Brideshead redux

Brideshead revisited the 1945 so so novel of Evelyn Waugh is back on the screen as cinema. 1982 the BBC turned it into a memorable 11 part series which is long remembered and should be brought back to public television again. A slice of life of British upper Catholics in all its piety, fanaticism, and decline of sorts. Waugh is a jolly reactionary who took to his new faith with a fanaticism which only a convert can display. He describes a world he adores in decline but is not afraid to show warts and all. The new version well has smooth Waugh's reactionary edges...his dislike of the lower orders...and offers up the protagonist Charles Ryder originally played in the series by Jeremy Irons with someone William Goode who has no personality, and what's more adds with a dash of the ordinary of homosexuality. Read the novel, eschew the film, is out recommendation. Despite Waugh's ultra montanism, if you read his letters, he's a lovable old bear and if you read his Gilbert Pinfold, he laughs at his alcholism and his dependency on drugs. He had a sharp eye for character and detail. Read his travel books, his Black Mischief, his Loved One, and his war triology which he took aim and hit more targets than HRH's government would like in its pecking order, its corruption, and at times its incompetence in wartime.