Brideshead Revisited

Name: Brideshead Revisited
Author: Evelyn Waugh

Evelyn Waugh · 1945

Waugh's most serious novel, published in 1945. A memory of Oxford, aristocratic beauty, and Catholicism, told from the wreckage of WWII. Charles Ryder's love for Sebastian Flyte and Julia is also a love for a world that no longer exists. The prose is pure and melancholy. The novel argues, controversially, that grace is irresistible.

The case against

on the descriptions
“much of the novel is spent on descriptions of buildings, landscapes and people”
a Substack review
on the theology
“Theology is an interesting subject, but it felt both hamfisted”
a book blog
on the purple prose
“your main reaction is still: oh puh-lease”
Seamus Perry · London Review of Books, 2023
on Charles Ryder
“the reader can see he is hypocritical and frankly unlikeable”
four stars · a Substack review