As It Turns Out, Not a Sequel

When I was in junior high, I used to look at the book Brideshead Revisited and want to read it because it had the pretty BBC mini series pictures on the cover (Jeremy Irons, yowzah), which was quite an attractive facet for me. I didn't read it because of the word "revisited." Sans research (perhaps the fatal flaw in my logic), I assumed that this was an author coming back to, revisiting previous material or characters. I hate reading or watching anything from the middle of the narrative world. I don't watch tv shows unless I've seen the pilot; I always start from the beginning. Because I thought this book wasn't the first in the series, I didn't want to read it.

A scant ten years later as I'm exploring Evelyn Waugh (because of Bright Young Things and Vile Bodies), I realized that, in fact, the book stands by itself. I read it over the past couple of days, and it is fantastic. It's probably for the best that I didn't read it when I was in junior high. I wouldn't have understood it. Wouldn't have noticed the homosexual themes (not that I revel in them, but they are important to the understanding of the work). Wouldn't have had any sympathy for the adulterous characters (again, not reveling, but accepting that we are screwed up people). There's a beauty that I'm fascinated with in the falleness of the British aristocracy.

Tonight I watched I Heart Huckabees. Hilarious. Fantastic. Incredible. Run, don't walk.