A review by margaretmechinus
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

Brideshead Revisited always shows up on the 100 best books of literature lists. I had never read it, but it kept showing up on lists of “books to read” and now that I am listening to audio books, I thought I would give it a try. 12 hours, but I had a road trip coming up, so I had a chance to really get into the story on the way there and almost finished it on the way home.  The narrator is Jeremy Irons, the British actor so that was good. The plot and character development are certainly well written, although it is one of the “awful lot of nothing happening” books that some people do not like and I hate to recommend. But this morning, just before it was due back at the library, I listened to the last 20 minutes. I was so struck by the ending that now I am recommending it. 

 

Brideshead is the home of the Marmain family- think Downton Abby. The father of the family left his wife and went to live in France with his lover. The mother was a devout catholic who had a chapel built on their property. The children were brought up by their mother to be religious but had drifted more toward their father’s way of life, pretty much indifferent to religion. The mother dies, the son loses his life to alcohol, and the daughter is left living in the mansion with her fiance. They have plans to marry, but then the father comes back to the family home because he is dying.  The daughter and her fiance are there at the father’s bedside.  A priest is called. 

 

Before this, the father has run several priests out of the house, but now, near the end, he accepts the last rites from the priest and makes the sign of the cross. 

This was the part about grace that really put it over the top for me- 

 

“I believe that everyone in his (or her) life has the moment when he is open to Divine Grace. It’s there, of course, for the asking all the time, but human lives are so planned that usually there’s a particular time — sometimes, like Hubert, on his deathbed — when all resistance is down and Grace can come flooding in.”