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#5 Platform: Brideshead Revisited
Apr. 18th, 2012 05:24 pmOr, in my case, found for the first time.
Book #16: Brideshead Revisited
Author: Evelyn Waugh
Provenance: Borrowed from Westmount Library
I started on this book because I'd read too many times that this was an influence on another book that I'd read and enjoyed. A month or two back, I read an interview with Lev Grossman where he claimed that a lot of the Magicians and its follow-up are taken pretty heavily off of Brideshead Revisited, and that he and other authors could get away with this because the audience by and large hadn't read the original work.
Well. As if I was going to stand for any more of that.
So this book is a classic, and I often have reservations about those, but perhaps what I'm finding as I grow a bit older is that a lot of these are good, particularly if you come to them yourself. Definitely something to keep in mind for the future. This one, plot-wise, is about the reminiscences of one Charles Ryder, student turned painter turned army officer, as he returns to the Brideshead manor during World War II, and looks back on the time he spent there, and the various members of the resident Flyte family he interacted with, chiefly Sebastian, a close friend from his time at Oxford, and his older sister Julia, along with various connected people and hangers-on.
Before getting to any of the themes, here's what really has to be said: this is a masterpiece of writing, just a superbly crafted work, and in many ways, the sort of writing I like best. I recall reading somewhere that Waugh had been asked why he doesn't go into character's thoughts much in writing, and he said something to the effect of, because I know what they say and do, but I don't know what they're thinking. That's the approach to writing I like best, and beyond Charles's thoughts and narration - after all, it's his memories we're reading, of course we know what he thought - everyone else you just get from the outside.
That's really not a big deal, though, when you can write character action and speech as well as Waugh can. A character discoursing can go on for pages and pages; outrageous aesthete Anthony Blanche gets one, ambitious, hard-driving politician Rex Mottram gets another. Just in reading them, even without the carefully observed actions the characters show, you get a sense of who they are, deeply and vividly. There are so many good characters, I don't even want to go into them all, but the whole Marchmain family, and in fact basically all the characters Charles deals with for more than a few lines, really come across as real. And for the ones you spend more time with, like Sebastian or Julia, these are great portraits, of people that you really feel you could know, or have met. This is perhaps the most so for Sebastian; I feel like I have met people like him before, lost and wanting control and full of excess and quirky almost for the sake of it. I don't know you can spend too much time in ex-pat circles without meeting people like him.
But the feel and the change of the relationships are just amazing, and naturally, then, the scope of the story and the life described are pretty big. These are privileged folks, and they're getting out there; Charles gets into painting because, well, there are a lot of rooms in the Flyte home, and why not put some paintings on them? He travels because he can, and because his widower father certainly doesn't want him around, even if he'd never say it quite that way. Pretty much all the characters travel around, really.
And here's where I have to address the themes of this book. For something that's so well-crafted and well-realized, and just flat-out enjoyable to read, even when matters turn dire and melancholic... my, but do I not agree with the underlying nature of the book. These people are privileged in that sense of the word, too, and there's a longing to be on the rich side of the struggle, that some people really do get more chances than others, that there's a merit to this aristrocratic life, and that merrily beating down the working man is fine in here, even if it's not always in so many words. And that's without getting into religion; divinity, grace and Catholicism are huge themes here, with each of the characters in the Flyte family coming to different accommodations with it, and largely none of them being happy. Even the ones that try to reject the religion can't escape it, really; it's always there, in their makeup, and they don't always come to good ends for it, either singly or in their relationships with others. Waugh realizes all this, and I suppose his point is that life is probably miserable on some level either way, so why not have something of the divine in their to help... which, okay, but it doesn't make me happy with that side of the lesson, either. I also suppose I don't really like the "if you're not Catholic, you just don't Get It" side of the argument, because I'd like to think I get it enough... but maybe I don't.
That's perhaps the thing about great works; I don't want to reject the points because I think they're wrong from my experience, even if I don't want to really internalize the lessons, either. Some of that, I think would make me a worse person. But this is a tremendously well done work, and I won't be fooled again, that's for sure. Even if you're not generally into Great Works of Fiction, as the category may be described, this one really is worth a try. It's not flawless, but the flaws are there for a reason, and that's good enough for me.
