Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh, Post 4

This is the fourth post on Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited.

You can find Post #1 here.  

Post #2 here.  

Post #3 here.  

  

Book 2, Chapter 3

Part 1: Charles returns to London to join an anti-communist defense group to resist striking unionists.  In London he goes to a party where an American jazz band is playing and he meets up with Boy Mulcaster and Anthony Blanch.  Mulcaster is an exuberant member of the defense group, and Blanche inform him of what has happened to Sebastian.  Sebastian has become a complete “sot” and found his way to Fez, Morocco and taken up with a German who has intentionally shot his foot to get out of the French Foreign Legion.  Julia having heard Charles is in London summons him to ask him if he can go convince Sebastian to return to see Lady Marcmain before she dies.  Charles agrees.

Part 2: Charles flies out to Casablanca and takes a bus to Fez and makes his way to Sebastian’s house.  There he finds Kurt, Sebastian’s German friend, incapacitated because of his foot that won’t heal, who tells him Sebastian is sick in the hospital.  While attending to Sebastian at the hospital, they receive word that Lady Marchmain has died.  Charles sees Sebastian out of the hospital and back to his home to Kurt where Sebastian is quite satisfied spending his life taking care of Kurt.  Before Chales leaves he arranges Sebastian’s finances. 

Part 3: Back at Brideshead Charles tells Bridey of Sebastian.  Charles is informed that Marchmain House is to be destroyed and is given the commission to paint it, his first commission as an architectural painter.  Cordelia comes by to watch him and they spend dinner together, and Cordelia tells him she hopes she has the vocation to become a nun. 

 

Book 3 Chapter 1

Part 1: Charles brings us ten years ahead and relates the events of those ten years.  He has become a celebrated architectural painter, published several books, becoming world famous.  He has just come back from a two year trip to Mexico and Central America to be re-inspired.  He has come to New York City where his wife, Celia, has come to meet him for the leg back to England.  Charles learns he has had a daughter in his absence, supposedly attributed to him before he departed, and we learn Celia has cheated on him before and after he left for Mexico.  The marriage is still strained, though Celia tries to restart their life together.

Part 2: On board the ship happens to be Julia, who we later learn has come to New York for her own extramarital affair which has not ended well.  As the ship travels, a storm and incredibly rough ocean hits and nearly everyone on board is isolated in their cabins with seasickness.  Charles and Julia are two of the few passengers who do not get seasick, and over the course of three days of the ship pitching and rolling meet, discuss their sad marriages, and fall in love, culminating with a night sleeping together.  When the seas finally return to normal, Charles promises to meet Julia in London. 

###

So what are we to make of Sebastian and Kurt?  I assume this proves Sebastian’s homosexuality.  If so, does that then mean that Charles and Sebastian in those Oxford years were homosexual lovers?  I think it puts my earlier thought that they were friends innocent of sexuality in doubt. 

However, it’s not conclusive either way.  It’s not even conclusive that Sebastian and Kurt are physical lovers.  Kurt has an infected foot that won’t heal and is in constant pain.  I would imagine that could make sexual activity difficult.  Still Sebastian’s attraction to men and lack of attraction to women confirms his homosexuality.

Why is Evelyn Waugh so reticent about the homosexuality?  Does he feel that in 1946 he can’t write openly about it?  And yet he is quite clear about Anthony Blanche’s homosexuality.  Why is he not constrained there? 

Though I am not as confident about it anymore, I still maintain that Sebastian and Charles’ relationship in the Oxford years is innocent and boyish. 

 

My Reply to Frances on Anthony Blanche’s sexual orientation.

You think that makes a difference as to how open Waugh would be about Sebastian and Charles' relationship? He doesn't have to be vividly explicit, but he has to make it clear, especially given that this is in first person narration. Otherwise I do think this is a failing on the novel. If it were third person, I might be a little more forgiving. But Charles is quite clear about his adultery. He has to be as clear on this too, though he doesn't have to be as explicit.

 

Cara, Lord Marchmain's mistress calls the Sebastian/Charles relationship innocent, even though she thinks there was a physical relationship. I have to stand by my comment 30 in the thread of Book 1, Chpaters 4 & 5. It is "a friendship that innocently extends to some sort of physical caress but short of cognizant sex." I have nothing else to go by. What choice do I have as a reader if Waugh doesn't make it clear? The novel would be flawed otherwise. I would rather think the novel is not flawed.

