terror. Meanwhile the members of the family (Julia, Cordelia, Bridey -- his children) debate with Charles over whether or not they ought to send for a priest so that Lord Marchmain might receive the sacrament of last rites. If a priest is sent for, on the one hand, they fear it may frighten Lord Marchmain and worsen his condition; on the other hand, it may bring him considerable peace of mind, thus easing his passing. The problem is that since Lord Marchmain is largely unconscious, it is uncertain whether he desires reconciliation with the church. Charles doesn't want the man tricked into anything he wouldn't desire were he in his right mind. This debate is a source of tension between Charles and Julia, for there is more at stake here than what is readily apparent. It's really about whether or not Catholicism is true. If it isn't true, than sending for a priest and receiving the last rites is stupid, futile, pointless. If it is true, then Charles and Julia's future together is jeopardized. By acknowledging the truth of the faith in the situation of her father, Julia must confront the truth about her relationship with Charles. She must acknowledge the sinfulness of entering into a marriage with Charles, in spite of their love for each other.

The conflict within Julia, her desire to be faithful to her religion and her longing to be united with Charles, are similar to the conflict that occurs within each human person. Every person has a desire for the true, the good, and the beautiful, but he is divided against himself through concupiscence. He deceives himself into the desire for lesser goods, or is blinded by his passions, by avarice, pride, and selfishness. Yet, the beauty of this novel lies in the truth it displays about Catholicism. No matter how far one strays from the Catholic faith, the Mother Church is always waiting to welcome back her children. The Church hates the sin, not the sinner. Like the parable of the prodigal son, he is always welcome home regardless of how far he has strayed. This imagery can also be seen in the house after which the novel is named: Brideshead, home of Julia, Sebastian, Cordelia, and Lady Marchmain. Although the characters come and go, although they may stay away for years, they always return to Brideshead.

 There is a wonderful quote near the end of the story that beautifully sums up this theme:

“I've always been bad. Probably I shall be bad again, punished again. But the worse I am, the more I need God. I can't shut myself out from His mercy. ... Or it may be a private bargain between me and God, that if I give up this one thing I want so much, however bad I am, He won't quite despair of me in the end.”

I think that this quote is brilliant. It is difficult to not sound preachy when writing this kind of material. Yet Waugh pulls it off with honesty, authenticity, and elegance. 

This book is packed with themes about love, beauty, and the human soul, and there is so much more to uncover and discuss. However, I think this is one of the most significant points of the story: the lesson of sin and grace, the lesson of redemption.

Quotes from Brideshead Revisited

I just finished Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited and thought I would celebrate by sharing a few quotes. Each quote describes something about one of the characters in the story. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it! I've put the quotes in italics. Below each quote are some reflections I've had while reading, which you can skip if you don't like spoilers.

Sebastian Flyte:

“...its a rather pleasant change when all your life you've had people looking after you, to have someone to look after yourself. Only of course it has to be someone pretty hopeless to need looking after by me.” 

I found it rather intriguing to find these words coming from Sebastian: Sebastian, the Oxford student who drinks too much and used to carry around a teddy-bear; Sebastian who despises his mother and his family. Yet, it may be an instance of the masculine tendency towards providing. Men like to have the answers. They want able to provide for their wives, girlfriends, and/or families. Sebastian didn't have the opportunity to really experience this until he'd fled his family and met Kurt.

Another interesting point I found was where Sebastian finally settles down: living half-in, half-out of an abbey. When I first read the title of Book II, "A Twitch Upon the Thread," I had a difficult time wrapping my head around it. However, as the story progressed, I realized that it was just as fitting as the first title. The title comes from one of G.K. Chesterton's Father Brown stories. Cordelia speaks of it at the end of Book I. Fr. Brown says that he has his subject on a hook so that the man might go to the farthest corner of the earth, yet Fr. Brown can bring him back with "a twitch upon the thread." The same can be said of the fallen away members of the Flyte family, such as Sebastian. Sebastian remarked in Book I about how difficult it was to be Catholic. Charles dismisses it as nonsense, to which Sebastian responds, "Is it? I wish it it were." After Sebastian has disappeared, Cordelia confides to Charles,"I used to think Sebastian had [a vocation] and hated it--but I don't know now." He may have been running away from a vocation, and has finally stopped. This is all speculation on my part. But whether or not he actually had a vocation, he couldn't run away from his faith, either. He had his wild days, but eventually he came back.

Diana Quick as Julia Flyte
and Charles Keating as Rex Mottram in BBC's adaption

Julia about Rex Mottram:

“He wasn't a complete human being at all. He was a tiny bit of one, unnaturally developed; something in a bottle, an organ kept alive in a laboratory. I thought he was a sort of primitive savage, but he was something absolutely modern and up-to-date that only this ghastly age could produce. A tiny bit of a man pretending to be whole.”

Rex Mottram is quite a character, albeit an unattractive one. Julia met and married Rex in the hopes of finding happiness and prestige with him. At first, Rex intended to become Catholic in order that their marriage might be recognized by the Church. However, once the Flyte family discovers that he was previously divorced and his ex-wife is still living, marriage within the Catholic Church becomes impossible. Once he realizes that becoming Catholic isn't going to bring him a life with Julia, he drops it completely. Against the wishes of her Catholic family, Julia decides to reject her faith for life with Rex.  However, life with him doesn't turn out the way she thought it would. Soon after their marriage, Julia finds out that Rex has been continuing an affair with another woman, whom he had been seeing during their courtship. (This sent up warning flags for me, but apparently it didn't for Julia). When Julia confronts him about it, he is unable to see why she is so upset. I'm not sure how on earth a man could become practically devoid of feeling, but it certainly seems to have happened in the case of Rex Mottram. I believe he has a very small soul locked away in an iron safe located in his big toe.

