Like our narrator, I find myself “awed and bemused between two realities and two dreams” (15, last segment of the Prologue). And I am looking back on earlier encounters with the text and the PBS mini-series through the same sort of aged and, possibly, jaded lens with which our narrator revisits his own past associations with Brideshead. The book’s subtitle (in my American edition, and I know it is American because ‘whisky’ is spelled with an ‘e’ in it) is “The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder.” It fits well. There is a certain sacredness to our memories of a youth that does not quite seem our own yet the memories still thrill and wound us in ways they can only if we actually lived them.
The Author’s Note, “I am not I; thou art not he or she; they are not they,” is a curious tease pointing to the possibility, the opportunity to read the text as a roman a clef, a semi-autobiographical review of the author’s own experience. I have in the past read critical works that suggest it is just that: a looking back on Waugh’s own life through, of course, a fictive lens.
I am, of course, struggling NOT to hear Jeremy Irons’ voice or see his face as I read the Prologue. The PBS mini-series is remarkably faithful to the text and, even years since having seen it, prior re-readings of the book were colored, fleshed out by the wonderful characters of the series. I have a copy of the recently made movie version; I both dread and look forward to seeing it.
Among the many things seen clearly for the first time during this reading is the irony with which Ryder early on casts himself as one always caught in the middle and, in some sense, subject to the whims of those around him. Consider first Hooper’s words to (and reported by) Ryder when Hooper is late because he made up his own kit rather than having his servant do it: “But you know how it is. He had his own stuff to do. If you get on the wrong side of these fellows they take it out of you other ways” (10). Then, not more than a full page later, the sergeant-major uses exactly the same words to characterize the possible outcome of Ryder’s intentional rebuff of his superior officer: ” . . . you know how it is. If you get on the wrong side of senior officers they take it out of you other ways” (11). Charles is stuck in the middle, a Captain between the junior officers and the senior officers, in the middle class fascinated with (and in some regard wanting to be among the) landed and wealthy.
As narrator, he has effectively set the stage for us.
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You have me at a disadvantage as I have neither read Brideshead nor have I seen the PBS series. Or, perhaps, it is I who has the advantage because Jeremy Irons is not banging around in my head.
Waugh is a consummate stage-setter. After finishing Book One I went back to read the Prologue, just to admire his craft, and few books draw me to do that without being annoying. This story must have been good therapy for Waugh who joined the Royal Marines just five years before Brideshead Revisited was published. Presupposition aside, it is an interesting tale with articulate connections: Ryder and his aloof but entertaining father against Sebastian and his excessively perfect family.
For a while this is paradise for Ryder but a descent into hell for Sebastian.
I recall reading someplace, after one of my earlier readings of the book, that Waugh, with the aid of a young son of the then PM Churchill, had the manuscript delivered to the publishers from his post (I believe in Yugoslavia, among Tito and the rebels, though I could here be conflating his story with that of the author of Eastern Approaches) by diplomatic courier. I believe this might have been the same article in which I read of the idea of the book as a roman a clef.
One of the things which has always intrigued me about the book and of which I am particularly aware this reading is the wonderful characterization by which the players are drawn. Even without the PBS series banging about in my head, they are among the best in literature. Even those that Forster would call “flat” characters are round in their contribution to the overall feel of Ryder’s reminiscences.
I put off watching the PBS series until after reading the book but then never read the book. This is the great thing about PBS: with Hollywood you would say, “I am putting off watching this movie until after I have read the comic book.” Yes, I have delayed this reading for too long.