Brideshead Revisited is Evelyn Waugh’s most famous novel. Magnificent but flawed, he wrote it while recovering from an injury during the Second World War, and the lush, sumptuous world of Oxford in the 1920s which he portrays is in stark contrast to the drab reality of life in the army. He later said that he regretted the richness of the language he had used, and declared that the novel was about the “operation of divine grace on a group of diverse but closely connected characters”. The Catholicism is of course central to the novel, as it was to Waugh’s own life, but despite his somewhat disingenuous revisions, the power of the book continues to come from the vividly described memory of happy times that had passed, and love that had died. In the first episode of a two part podcast, Rupert and Charlie look at Waugh's own life and conversion to Catholicism, and discuss how the Catholic faith affects the Marchmain family. Why can’t Julia be with Charles? Do we blame Lord Marchmain for leaving his wife? And why is Waugh so rude about Hooper? Join us on Book In to find out.