Julia Flyte:

“I've always been bad. Probably I shall be bad again, punished again. But the worse I am, the more I need God. I can't shut myself out from His mercy. ... Or it may be a private bargain between me and God, that if I give up this one thing I want so much, however bad I am, He won't quite despair of me in the end.”

Jeremy Irons as Charles Ryder

Julia is rather similar to Sebastian in that she, also has had her wild days. Both she and Sebastian know that they are living in sin. Julia rejected her faith in pursuit of happiness when she married Rex in spite of his previous divorce. When life with Rex doesn't turn out the way she had hoped, she runs away to America. When she takes up with Charles, both have been disillusioned by their first love and by their ambition. Julia wants to marry Charles, but something is holding her back.  In her lifestyle she denies her faith, but in her heart she can't. At one point she undergoes a bout of hysterics over her sinful lifestyle. As I read her monologue, she seems to have an excessive focus on sin. It appears that she doesn't believe that God will forgive her, so there is no use asking for His mercy. There seems to be no turning back. However, both her faith and Charles' faith are tested when Lord Marchmain comes home to Brideshead to die. It is at the moment of death that the real drama is acted. It all comes down to what one believes.  Life. Death. The fall from grace. The possibility of redemption. Julia realizes through the example of her father, another fallen away Catholic, that redemption is possible. If so, Julia realizes that there may be hope even for her. A twitch upon the thread... The final quote is from my favorite scene in the book. I won't say any more, lest I spoil the ending for you.

Charles Ryder:
“Then I knew that the sign I had asked for was not a little thing, not a passing nod of recognition, and a phrase came back to me from my childhood of the veil of the temple being rent from top to bottom.”

Brideshead Revisited: Catholic with a Universal Appeal

This summer a group of friends and I have been reading British author Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited. Each week we have a new reading assignment and then we'll discuss it amongst ourselves on a blog we set up just for the occasion. 



Castle Howard, North Yorkshire
served as the location for filming Brideshead
 in both the miniseries and the 2009 adaption.



In case you are unfamiliar with the story, Brideshead Revisited consists of a series of memories of British commander Charles Ryder, which are triggered by his battalion's encampment at a large abandoned estate known as Brideshead. These memories revolve around Ryder's relationship with a Roman Catholic aristocratic family in England in the 1920's. Evelyn Waugh also described this work as semi-autobiographical, recounting memories from his own years at Oxford. Waugh converted to Catholicism in the year 1930 after the failure of his first marriage.

Though Catholicism serves as one of the central themes of the story, it appeals to people of all beliefs (as evidenced by the fact that it is in top 100 lists of secular publications). For example, Waugh is one of the favorite authors of Fr. Robert Barron, a Catholic priest well known for his work in the "Catholicism" series, as well as the recently deceased British atheist, Christopher Hitchens. Why does a universal audience appreciate this novel when many non-Christians reject so many Christian stories? First of all, it is a well-crafted piece of literature! The writing style and the descriptions are beautiful, elegant, and poetic. Good art -- in this case, good writing -- appeals to a universal audience, regardless of background and belief. You can be a Budhist, an atheist, or a Catholic and still find the Sistine Chapel inspiring! In this case, we are dealing with literature not painting, but the truth still stands. As a quick example, I'm including a passage from the beginning of Book II:


"The human soul enjoys these rare, classic periods, but, apart from them, we are seldom single or unique; we keep company in this world with a hoard of abstractions and reflections and counterfeits of ourselves -- the sensual man, the economic man, the man of reason, the beast, the machine, and the sleep-walker, and heaven knows what besides, all in our own image, indistinguishable from ourselves to the outward eye. We get borne along, out of sight in the press, unresisting, till we get the chance to drop behind unnoticed, or dodge down a side street, pause, breathe freely and take our bearings, or to push ahead, outdistance our shadows, lead them a dance, so when at length they catch up with us, they look at one another askance, knowing we have a secret we shall never share."

Charles Ryder, played by Jeremy Irons, and Sebastian Flyte,
played by Anthony Andrews

Secondly the story itself is appealing to a broad audience with its high stakes and universal themes of love, friendship, betrayal, and spirituality. Thirdly, the view of Catholicism is coming from an outsider's perspective: Ryder is an agnostic raised without any religion. I think perhaps this may make the story more approachable for non-Christians. In addition, the portrayal of Catholicism is both enigmatic and controversial. I would hardly call it a favorable portrayal of Catholicism. Most of the characters who identify themselves as Catholic are seriously flawed. 
And yet, it is called one of the most Catholic novels of the 20th century. I have yet to understand why, but I am hoping it will become apparent by the novel's conclusion. 
We are currently nearly into Book II. I have also been watching BBC's miniseries adaption of the novel as I read. Though there have been a few unnecessary butt shots and there may be a sex scene in need of skipping (though I haven't gotten that far yet), the series is a commendable adaption of Waugh's masterpiece thus far! One of its greatest strengths is its faithfulness to Waugh's beautiful words. It also contains some excellent acting from Anthony Andrews and Jeremy Irons. If you are looking for some quality entertainment and food for thought before summer's end, I highly recommend Brideshead Revisited! 
And for all you soundtrack buffs, I've read reviews of the newer film that came out in 2008 and, while it's not as accurate and probably not as good, it does have a beautiful soundtrack! It's a similar style to the recent adaption of Pride and Prejudice and Finding Neverland.