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Brideshead Revisited

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About this listen

The wellsprings of desire and the impediments to love come brilliantly into focus in Evelyn Waugh's masterpiece - a novel that immerses us in the glittering and seductive world of English aristocracy in the waning days of the empire.

Through the story of Charles Ryder's entanglement with the Flytes, a great Catholic family, Evelyn Waugh charts the passing of the privileged world he knew in his own youth and vividly recalls the sensuous pleasures denied him by wartime austerities.

At once romantic, sensuous, comic, and somber, Brideshead Revisited transcends Waugh's early satiric explorations and reveals him to be an elegiac, lyrical novelist of the utmost feeling and lucidity.

©1945 Evelyn Waugh (P)2015 Hachette Audio Classics Heartfelt

Critic reviews

"Waugh's most deeply felt novel... Brideshead Revisited tells an absorbing story in imaginative terms...Mr. Waugh is very definitely an artist, with something like a genius for precision and clarity not surpassed by any novelist writing in English in his time." ( New York Times)
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Jeremy Irons and his wonderful, elegant and gracefully modulated delivery gives sympathy, pathos and realism to this wonderful and important novel.

Beautiful and moving novel, beautifully told

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It's fine but I didn't find the story particularly interesting. I struggled to work out what the narrative thread was. Of course, it's supposed to be Brideshead but I think, in fact, it's Catholicism. It was okay though, bearable but not for a relisten. I liked the narration a lot though.

Not really my cup of tea

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Jeremy Irons was excellent. The story was very good however a little long in parts. Overall , a very pleasant listen.

Very enjoyable

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My god what a treat . I cried when it was finished. The best ever , a must .

The best book ever read by a genius

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I listened to this version of Waugh’s classic after reading it and watching the original TV adaptation and was therefore excited at the prospect of Jeremy Irons being its narrator. He truly embodied the narration of Charles Ryder as the outsider looking in to a lavish world of wealth and religion.

The plot is somewhat predictable but I don’t think that undermines Waugh’s writing and his craft of creating characters. The imagery is beautiful and clever, drawing on the clashes of religion with the elaborate lives of the central characters. Irons’ narration was at times slightly grating with reference to the female characters but it was bearable and somewhat expected.

This novel will always be one of my favourites and i will be sure to ‘revisit’ this particular version.

One of the best novels brought to life.

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