Brideshead

In order to get a little sanity restored to my life after such intense readings of mind-blowing and disorienting readings and discussions, I decided to try to fit in a bit of non-program reading before getting started on my next two papers.

I picked up Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, upon which an acclaimed BBC miniseries was based, as well as the 2008 Hollywood studio feature that is getting pretty awful reviews.

I'll give you a passage in order to entice you to borrow or buy the book.  It's bright.

I knew Sebastian by sight long before I met him.  That was unavoidable for, from his first week, he was the most conspicuous man of his year by reason of his beauty, which was arresting, and his eccentricities of behaviour which seemed to know no bounds.  My first sight of him was as we passed in the door of Germer's, and, on that occasion, I was struck less by his looks than by the fact that he was carrying a large Teddy-bear.

"That," said the barber, as I took his chair, " was Lord Sebastian Flyte.  A most amusing young gentleman."

"Apparently," I said coldly.

"The Marquis of Marchmain's second boy.  His brother, the Earl of Brideshead, wend down last term.  Now he was very different, a very quiet gentleman, quite like an old man.  What do you suppose Lord Sebastian wanted?  A hair brush for his Teddy-bear; it had to have very stiff bristles, not, Lord Sebastian said, to brush him with, but to threaten him with a spanking when he was sulky.  He bought a very nice one with an ivory back and he's having "Aloysius' engraved on it--that's the bear's name." The man, who, in his time, had had ample change to tire of undergraduate fantasy, was plainly captivated by him.

[...]

Nor, when at last we met, were the circumstances propitious.  It was short before midnight in early March; I had been entertaining the college intellectuals to mulled claret; the fire was roaring, the air of my room heavy with smoke and spice, and my mind weary with metaphysics.  I threw open my windows and from the quad outside acme the not uncommon sounds of bibulous laughter and unsteady steps.  A voice said "Hold up"; another, "Come on"; another, "Plenty of time ... House ... till Tom stops ringing"; and another, clearer than the rest, "D'you know I feel most unaccountably unwell.  I must leave you a minute," and there appeared at my window the face I knew to be Sebastian's--but not as I had formerly seen it, alive and alight with gaiety; he looked at me for a moment with unseeing eyes and then, leaning forward well into the room, he was sick.

Comments

[J G Miller]

"an acclaimed BBC miniseries was based"

The TV series was not produced by the BBC. It was produced by Granada Television.

[Brandon]

You're blogging again! (And I'm stalking you!/?)

The BBC series is excellent. It practically uses the book as the screenplay. The book's prose is too delightful to miss again.

You deserve more comments.