 

Irene Commented on the subject:

I am not trying to be provocative, but I am wondering why the question about any sexual interaction between Charles and Sebastian is important. We know that all these characters are flawed. We know that Sebastian has caused his family great pain by his abuse of alcohol. We know that Charles is not chased. We certainly do not know all the sins of every character. Charles does not narrate every event of his life, only those that will advance the story. So, how would knowing that Sebastian and Charles did or did not engage in some physical sexual behavior change the story? Would knowing that Sebastian was or was not homosexual alter our understanding of him as a character or our understanding of the novel?

 

My Reply to Irene:

You're not being provocative at all Irene. Those are very good questions. Here's my attempt at it on what I can think of now.

 

(1) From an aesthetic point of view, if a first person narrator is not being forthright, then there are implications. A first person novel is a creation of a world inside the narrator's head. Unless the author has an artistic reason for being disingenuous (I'm thinking of Ford Madox Ford's The Good Soldier) then the creation of that world is suspect, the artistry marred, and the reader left with a sense of being cheated. It would be an artistic failing.

 

(2) The arc of the novel moves from a sense of innocence and joy to worldliness, malignancy, and squalor. Remember how Julia's plans for a wonderful wedding degenerates into what she calls "squalid." Every major character except Cordelia goes from joyous and happy to squalid as the novel progresses. Happy drink turns to alcoholism, happy marriages go to adulterous affairs and still born children, and so on. It is important to understand the theme to understand the nature of that innocence. We have to understand "the before" as well as "the after."

 

(3) So much of the novel depends on what is the root cause of Sebastian's unhappiness, or at least his need to be drunk.

Sebastian serves as the model of humanity which is reflected in the other characters. He is the mystery of which Waugh's understanding of human nature rests and is reflected in the other characters. If we knew that Sebastian was an alcoholic because of his homosexual urges in conflict with Catholicism, then our understanding of the novel is altered. Given that Catholicism is of such importance to the novel, this would have to be known. Does he drink because he's Catholic and homosexual? People could draw that conclusion.

 

Irene Replied:

Are we sure that Waugh is writing a psychological character study and not a spiritual study? In other words, are we sure that Waugh wants the reader to focus on the psychological cause of Sebastian's alcoholism, of julia's failed romances, of Charles's discontent? Or does Waugh want the reader to focus on gracious moments in the lives of these undeserving characters? Does it matter if Sebastian abuses alcohol because he has failed to reconcile his sexuality with his moral upbringing, or because he has unresolved animosity toward a father that abandoned the family or a mother who he can't please, or because his brain chemistry makes him susceptible to addictive patterns or....? Or is it enough to see a young man who, despite so many advantages, spiraled down to squallor, but can still care for an ailing friend, can still be drawn to the spiritual in a monastery, can still encounter God and point others to God despite himself because God is so incredibly greater than the wounds we carry or inflict, is present even in the greatest depths of our despair, brokenness, sin?

 

My Reply to Irene:

You know Irene, I think that's right. I'm so conditioned for novels to develop psychological insights to the characters that it was blinding me to the larger theme. Perhaps that's what Mark in earlier comments was trying to say. I was slowly getting there with the unsolved mystery of Sebastian's personality.

 

You also said:

"Does it matter if Sebastian abuses alcohol because he has failed to reconcile his sexuality with his moral upbringing, or because he has unresolved animosity toward a father that abandoned the family or a mother who he can't please, or because his brain chemistry makes him susceptible to addictive patterns or....? Or is it enough to see a young man who, despite so many advantages, spiraled down to squallor, but can still care for an ailling friend, can still be drawn to the spiritual in a monastery, can still encounter God and point others to God despite himself because God is so incredibly greater than the wounds we carry or inflict, is present even in the greatest depths of our despair, brokeness,sin?"

 

Excellent! I think that is the theme to the novel.

 

This does bring up an interesting question on the artistry of novels. Can a novel bring up the psychological dysfunctions of a major character, beg the reader to try to understand the character, and leave them unexplained? I guess it can. Waugh seems to have here.

 

OK, you have answered the psychology part of the novel. But what about that state of innocence? Is Waugh including sexual activity (homosexual or not) as part of that state of innocence? One still needs to know.

 

And what about the reliability of Charles as a narrator? That too would be an open question.

My Reply to a lot of comments:

There's a lot here to respond. First off, if you do a search homosexuality and alcoholism, you will find homosexuals do have a higher rate of alcoholism and other addictions as well as a higher suicide rate. That's a reality. But I'm not talking about the reality. The psychology in a novel does not have to be clinically true. It has to have the sense of verisimilitude. The question is, what does Waugh intend. It is credible for a character in a novel to have a dysfunction due to a root cause. Is the tension between Sebastian's Catholicism and his homosexuality the root cause of his inability to cope? Is that why he takes flight (pun on his name intended) away from his family? I don't know. Waugh lays out other credible root causes. I think I listed five last week in an earlier comment. Is Waugh's intent to show that all of those potential causes are the reason, or to show that none of them, and that the problem is spiritual as Irene insightfully said above?

