Memory, that winged host that flew above me

Have you heard about the book club Hayley at Carrots for Michaelmas is hosting about Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited? I'm thrilled because Brideshead  is my favorite book. Ever since it was on my summer reading list senior year of high school, I've re-read it about once a year. On every return visit I've changed a little, and so I notice or enjoy new things. The notes my 17 year old self feverishly made in multi-colored pencil seem a little silly today.

Brideshead Revisted is a great novel becaue its decades-long story has something for everyone. Carefree college antics, coming-of-age angst, love affairs, guilt, religious identity, family drama, the place of Catholics in English society, and some great papist insider jokes. There a so many different facets to ponder, and I've added a page to this blog tracking some of my favorite recent commentary on it.

For me, BR continues to be an obsession because it's all about decorative arts, yo. Architecture and home furnishings are practically the star of the show. Like the Flyte family in Charles' life, BR passages kept popping into my head when I started my master's program at a "museum and country estate."

"Is the dome by Inigo Jones too? It looks later."
"Oh Charles, don't be such a tourist. What does it matter when it was built, if it's pretty?"
"It's the sort of thing I like to know."

All the descriptions of the Flyte family house make so much more sense now. On my first visit to Winterthur, I scoffed at its seemingly redundant acres of antique furniture. Gradually, as I learned to guide tourists through the corridors, I discovered the joy of paying close visual attention to the things around me. After all, historical context is the sort of thing I like to know too.

It was an aesthetic education to live within those walls, to wander from room to room, from the Soanesque library to the Chinese drawing-room, adazzle with gilt pagodas and nodding mandarins, painted paper and Chippendale fret-work, from the Pompeian parlor ... to sit, hour after hour, in the pillared shade looking out over the terrace.

The Chinese Parlor at Winterthur, full of painted paper and Chippendale fret-work.

Even though Charles Ryder is a total jerk sometimes, I do identify with his artistic journey. Eventually shedding his lazy undergrad ways, he soaks up all the art around him, tries his first big painting project, and eventually makes a career out of documenting historic architecture. As the existential trauma that is grad school fades, I tend to remember fondly my two years "in arcadia": with unlimited access to an eight-story mansion.

Most of the time I use my "looking at furniture" master's degree to make obnoxious comments about the background in Downton Abbey scenes (oh man, that William and Mary high chest in Mrs. Crawley's parlor), but I'm still obsessed with photographing architecture. Like Charles, I feel closer to the big truths in life when I'm pondering beautiful things.