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3.87 AVERAGE
3.87 AVERAGE
reflective
relaxing
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
anthony blanche best character i wanna be his friend
This book ranks 45 out of 100 of the best books via BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/bigread/top100.shtml). It's a coming of age type of book except that the main character is looking back at his youth. When we look back at our younger selves, we see the things we did differently through our older selves. The people he hung out with, the things he did, the love he had for his friends gives you so much to think about.
I read this book with a "Banned" book club group. This story gave us so much to talk about. It took me about halfway through or at least to Part Two of the book to really get into it. There are some subtle pieces of information that if you catch them early on makes the rest of the story, and the ending make more sense.
I read this book with a "Banned" book club group. This story gave us so much to talk about. It took me about halfway through or at least to Part Two of the book to really get into it. There are some subtle pieces of information that if you catch them early on makes the rest of the story, and the ending make more sense.
In an effort to read more of the Great Novels, I bought this a few weeks ago and I’m so glad I did. And while the prose is elliptical in that way that most older novels are (as much due to changes in the way we communicate as to the glossing-over of more “explicit” themes that had to be rendered implicit at the time) BRIDESHEAD still reads really quickly and if it makes you “work for it” a little more than contemporary novels do, it’s a pleasure doing so. There really isn’t much to say about this that hasn’t been said thousands of times since it’s publication, but it was a true pleasure to read and is so obviously a huge influence on more modern books I’ve read over the years without knowing their debt to Waugh (McEwan’s ATONEMENT springs to mind). Excellent.
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I expected something more witty, something more satirical, something more gay (take that whatever way you will)--what I got instead was one of the most beautiful meditations of life, time, memory and loss I've every experienced. Might very well become an all-time favorite.
Picked this because I vowed to read more of the "classics" and the books on all those "Must Read" lists. In the first couple of chapters I wasn't sure I picked poorly, but it grew on me and then I could not put it down. It is just very English and wordy. The descriptions are beautiful and VERY minute, but I normally need more action to pull me in. Once I had a good grip of the characters then I was more invested and hooked. The ending came too fast and I wanted dearly to know the futures of these new friends.
-had very funny moments
-characterization of Flyte siblings was SO interesting, identifiable, and dynamic. obviously i am partial to julia, who came into the book taking a cigarette from charles’s mouth and ended it by (proverbially) putting it back. she was fascinating the whole way through
-wish that sebastian had come back at all at the end? felt odd that, having been so central to charles, he kind of disappeared from the pages. but interesting that charles “lost” both him and julia to religion in the end
-which makes me think: other than a slight shift towards religion, not sure how much charles was actually changed by the events at brideshead. maybe we don’t see enough of him in the present to know/the present is too close to the past. but he felt the most static of anybody.
-characterization of Flyte siblings was SO interesting, identifiable, and dynamic. obviously i am partial to julia, who came into the book taking a cigarette from charles’s mouth and ended it by (proverbially) putting it back. she was fascinating the whole way through
-wish that sebastian had come back at all at the end? felt odd that, having been so central to charles, he kind of disappeared from the pages. but interesting that charles “lost” both him and julia to religion in the end
-which makes me think: other than a slight shift towards religion, not sure how much charles was actually changed by the events at brideshead. maybe we don’t see enough of him in the present to know/the present is too close to the past. but he felt the most static of anybody.
informative
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
2.5/5
When I first started reading this book, I was puzzled, lost even in my effort to find what exactly the author was attempting. As time and pages passed, I grew horribly angry with it all, and wondered if I would be able to finish and review the story without a note of fury running through it and wrecking what analysis I could present. Now that I've finished, I find myself saddened by the entire experience. With that in mind, let me explain.
This story had a great deal of potential in it, oblique mentions of heartrending stories of religious guilt and tortured shame and individual souls beating themselves bloody on the walls of an uncaring sociocultural framework, and it is largely this potential that kept me going through pages of insipidly flat characters running around, trampling on everyone without the slightest attempt to understand their desires or care about the ones of others. To put it plainly, I loathed every single one of them, the narrator most of all, who made great friends with the one person whose storyline could have redeemed the entire book. Instead of caring the slightest bit for said 'friend', he wasted countless pages on selfish pursuits of 'love' and 'art' and philosophical meanderings that were the most pitifully idiotic things I have seen in a long time. Why is he alone? Why does life pass him by? What is beauty, history, and why has he been driven from Arcadia? Because he's an emotionally stunted git who makes friends and discovers passions and finds love and doesn't care about any of it, or if he does chooses to expound on it in the most unbelievable of ways, drawing upon learning and knowledge that are nothing more than out of character information dumps formatted in purple prose more laughably ridiculous than beautiful (excessive semicolons are not to everyone's taste).
And then I thought to myself, wait. It isn't just the narrator that suffers from this, but the entire cast of characters, the whole story even, a whole flat mess of caricatured nonsense that is trying to convey a message in the most contrived of methods. Which means only one thing. This is the author that is failing miserably at delivering, and there's no wonder why.
