Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder

Evelyn Waugh, 1945

Date Read: 10/24/23

On the surface, this is a novel about friends and religion. However, I believe it is more than that. I think it is a tragic and twisted gay love story.

And I have a good basis for this: the text itself. Charles and Sebastian are called "Fairies" and are friends with a man Charles refers to as "my pansy friend". They go to gay clubs. I believe they are lovers who can't be gay together. Charles always says how beautiful Sebastian is and that's just not something straight men do.

And then it gets fucked up, because Charles ends up having a affair with and almost marrying Sebastian's sister, whom he says looks just like Sebastian. That's really not okay.

There's a lot of religion in this. Like, a lot, especially at the end.

Personally, I think Waugh was hella gay but lived in a time and climate when that wasn't okay. I believe he loved a man at some point who loved him back but they couldn't be together because it was the 1940s. And that's indescribably sad.

I hated the first Waugh novel I read so I am surprising myself by saying this is a beautifully written, transcendentally gorgeous novel that is, in fact, a classic of English literature