55. Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh (100 book challenge)

I’ve taken a while to write this review because I’m finding it hard to explain what it was that I liked about it. Don’t get me wrong, I actually really liked Brideshead Revisited; I read it regularly and reasonably quickly. Despite being set between the two world wars in England and France, it didn’t teach me anything new about those times, neither did it teach me anything new about human behaviour.

But it told an interesting story about a young man named Charles and the impact that just one family had on his life. His ability to switch his obsessive love from one person to another (and from a man to a woman at that) intrigued me, especially since the book was written almost 80 years ago in 1945 when these topics wouldn’t have been published all that often.

I enjoyed Waugh’s writing style a lot. It was written in first person, yet almost completely emotionally detached from Charles himself, meaning his feelings were revealed more through his actions and dialogue than his thoughts, at the same pace as the other characters around him. I love reading these types of books as they let me experience the feelings authentically, without being told how to feel.

It had a similar style to The Great Gatsby, which, even though it was written in first person Nick, the story was actually about Gatsby himself. Brideshead Revisited is about Sebastian and Julia, and not really about Charles at all. A very clever way of telling the story.

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In July 2014 I set myself the challenge to finish 100 must-read books before I die. For my ongoing tally click here.

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