Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

I do love Waugh. I was watching reruns of the Brideshead TV series with Jeremy Irons – so old – when I realized I really needed to read this book again. It’s such a sensitive piece of writing that charts what I think must be Waugh’s own path to Catholic faith – he became a Catholic in 1930 at the age of 27.

Of course it’s set in my favourite period of English history, the years between the wars. We visited Blenheim Palace a few years ago and I believe that’s where the film is set and it helped me visualise the place as it is described in the book.

I also find the English thing about young men having affairs and then moving on to heterosexual relationships here. Cara, Lord Marchmain’s mistress, discusses it when Charles meets her in Venice, as an early form in the progression of mature of love. Most interesting. Not part of our culture here and I wonder whether it actually existed outside literature (though it seems to appear in books about the public schools and in politicians’ clandestine and News of the World reported behaviour still).

There’s a great sadness in this book, which I think reflects what happened to the world as a result of the second war. You read it in so many books, the destruction of innocence and the progression into a harder, greyer and colder world. All the great houses closing, as the upper classes way of life collapses, their money runs out and the world is handed to hard nosed business men like Rex Mottram.

So, a complex book about Catholic guilt that everybody should own and read regularly. Now that’s a flippant summation! Wonderfully written, wonderfully conceived, tender, moving and sad.