 

But then that raises another question. What is his spiritual problem? Obviously we are given a very dysfunctional person. As I see it, either we the reader are called to figure it out like a mystery or we are called to accept the unfathomable nature of another human being.

 

My Reply to Frances

Frances wrote: "Joseph Pearce in his excellent Literature: What Every Catholic Should Know, says: “It is evident that there is much of Waugh’s own pre-conversion self in the characterization of Charles Ryder . . . It is hard to see Ryder without seeing a shadow of Waugh, musing on his own loss of faith as a youth and his years as a hedonistic agnostic at Oxford . . . Ryder’s account of undergraduate decadence and debauchery reflects Waugh’s own riotous hedonism at Oxford . . . “

(Joseph Pearce, Literature, page 172).."

 

Yes, that is right. You cannot avoid connecting Ryder with Waugh, and as I pointed out last week (I think it was) it is well known and documented that Waugh had homosexual affairs when in Oxford. The person Sebastian is to have been modeled on was homosexual. Perhaps Pierce doesn't want to glamorize homosexuality in a Catholic book, but the homosexuality is there. The question is whether it's in Sebastian and Charles' relationship, of which I'm skeptical but it's possible. I also don't think there is any question that once we get to the Sebastian and Kurt relationship, that Sebastian is homosexual.

My Comment:

Of those who say Sebastian's sexuality doesn't matter, then does the adultery in the novel not matter? The novel is set in a Catholic worldview. Of course it matters. Every character (except Cordelia) has a moral failing.

 

When Julia rejects divorce as we will see (sorry for the spoiler) does not her Catholic worldview play into her decision? When Lord Marchmain returns to the Church, has he not rejected his life of living in sin? If Sebastian turns away from his homosexuality - I don't know if he does, I'm guessing here since I haven't finished the novel - will that be a return to grace?

 

If Catholicism is the novel's worldview, then the underpinnings of Catholicism control the novel's morality. And how could homosexuality not be important in a Catholic worldview, especially in the mid 20th century?

 

My Reply to Kerstin:

Kerstin wrote: "To me the larger issue here is immaturity vs. maturity. Sexuality is only a symptom. Lets look at infidelity and promiscuity in the upper classes. Marriages are often entered into not because of mutual affection but material security. The emotional needs of the spouses are secondary so they escape into extra-marital affairs and other pleasures. Being emotionally distant even to your family members is often the norm. This sort of thing seems to be taken very much for granted, and is ultimately very immature. The emotional investment and the recognition that your spouse, children, and other family members are human beings made in the image of God asks of us to make sacrifices for the good of the other. Only then can mature relationships develop. Who in this novel is making actual sacrifices for the good of others safe for Lady Marchmain and Cordelia? Even Charles is inconsistent. Yet all of them display some recognition that something very fundamental is missing.."

 

Yes, I agree Kerstin. This is akin to when I said that that Sebastian's problem is his inability to be responsible, to grow up. Sebastian is unfavorably compared to Lady Marchmain's brother Ned, who sacrificed his life in WWI by being responsible. And now we see that all the major characters are in some way irresponsible, or as you say immature.

 

Your last sentence is I think very important: "Yet all of them display some recognition that something very fundamental is missing." Now recall what Julia says about Rex.

 

He simply wasn’t all there. He wasn’t a complete human being at all. He was a tiny bit of one, unnaturally developed; something in a bottle, an organ kept alive in a laboratory. I thought he was a sort of primitive savage, but he was something absolutely modern and up-to-date that only this ghastly age could produce. A tiny bit of a man pretending he was the whole. (p. 231)

 

 

A man who is not whole. Perhaps Rex is the most distinct of the characters to show his fragmentation, but couldn't we say that about all the characters (except Codelia)? Isn't Sebastian not a whole man? Isn't Julia herself not a whole woman? Isn't Ryder not a whole man? He says so himself about himself, just after spending two years in Central America:

 

But despite this isolation and this long sojourn in a strange world, I remained unchanged, still a small part of myself pretending to be whole. (p. 262)

 

 

The modern world has created fragments of our humanity. That is one of the novel's central themes. This is at the heart of modernist literature, the fragmentation of man. This is right out of TS Eliot's poetry. Here is the first stanza of Eliot's "The Hollow Men."

 

We are the hollow men

We are the stuffed men

Leaning together

Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!

