“All the catalog of threats to civilized life rose and haunted me.”
I had too much to drink last night while watching the legendary TV miniseries of Brideshead Revisited, which is unfortunate but thematically correct. A good drinking game for that series would be to drink every time the characters did. Except that, by the end, you would be on the floor and they would still be delivering classic lines, because Evelyn Waugh is a Golden God up in writer heaven and the acting talent is just unbelievable: Jeremy Irons, Sir John Gielgud, Sir Laurence Olivier, and on and on.
Determined to have more to show for Episode 1 than a slight headache, I collected some of the best quotes. Please interpret the italics in the most English way possible.
Yes, they are silently judging you.
Ep. 1: Et in Arcadia Ego
“Oh, and beware Anglo-Catholics. They’re all sodomites with unpleasant accents.”—Cousin Jasper
“I’m sorry. I’m afraid I wasn’t very nice this afternoon… but Brideshead often has that effect on me.”—Sebastian Flyte
“Yes, I had to pay cash for the skull.”—Charles Ryder
“All the catalog of threats to civilized life rose and haunted me.”—Charles, as narrator
“Mr. Ryder? Mr. Ryder? Charles drinks champagne at all hours!”—Sebastian
Sebastian: “I love her. She’s so like me.”
Charles: “Do you? Is she?”
any chance for a “Gentlemen-Head Revisited”?
That is a brilliant idea! It could be my masterpiece: a sprawling 16-panel cartoon touching on the entire range of human experience—or at least three or four good puns.
If you don’t get a chance to catch the whole thing, i’ll ship you the box set.
Dude (or chap, rather), you have the box set of Brideshead? The BSB? If I haven’t said it recently, you have some fine and sophisticated taste. And even if I have said it recently, this time I’m not talking about scotch!
Netflix seems to be doing a good job providing the discs. The looming concern now: I’m gonna have to reread the thing. Not only does it linger on all of the ornaments of civilization, it also turns over all the big questions: love, religion, war, peace, wealth, responsibility, identity… Just so good.