Product Description

(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)

Evelyn Waugh’s most celebrated novel is a memory drama about the intense entanglement of the narrator, Charles Ryder, with a great Anglo-Catholic family. Written during World War II, the novel mourns the passing of the aristocratic world Waugh knew in his youth and vividly recalls the sensuous plea?sures denied him by wartime austerities; in so doing it also provides a profound study of the conflict between the demands of religion and the desires of the flesh. At once romantic, sensuous, comic, and somber, Brideshead Revisited transcends Waugh’s familiar satiric exploration of his cast of lords and ladies, Catholics and eccentrics, artists and misfits, revealing him to be an elegiac, lyrical novelist of the utmost feeling and lucidity.

The edition reprinted here contains Waugh’s revisions, made in 1959, and his preface to the revised edition.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #77269 in Books
• Published on: 1993-10-26
• Released on: 1993-10-26
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 368 pages

From Amazon.com
A departure from Evelyn Waugh's normally comic theater, Brideshead Revisited concerns the tale of Charles Ryder, a captain in the British Army in post-World War I England. Unlike Waugh's previous narrators, Ryder is an intelligent man, looking back on much of his life from his current post in Oxford. He strikes a special friendship with Lord Sebastian Flyte as the setting moves to the Brideshead estate and a baroque castle that recalls England's prior standing in the world. Ryder falls for Flyte's sister while families, politics and religions collide. What makes the book extraordinary is Waugh's sharp, vivid style and his use of dialect and minor characters. This is one of Waugh's finest accomplishments and a superb book.

From Publishers Weekly
In this classic tale of British life between the World Wars, Waugh parts company with the satire of his earlier works to examine affairs of the heart. Charles Ryder finds himself stationed at Brideshead, the family seat of Lord and Lady Marchmain. Exhausted by the war, he takes refuge in recalling his time spent with the heirs to the estate before the war--years spent enthralled by the beautiful but dissolute Sebastian and later in a more conventional relationship with Sebastian's sister Julia. Ryder portrays a family divided by an uncertain investment in Roman Catholicism and by their confusion over where the elite fit in the modern world. Although Waugh was considered by many to be more successful as a comic than as a wistful commentator on human relationships and faith, this novel was made famous by a 1981 BBC TV dramatization. Irons's portrayal of Ryder catapulted Irons to stardom, and in this superb reading his subtle, complete characterizations highlight Waugh's ear for the aristocratic mores of the time. Fervent Anglophiles will be thrilled by this excellent rendition of a favorite; Irons's reading saves this dinosaur from being suffocated by its own weight.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Academy award winner Jeremy Irons demonstrates impressive skill in his performance of Brideshead Revisited. From the charming yet doomed Lord Sebastian Flyte to the absurd, stuttering Anthony Blanche, Irons manages to capture the many nuances and subtleties of each character. Waugh's most successful novel, narrated by Charles Ryder, this classic of 20th-century literature re-creates a vanished world and peoples it with a vivid and believable cast. The setting is Oxford and Brideshead Castle in the 1920s through the early 1940s. From the beginning, Ryder is captivated by the fascinating Sebastian, second son of Lord Marchmain, who seems to lead a charmed life filled with friends, wealth, and a noble family. But as Charles's friendship with Sebastian deepens, Charles is pulled into a closer relationship with the Marchmains a family with more than one dark secret to hide. Highly recommended for all libraries. Theresa Connors, Arkansas Tech Univ., Russellville
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

The book must be read slowly and carefully to enjoy it
The melancholic mood of the book makes it perfect ot be read under the shadow of a tree or on dark rainy afternoons. The dissapearence of a time, of a family, a class, and a love is perfectly mixed in the same story. But to feel it the book shall be read according to its inner pace. If you read it all in one night somehow you will lose part of its beauty. Also you shall not read this book if you are looking for action and fun.

A work of remarkable beauty
Evelyn Waugh's "Brideshead, revisited" is a masterpiece of twentieth century literature. Spanning a period of twenty years, Waugh paints a most extraordinary picture of idyllic life fraught with undertones of deep sadness. Charles Ryder serves as the incarnate narrator of Waugh's halcyon brush strokes as Ryder emerges as the most critcal character in the book.

The women of "Brideshead" are either self-absorbed or flitty and the men are sillier yet. In fact, the second half of Waugh's work is more important than the first. In the latter half, Charles matures....the only person to do so. It is as if Charles is holding a movie camera throughout as the characters rotate in slow motion. They rarely move forward....just on to other locations. Waugh's greatest contribution is, however, his soft hintings of sexuality. These connections are largely left open to the reader's imagination and are gently manipulated by the feel of a warm breeze, the sight of a flower-filled field or the scent of spring.

A question I often asked myself while reading "Brideshead" was "are these people really connecting in any way?" My answer was "yes", but at a distance more relevant to the times and to the country. Charles's denouement was a curtain being pulled down on a dysfunctional family that had little real understanding of how to hold themselves together, but did so, anyway.

"Brideshead, revisited" can be read in a short time but, like an afternoon tea, should be consumed in small sips. The refreshment of Evelyn Waugh's descriptive prose evinces a master mind at work...the author turned painter. His canvas is a tour de force.

Great novel
I could go on and on about how fantastic this novel is but that has been done already. This novel probably won't appeal to everyone, but certainly worth checking out. One of my personal favorites.