- Oct 29, 2024
- 3 min read
Updated: Nov 4, 2024
This past summer, my husband and I took a stroll through the marvellous countryside of Empordà, Spain. With one headphone each, we listened to Charles Ryder, well Jeremy Irons, narrate Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh. Now, on a dark and cold evening, I find myself thinking back to that day, feeling much as Charles must have when he remembered those early days at Brideshead, his first and most glorious summer with Sebastian.
I’ve always been a fair-weather reader and listener, drawn to the lighter side of things, so the beginning of Brideshead strikes the finest note with me. There is no better world to glide into than that of Sebastian and Charles as they punt around Oxford with Aloysius underarm and a glass of champagne in the other hand.
I know this series, and of course, the book itself holds a special place in the hearts of many in the world of interiors. How could it not? That first episode just breaks my heart from scene to scene. I thought, what a great way to spend an hour going through said scenes and grabbing each of those beautiful moments. I came for the interiors but was completely bowled over by the colour. God how lucky we are that an episode of this can be purchased for £1,89.
'I say plovers eggs, the first I have seen this year - where did you get them? '
'Nothing except the gold daffodils seemed to be real'
'A few pretty things I'd like to show you somedeay'
'At the end of the term I took my first schools; it was necessary to pass, if I was to remain at Oxford and pass I did, after a week in which I forbade Sebastian my rooms and sat up to a late hour, with iced black, coffee and charcoal biscuits, cramming myself with the neglected texts'
'I got in with some thoroughly objectionable O.S.C.U. men who ran a mission to hop-pickers during the long vac.'
'Two for you and two for me - yum yum.'
'I said 'If you knew anything of sexual psychology, you would know that nothing could give me keener pleasure than to be m-m-m-manhandled by you meaty boys - ecstacy of the *naughtiest* kind.'
"But who recognizes you? The other day I was speaking to Sebastian about you, and I said, 'But you know Charles is an artist. He draws like a young Ingres,' and do you know what Sebastian said? 'Yes, Aloysius draws very prettily, too, but of course he's rather more modern.'
'You would think that the old reprobate had tortured her, stolen her patrimony, flung her out of doors, roasted, stuffed and eaten his children, and gone frolicking about wreathed in all the flowers of Sodom and Gomorrah; instead of what? Begetting four splendid children by her, handing over to her Brideshead and Marchmain House in St. James's and all the money she can possibly want to spend, while he sits with a snowy shirt-front at Larue's with a personable, middle-aged lady of the theatre, in the most conventional Edwardian style. And she meanwhile keeps a small gang of enslaved and emaciated prisoners for her exclusive enjoyment. She sucks their blood.'
'Hayter bought you the evening paper. no news of course. such a lot of nonsense
End of Episode One
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