Our dried voices, when

We whisper together

Are quiet and meaningless

As wind in dry grass

Or rats' feet over broken glass

In our dry cellar

 

Shape without form, shade without colour,

Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

 

Those who have crossed

With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom

Remember us-if at all-not as lost

Violent souls, but only

As the hollow men

The stuffed men.

 

 

So much of Eliot's poetry echoes in this novel. You can read that entire poem here:

 

Only by rejecting the outside world and accepting God's grace can we achieve wholeness. Only in Christ can we be whole because He is the only man that is completely whole.

 

My Reply to Irene:

Irene wrote: "I think it is fascinating how each of us are approaching this same novel from a slightly different angle and therefore asking different questions of the text. I love to listen to the conversation b..."

 

I don't think we're seeing it all that different. Yes, the grace is key but you can't just disregard or minimize everything else. Waugh brings us through a process of each character's brokenness. That's the bulk of the novel actually. You can't just discard it (I'm exaggerating) and just focus on the grace. There are reasons for the brokenness and that too is central. Now I agree I don't think the homosexuality is a big part of the novel even though Anthony Blanche does keep popping up. I didn't bring it up until mid way in our read. I don't even think it's there in Book 1, except perhaps in some germ which will flower later. Once you see Sebastian settled in a relationship with Kurt, however, it cannot be ignored.

 My Reply to Christine

Christine in BoMass, USA wrote: "I think that Charles and Sebastian were 'in love'. As I indicated before, young adults can fall in love with each other with no sexuality being involved at any level.

 

To your question Irene, I wonder if their 'love' only added to Sebastian's hurt. I do not think that Charles was gay. They might have participated in some 'if you show me yours, I will show you mine', however not much else. I wonder, because it did not blossom into a full blown love affair, that added to Charles' hurt. He did warn Charles that he would leave him for his family.

 

This would be the only reason I can see why the terms relationship has any real bearing on the story."

 

I do see the relationship between Charles and Sebastian in the same way. It's a platonic friendship of close boys. I don't know about the 'if you show me yours, I will show you mine' (LOL, what?), they are 20 years old after all; they are not little boys. But as I pointed out in an earlier comment, Cara says that this happens late with the English.

 

As I finished the novel, I realize that there is an underlying thread of sexuality throughout the novel. I'm reminded of when Charles first meets Julia and Waugh gives us that great line about Charles hearing "a thin bat’s squeak of sexuality" in Julia's voice. After Book 1, which I've said is the idyllic Eden, the narrative turns to finding spouses and soul mates as a key narrative drive. It turns to sex.

 

I have to believe the Sebastian/Kurt relationship is homosexual. Just as Charles matures to a heterosexual, the implication from the parallel construction is that Sebastian matures to being gay. His soul mate becomes Kurt. I don't find any idyllic or sense of innocence in this relationship.

 

I'm not sure I understand your last sentence. Are you unsure why Sebastian and Charles relationship has any bearing on the story?

 

My Reply to Christine:

Christine in BoMass, USA wrote: "Where is the grace? I do not see any grace? I must be blind as a few people have mentioned it already.

 

Grace would be if Sebastian finds some solace and re-establishes some relationship with his family.

 

Grace would be if Charles and Juila stay connected in a meaningful way.

 

I do see Grace in Julia returning to the Church.

 

Looking forward to being enlightened to the grace."

 

Certainly this is the central theme of the novel and requires some thought. Let me attempt to give a quick explanation using Sebastian's life to outline it.

 

Sebastian is an alcoholic. Being drunk is actually a sin. That is not a grace. But God can take that sin and bring graces from it. The alcohol brings Charles and Sebastian together. The friendship manifested in love that comes from it is a grace. Sebastian has some sort of psychological problem, which is not a grace. But the psychological problem contributes Sebastian's sense of charm, which brings friends together and spreads a certain love. This is a grace. He meets Kurt and the two bond in a homosexual bonding. Homosexuality is a sin, and that is not a grace, but the love that comes from it is a grace. It manifests itself into Sebastian's sacrificial love for Kurt. When Kurt dies and Sebastian is left alone, his alcoholism and his psychological problems (again not graces) lead him to a monastery, and the monks take him in. God turns the evil (Sebastian is not evil but the demons within are evil) into graces of love. The monks love him and care for him, and he now absent of the homosexuality and in full communion with the church can die in a state of grace. Much like his father returns to a state of grace before he dies, so too we are to assume happens to Sebastian. There are a lot of parallel constructions going on. We can probably dissect the other character's lives to find the graces that act upon them.

 

At least this is how I see it. Love to hear other's thoughts on this.