Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder : a novel / by Evelyn Waugh

A masterpiece of twentieth century literature perhaps most known as an award winning miniseries (1981) starring Jeremy Irons, Waugh's Brideshead Revisited is a timeless classic set during the pivotal interwar years in Britain, uniquely examining the wealthy upper classes--their family values, social obligations and the peculiar, often tragic situations in which they live.

An officer in the Second World War, Capt. Charles Ryder heads a reserve infantry unit currently being shuffled between training grounds still awaiting their marching orders for deployment to the front lines. A dismal, brooding and melancholic Capt. Ryder has grown apathetic to his job, morbidly depressed by the situation and wholly disillusioned with life in the Army. By chance, when his platoon is restationed near an extravagant estate house, Charles himself is "revisited" by memories of past times spent at the grand home and his interaction with the charming, yet troubled family who lent it its namesake--the Flytes of Brideshead Manor. Initially recalled are Charles' years at Oxford when as a first year student, he became associated with young Sebastian Flyte, an eccentric young man from an extremely wealthy family whose oddities and peculiarities--always dressing in party clothes, carrying a Teddy bear at all times, over-expressive acts of generosity and contrition, etc.--were only rivaled by his extravagant taste, equally extravagant friends and incorrigible reckless behavior.

Through his friendship with Sebastian, Charles becomes acquainted with the other Flytes; of whom Sebastian himself views unfavorably (identifying them as "beasts"), but with whom Charles grows especially close to throughout the successive months, years and accompanying decades. Sebastian's mother Lady Teresa Flyte ("Lady Marchmain") is the matriarchal head of the family and defacto proprietor of the Brideshead estate. The situation stands that, after a falling out with her husband Lord Marchmain, who has since remained abroad in conspicuous attempt to avoid any contact with his wife, Lady Marchmain has basically reared their four Children--Bridey, Julia, Sebastian and young Cordelia--alone, bringing them up in the tradition of her own stringent Catholicism and instilling in them the faith's truths, principles and particularly dire implications on life, death and eternity.

It is the incontrovertible convictions imparted by the faith upon each Flyte family member which Charles sadly discloses as the legacy he most associates with Brideshead. From Charles' viewpoint, the outdated, absurd and innocuous aspects of the faith, its rules and regulations, standards and strictures have directly influenced the tragic demise of the family and, indirectly, the dissolution of his own happiness. This is truly a remarkable novel; brilliant as a reflective, epochal, incisively critical and passively satirical period piece illuminating the era's class system, the obligations of the aristocracy, its paradoxical family values, multiple obstacles to relationships and still-lingering restrictions of religion. Waugh's masterpiece has withstood the test of time to not only maintain its initial success since its 1946 publication, but has grown in popularity over the years, attracting new readers with each passing generation. (DVD BRIDESHE)