This is the kind of book that English classes would adore, or at least the teachers would, as while the work is not so great in itself, it is the perfect springboard for discussion of all matters of issues. Best of all, the flat characters that drown their passions in meaningless prattle, the obvious distinctions between when the author is droning out plot and when he is attempting to convey themes and meaning, the constant hints at powerful emotions of religious suffering, cultural decay, and sexual deviancy? All perfect material for discussions and essays, as there are barely any obvious overtones for the students could grasp at, a paltry amount of quotes for easy access to what teachers would consider to be "critical thinking". Chances are, this is what the author took away from the classroom, and these are the methodologies by which he chose to write his book.
It's disappointing, really, to see the effects of classroom indoctrination in something deemed a classic, which raises the question of what a "classic" really implies. I've read many that are certainly worthy of the title in my mind, novels that pushed and pulled at my sensibilities, opened my mind to gorgeous forms of prose and powerful emotional themes, changed my worldview countless times while managing to achieve the simple goals of making me laugh, cry, feel for characters that I will never truly know but find them as fascinatingly complex nonetheless, regardless of whether they inspire love or hatred. This book, though. It fulfills the aspects required for the average education well enough, and is worthwhile in its own way. But it could have been so much more, and the fact that it isn't is a tragedy in itself.
Back when I was still feeling angry with the story, I considered not reading the rest of the author's works that I have added. I've decided that I will, but not for a while, and only for the hope that he made some improvements. It's not his fault that the education concerning literature is not what it could be, and shows itself so plainly in his writing. I can only hope for improvement in the future.
When I first started reading this book, I was puzzled, lost even in my effort to find what exactly the author was attempting. As time and pages passed, I grew horribly angry with it all, and wondered if I would be able to finish and review the story without a note of fury running through it and wrecking what analysis I could present. Now that I've finished, I find myself saddened by the entire experience. With that in mind, let me explain.
This story had a great deal of potential in it, oblique mentions of heartrending stories of religious guilt and tortured shame and individual souls beating themselves bloody on the walls of an uncaring sociocultural framework, and it is largely this potential that kept me going through pages of insipidly flat characters running around, trampling on everyone without the slightest attempt to understand their desires or care about the ones of others. To put it plainly, I loathed every single one of them, the narrator most of all, who made great friends with the one person whose storyline could have redeemed the entire book. Instead of caring the slightest bit for said 'friend', he wasted countless pages on selfish pursuits of 'love' and 'art' and philosophical meanderings that were the most pitifully idiotic things I have seen in a long time. Why is he alone? Why does life pass him by? What is beauty, history, and why has he been driven from Arcadia? Because he's an emotionally stunted git who makes friends and discovers passions and finds love and doesn't care about any of it, or if he does chooses to expound on it in the most unbelievable of ways, drawing upon learning and knowledge that are nothing more than out of character information dumps formatted in purple prose more laughably ridiculous than beautiful (excessive semicolons are not to everyone's taste).
And then I thought to myself, wait. It isn't just the narrator that suffers from this, but the entire cast of characters, the whole story even, a whole flat mess of caricatured nonsense that is trying to convey a message in the most contrived of methods. Which means only one thing. This is the author that is failing miserably at delivering, and there's no wonder why.
This is the kind of book that English classes would adore, or at least the teachers would, as while the work is not so great in itself, it is the perfect springboard for discussion of all matters of issues. Best of all, the flat characters that drown their passions in meaningless prattle, the obvious distinctions between when the author is droning out plot and when he is attempting to convey themes and meaning, the constant hints at powerful emotions of religious suffering, cultural decay, and sexual deviancy? All perfect material for discussions and essays, as there are barely any obvious overtones for the students could grasp at, a paltry amount of quotes for easy access to what teachers would consider to be "critical thinking". Chances are, this is what the author took away from the classroom, and these are the methodologies by which he chose to write his book.
It's disappointing, really, to see the effects of classroom indoctrination in something deemed a classic, which raises the question of what a "classic" really implies. I've read many that are certainly worthy of the title in my mind, novels that pushed and pulled at my sensibilities, opened my mind to gorgeous forms of prose and powerful emotional themes, changed my worldview countless times while managing to achieve the simple goals of making me laugh, cry, feel for characters that I will never truly know but find them as fascinatingly complex nonetheless, regardless of whether they inspire love or hatred. This book, though. It fulfills the aspects required for the average education well enough, and is worthwhile in its own way. But it could have been so much more, and the fact that it isn't is a tragedy in itself.
Back when I was still feeling angry with the story, I considered not reading the rest of the author's works that I have added. I've decided that I will, but not for a while, and only for the hope that he made some improvements. It's not his fault that the education concerning literature is not what it could be, and shows itself so plainly in his writing. I can only hope for improvement in the future.