Next up: The Secret in their Eyes.
Book #16: Brideshead Revisited
Author: Evelyn Waugh
Provenance: Borrowed from Westmount Library
I started on this book because I'd read too many times that this was an influence on another book that I'd read and enjoyed. A month or two back, I read an interview with Lev Grossman where he claimed that a lot of the Magicians and its follow-up are taken pretty heavily off of Brideshead Revisited, and that he and other authors could get away with this because the audience by and large hadn't read the original work.
Well. As if I was going to stand for any more of that.
So this book is a classic, and I often have reservations about those, but perhaps what I'm finding as I grow a bit older is that a lot of these are good, particularly if you come to them yourself. Definitely something to keep in mind for the future. This one, plot-wise, is about the reminiscences of one Charles Ryder, student turned painter turned army officer, as he returns to the Brideshead manor during World War II, and looks back on the time he spent there, and the various members of the resident Flyte family he interacted with, chiefly Sebastian, a close friend from his time at Oxford, and his older sister Julia, along with various connected people and hangers-on.
Before getting to any of the themes, here's what really has to be said: this is a masterpiece of writing, just a superbly crafted work, and in many ways, the sort of writing I like best. I recall reading somewhere that Waugh had been asked why he doesn't go into character's thoughts much in writing, and he said something to the effect of, because I know what they say and do, but I don't know what they're thinking. That's the approach to writing I like best, and beyond Charles's thoughts and narration - after all, it's his memories we're reading, of course we know what he thought - everyone else you just get from the outside.
That's really not a big deal, though, when you can write character action and speech as well as Waugh can. A character discoursing can go on for pages and pages; outrageous aesthete Anthony Blanche gets one, ambitious, hard-driving politician Rex Mottram gets another. Just in reading them, even without the carefully observed actions the characters show, you get a sense of who they are, deeply and vividly. There are so many good characters, I don't even want to go into them all, but the whole Marchmain family, and in fact basically all the characters Charles deals with for more than a few lines, really come across as real. And for the ones you spend more time with, like Sebastian or Julia, these are great portraits, of people that you really feel you could know, or have met. This is perhaps the most so for Sebastian; I feel like I have met people like him before, lost and wanting control and full of excess and quirky almost for the sake of it. I don't know you can spend too much time in ex-pat circles without meeting people like him.
But the feel and the change of the relationships are just amazing, and naturally, then, the scope of the story and the life described are pretty big. These are privileged folks, and they're getting out there; Charles gets into painting because, well, there are a lot of rooms in the Flyte home, and why not put some paintings on them? He travels because he can, and because his widower father certainly doesn't want him around, even if he'd never say it quite that way. Pretty much all the characters travel around, really.
And here's where I have to address the themes of this book. For something that's so well-crafted and well-realized, and just flat-out enjoyable to read, even when matters turn dire and melancholic... my, but do I not agree with the underlying nature of the book. These people are privileged in that sense of the word, too, and there's a longing to be on the rich side of the struggle, that some people really do get more chances than others, that there's a merit to this aristrocratic life, and that merrily beating down the working man is fine in here, even if it's not always in so many words. And that's without getting into religion; divinity, grace and Catholicism are huge themes here, with each of the characters in the Flyte family coming to different accommodations with it, and largely none of them being happy. Even the ones that try to reject the religion can't escape it, really; it's always there, in their makeup, and they don't always come to good ends for it, either singly or in their relationships with others. Waugh realizes all this, and I suppose his point is that life is probably miserable on some level either way, so why not have something of the divine in their to help... which, okay, but it doesn't make me happy with that side of the lesson, either. I also suppose I don't really like the "if you're not Catholic, you just don't Get It" side of the argument, because I'd like to think I get it enough... but maybe I don't.
That's perhaps the thing about great works; I don't want to reject the points because I think they're wrong from my experience, even if I don't want to really internalize the lessons, either. Some of that, I think would make me a worse person. But this is a tremendously well done work, and I won't be fooled again, that's for sure. Even if you're not generally into Great Works of Fiction, as the category may be described, this one really is worth a try. It's not flawless, but the flaws are there for a reason, and that's good enough for me.
Next up: The Secret in their Eyes.
