I have stated in the past how much I enjoy Evelyn Waugh’s novel Brideshead Revisited. My own unpublished memoir parallels many things in that work. I also find the BBC Television version to be an excellent adaption.
I have been viewing on YouTube a series called Brideshead Rewatched. I find the commentary by the author ThatAndyDavisFellow stimulating and provoking.
Look for my comments @ajperkins288 on these videos. I will follow the whole series.
Choice Comments: Here are my comments that I particularly liked
For decades, literally, I would ask myself, “What is wrong with Charles?” Since day one, Sebastian warned Charles not to get close to his family. He did not want them to take Charles away from him. Yet, here Charles goes and has his little private talks with Lady Marchmain, much to the displeasure of Sebastian. Can’t Charles see that his actions are jeopardizing his friendship with Sebastian?
Charles uses the excuse that he is only being polite to Lady Marchmain, but I suspect there is a subconscious draw that is pulling him to Sebastian’s mother. In Sebastian, for the first time in his life, Charles has friendship and love, and with that friendship, Charles can experience the happy childhood denied him in his youth.
However, there is a greater need that is pulling on Charles, that of a mother. That need is stronger than his need for a friend. Charles’ mother was driven away by his father, which resulted in her death when he was very young, too young in those formative years. Charles can’t help his fascination with Lady Marchmain. Although cold, callous, and manipulative, she takes an interest in Charles, and that gives him the closest thing to a mother that he ever had.
For years, I wanted to slap Charles and say, “What’s wrong with you, man? Can’t you see you are ruining your friendship with Sebestain by spending time with that woman?” I now understand that subconsciously, Lady Marchmain is fulfilling Charles’ need for a mother and that he can’t help but become closer to her, even if it is at the expense of his friendship with Sebastian.
Sebastian rejected Lady Marchmain as a mother and took on Nanny Hawkins as his surrogate mother. The mother that Sebastian rejected ultimately becomes the mother that Charles embraces, only in a figurative term, I state. One can’t imagine Lady Marchmain embracing anyone or anything other than the Holy Eucharist in the chapel, even if that were possible.
It is at this time that Sebastian’s drinking increases. Is it due to him seeing his only friend Charles drift away, into the clutches of his family and enemy, something he forewarned years earlier? Or is it because he merely is taking after his drunkard father, as Lady Marchmain states? I tend to believe the former and not the latter. I can’t believe anything that woman would suggest with her distorted and actually narcissistic view of the world and the people around her.
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