Maybe there isn’t much left to say about this nostalgic novel about the changes in British class and Protestant/Catholic conflict in Britain leading up to WWII.
Charles Ryder is an Oxford student who becomes infatuated with a child-like, effeminate drunkard of a student named Sebastian. He spends some holidays with Sebastian’s family at the Brideshead estate. Charles meets Sebastian’s family, particularly his sister Julia and, eventually, his father who is living outside of his marriage in Italy. As Sebastian’s drinking becomes a problem tensions arise between the family and Charles.
Charles, now married, becomes a painter and eventually falls in love with Julia, also now married, as his career is beginning to take root. Their relationship, and the downfall of their marriages, encompass the final part of the novel.
“Brideshead Revisited” is a reflective novel full of nostalgia where everything seems to be painted in a warm light despite the general lack of almost anything positive happening without a lot of strings attached. None of the characters or their relationships seem happy and most of the character development is negative. This is perhaps most accurately considered as a warning about the dangers of nostalgia for the glory days (here the English nobility and their fancy estates) that no longer exist and were never quite what they seem to us now. The War seems to be both a jolt awake from the general unreality of this belief and also a reason to cling to some sort of world that we understand.
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