A twitch upon the thread

I caught him with an unseen hook and an invisible line which is long enough to let him wander to the ends of the world and still to bring him back with a twitch upon the thread.

--G. K. Chesterton, The Innocence of Father Brown

I've been re-reading Evelyn Waugh's novel Brideshead Revisited this week, after finally getting around to watching Hollywood's movie version. The story is probably more commonly known to most of us through the 11 ½-hour mini-series that was televised on PBS, and that can still be rented on DVD.

The mini-series was an opulent re-creation of the period between the world wars, as viewed from the limited and privileged position of the British aristocracy. University life at Oxford, manorial life at Brideshead (filmed at Castle Howard in Yorkshire), and misty scenes of Venice as seen from softly gliding gondolas, pre-Mussolini and pre-mass tourism. If only we could have lived then, we think (assuming, of course, that we were titled nobility)!

Waugh was an unapologetic Tory. He wrote his novel during the hardships and deprivations of World War II. He lamented the democratization of Britain which, as he viewed it, had led to the permanent lowering within Britain of all sorts of cultural and esthetic standards. The novel certainly does wallow in nostalgia, as did the mini-series. But Waugh's nostalgia was incidental. Waugh was a Catholic convert, and his novel expresses primarily his sense of how the same narrative events could be interpreted from opposite directions, depending on whether they were seen through the eyes of the world or through the eyes of faith.

The narrator, Charles Ryder, an intelligent, sensitive artist, and an atheist, interprets what he sees as the world does, and as we no doubt would. He forms a close friendship at Oxford with Sebastian Flyte, the eccentric son of a Catholic aristocratic family headed by Lord and Lady Marchmain, a dynasty whose family seat is the magnificent estate called "Brideshead." To varying degrees, the members of the Flyte family, unlike Charles, interpret the events that so deeply affect their lives through the eyes of faith, and come, as a result, to very different conclusions.

Charles Ryder feels as the story develops, as indeed most of us would, that each member of his friend's family has been ultimately destroyed, tragically, as a result of the family's devotion to its church. The youngest of the Flytes, Lady Cordelia, who was only a funny and engaging child when first met, speaks for her faith when she later insists that the ups and downs of their lives, whether their lives are happy or unhappy, is of little importance. The salvation of their souls is all that really matters; a life of great unhappiness as the world views it is beneficial if it serves as the means for God to pull one back -- like the "twitch upon the thread" in Chesterton's detective story -- to himself.

As Charles narrates the novel, he sees his best friend, who we meet at the outset as a witty and charming young man, develop into an habitual drunk, living in poor health and squalor in Morocco. Lord Marchmain has fled his wife and England and lives in Venice, shunned by his own society because of his mistress. Lady Julia Flyte, Sebastian's sister, with whom Charles ultimately enters into a passionate love affair, refuses to marry him because of her church's refusal to permit a second marriage. Lady Cordelia leaves the convent she once joined, and ends up working alone in Africa, serving the most desperate of the poor. And Lady Marchmain, the matriarch of the family, who loves each of her children and whose faith is the most certain and unyielding, dies a lonely death, separated from them all because of the demands she has placed on them throughout their lives.

In the end, all the family members have either died or wandered away from Brideshead, leaving the mansion empty and available for the billeting of troops during World War II. But each of them has died at peace with God, or is finding his or her way back to God, or, like Sebastian, is living an outwardly degrading life as a "holy fool" for God. Charles returns to Brideshead as a depressed and lonely middle-aged army officer, and recalls the golden, hopeful days of his youth, filled with joy and surrounded by beauty within its walls, in the company of Sebastian and his family.

In a not-quite-convincing conclusion, Charles, while stationed as an army captain at Brideshead, stumbles upon Bridehead's abandoned private chapel. He finds the sanctuary lantern still burning in the darkness, a red beacon upon the altar. Piercing his skepticism, the still flickering candle suggests to him the real and continuing presence of God. Despite the unfortunate events of his life, events that have left him alone and friendless, awkwardly serving in an army for which he is unsuited by his artistic temperament, he feels suddenly happy for the first time in years.

"You're looking unusually cheerful to-day," said the second-in-command. -- These are the final words of Waugh's novel.

The "twitch upon the thread" has apparently begun its work, pulling not only the members of the Flyte family, but Charles Ryder as well, back to the God of their ancestors.

The movie now showing in theaters is just ok. The photography is beautiful. Although the film makes a mess out of portions of Waugh's plot line, its director does seem to acknowledge, at least, that the theme of the novel in some way concerns the consequences of religious faith, faith of a very deep (and today unfashionable) (and to the director, unacceptable) variety.

Brideshead Revisited, the book, is beautifully written, and far more complex in characterization, dialogue, and plot (and much funnier in parts) than this short post can suggest. It is not just a reminiscence, lamenting the loss of happier days in a more golden England. When I first read the book in college, in fact, I did so because it was a required reading in a course called "The Theological Novel in Modern Europe." The story is entertaining, but it engages the mind and spirit as well. You need not agree with Waugh's theology to appreciate his skill in weaving an uncompromising theological position into a story that was, for the 1940's, quite contemporary and even somewhat scandalous.

In short, my usual suggestion: Skip the movie and read the book!