brideshead revisited - evelyn waugh
Ah, Brideshead Revisited... How I loved that book and the television series when I was yea high, ages ago. I basically wanted to be Young Charles back then, it was all so terribly romantic.
And now I find I am even older than Old Charles is in the book (oh dear), and I still think he's a dreadful old bore. The Oxford bits are still lovely, and I'm happy to have met Anthony Blanche and Young Julia again, but I'm afraid I'm not that happy with Waugh's florid style any more, and I don't buy the ending and its preposterous religiosity at all this time around.
Still, good to read it again after about twenty years away from it, surprised by how much I remember, and particularly by the parts I didn't remember (the whole "Charles in the Army" stuff at the beginning, and the breakup).
02-01-2009
