Reworking an old post on the ending of Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited for the slider, I stumbled on something pretty remarkable, the memorandum Waugh wrote to MGM in 1947 about the possible filming of the book. Needless to say, it is extremely rare that an author, especially of Waugh’s caliber, unpacks the meaning and mechanics of their work so thoroughly (in print)–down to specific metaphors! And I’m not so sure it serves potential readers; that is, if you haven’t had the delight of reading Brideshead, which we could not possibly recommend more strongly, best to start there rather than here. One almost wonders what his real intentions with the memo were, i.e. did he really want the “California savages” (as he called them) to adapt his work, or was he having a slightly contemptuous laugh? Some have suggested that he was really only after an all-expenses paid trip to the coast. Regardless, it’s amusing to imagine studio executives reading it. And whatever Waugh’s intent, to see the Grace aspect of the book (and mini-series!) spelled out so clearly and eloquently is really something to behold:
The theme is theological. It is in no sense abstruse and is based on principles that have for nearly 2,000 years been understood by millions of simple people, and are still so understood. But it is, I think, the first time that an attempt will have been made to introduce them to the screen, and they are antithetical to much of the current philosophy of Hollywood. It is for this reason that I venture to restate them briefly here:
1. The novel deals with what is theologically termed, “the operation of Grace”, that is to say, the unmerited and unilateral act of love by which God continually calls souls to Himself;
2. Grace is not confined to the happy, prosperous and conventionally virtuous. There is no stereotyped religious habit of life, as may be seen from the vastly dissimilar characters of the canonised saints. God has a separate plan for each individual by which he or she may find salvation. The story of Brideshead Revisited seeks to show the working of several such plans in the lives of a single family…
The Flyte family is seen through the eyes of Charles Ryder, an atheist, to whom at first their religion is incomprehensible and quite unimportant. It is only bit by bit throughout the action that he realises how closely they are held by it, and the book ends with Charles himself becoming a Catholic…
The second half [of the novel]… it shows how the Grace of God turns everything in the end to good, though not to conventional prosperity… The principal theme of the second half is the redemption of Julia, the final spur to which is her father’s deathbed reconciliation with the Church, which, if properly played, should be a finely dramatic scene.
Charles has now become a successful painter, largely through the help of a socially established wife. Whether this wife appears in the film or not does not seem to me essential, but there must be an impediment to the marriage of Julia and Charles. Otherwise since Julia’s marriage to Rex has never been ecclesiastically valid, there is no reason why she should not marry Charles and provide a banal Hollywood ending. I regard it as essential that after having led a life of sin Julia should not be immediately rewarded with conventional happiness. She has a great debt to pay and we are left with her paying it.
Charles meets Julia on board ship returning to England from America, and although they have never been close to one another, and there has been no suggestion of a love affair between them, it should be delicately suggested that both of them were conscious that they were in some way fated to be of vital importance in one another’s life [sic]. It is not the “plan” that they should be lovers, in fact the importance of which they are conscious is really that each is to bring the other to the Church; but defiantly they do become lovers.
…the climax is the return of Lord Marchmain as a dying man, and I think the whole of this episode should be filmed almost directly from the novel, including the controversy about the admittance of a priest with the last sacraments. It is important that the priest should be as unlike as possible to any priest hitherto represented in Hollywood. He must be a practical, single man. Doing his job in a humdrum way… I regard it as important that in some way it should be made plain that Charles is reconciled to Julia’s renunciation. He has realised that the way they were going was not the way ordained for them, and that the physical dissolution of the house of Brideshead has in fact been a spiritual regeneration.
p.s. Let us all take a moment to appreciate the genius and hilarity of Sir John Gielgud (and good cousin Melchior):
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJEZuymwmZw&w=600]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKjP2ZsfqIM&w=600]
COMMENTS
9 responses to “Charles Ryder, Julia Flyte and the Operation of Grace in Brideshead Revisited”
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What an amazing discovery Dave. It makes explicit that which many of us have felt to be implicit in the text. Sure enough, we were right. I remember one of my friends in Birmingham, possible the smartest guy I know, told me he reads Brideshead every January to usher in the new year.
I made a “pilgrimage” to Castle Howard in 2009 explicitly because of the power this novel had for me.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jddean/4019016745/
What’s the source of the black & white cartoon of Charles, Sebastian, and Julia on the Mockingbird frontpage directing the reader to this article? It’s brilliant!
Yeah, I was pretty thrilled when I found it! It’s an Al Hirschfeld original from 1985. I’m presuming it was published in The NY Times to accompany a review or something, but I couldn’t find any details.
LOVE THIS! Just started watching the BBC series, happy to have this as a guide.
I just finished watching Brideshead. It is fascinating for so many reasons and brilliantly done. As a divorced Catholic woman, I really relate to Julia. Hauntingly so…
Great novel! Thanks for sharing this letter.
Netflix has an old BBC miniseries of Brideshead Revisited in it’s line up right now.
This sharing reminds me that there are some versions of Christianity, in this case Catholicism that utterly repel me (speaking as a Catholic Christian). Waugh’s notion of Christianity, of Catholicism goes to my memory in my teenage years: “Are we just carrying out these religious rituals because we have always carried them out? Is this just the practice of religion for the sake of religion?” Waugh’s answer is clearly yes – and that does tend to be the case for archconservative Catholicism. It doesn’t ask the tricky questions about God. It’s happy to go through the rituals without thinking very much about them. Lady Marchmain’s comment that “happiness in this life is irrelevant”, that it’s only about the after life/heaven – why on earth bother with being human on earth? Or do we have to prove ourselves to God first? So being good girls and boys (in the sense of doing what God tells us simply because God tells us, not because God is calling us to something more in this life). Waugh’s narrow idea of God, and his Grace, in relation to a severe or serious patriarch deity. The word Grace comes from charis and it means so many positive things (joy, delight, happiness). Waugh focuses on people being pulled into line and that that is more important than a God who is far more relational and nuanced. He thinks he’s made such a great case for Catholicism and he ignores the real and unfair carnage, which Charles himself hates. Sebastian, likely homosexual and his existential crisis created by religion which sees it as abomination and impossible. It is good that he finds a peace of sorts in the end, but the suffering continues alongside his alcoholism. Love is where Lady M failed at least two of her children, if not all. She had the best intentions but failed Sebastian and Julia. She ensured that Charles and Julia could not be together in the long term. Waugh absurdly says that after all that sin, she had to pay her debt. I would rather be an atheist than believe in that sort of petty God. Waugh also missed the power of love for human well being, that Charles, who had been deprived of virtually all love, even as a child, learned from Sebastian and Julia. The truth of Sebastian and the truth of Julia is the great suffering they have experienced because of the level of power their mother exerted over them. Yes, they sensed there was more to Catholicism-Christianity that their mother’s interpretation, which saved them in many senses. Grace is about the boundless gift of love from God. God desires us to live out of the depths of who we are which is what he intended for us (but not necessarily 1 plan only)