Rating: 
Summary: among the handful of the best in his generation
Review: This is the most beautiful book I've ever read! Esp part one, which is like a revisiting of Gatsby's mansion without the roughness of the American wealth. The only thing I've read from this period that can compare is Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse. You can't read it for the plot, but the beauty of the language, the detail, and the simple yearning of a Waugh soul searching in WWII is wonderful
Rating:
Summary: better than I could have ever expected.
Review: I started this basically to escape into some nice, aristocratic british world of the early 20th C. As it turned out, this is probably not a good book for escapists. But still good. The language is beautiful as well as robust (like a good cup of coffee). There's multiple levels of thematic stuff goin on here and it's oh-so complex but still quite wonderful. Not a perfect book, but still a magnificent one (and who'd want to read a perfect book anyway?).
Rating:
Summary: An excellent, worthwhile and rewarding book
Review: Contrary to what is stated by the previous reviewer, the characters in Brideshead Revisited redeem themselves by the end of the book. That is one of the most moving parts about it, to see how persons who have squandered their lives can turn things around and do good. If one reads the entire unabridged book to the end, it should be clear.
Rating: 
Summary: A vivid look into a world gone by, but despicable characters
Review: I listened to the audio of this book after having seen the PBS mini-series years ago and I was amazed to find that the principal characters, by my standards, were dispicable. Charles Ryder, in particular, sent me off when he returned from the jungle and described his relationship with his wife and children (one of whom he had never met and whom he showed no interest in meeting). Through these eyes, I re-viewed Julia and her father and found them both contemptible. Although the era was full of elegance and physical beauty, it is not hard to understand its decline in the hands of such morally bankrupt characters.
Rating: 
Summary: This book is so bad it is torture to read.
Review: It is upperclass british drivel. This book should be dropped from school curriculum. This book was so bad it was no wonder when PBS picked it up and made a mini series. If you like the feeling of banging your head against the wall, read this book!!! Otherwise a caution to all who even think about reading this don't.
Rating:
Summary: One of the Century's best.
Review: There is a reason this book was made into a mini-series in England -- it's a classic. No long-winded review is necessary to impart what is important: the novel is surely one of the best-written stories ever. Waugh's use of language is astonishing. His ability to paint a scene and a mood is also a learning experience for all would-be writers. The story itself is captivating, a glimpse into the inner-workings of a rich Catholic family in decline and one man who comes under its spell. These characters are unforgettable, a testament to Waugh as a writer and an artist.
Rating:
Summary: The epitome of British Literature
Review: Just as *The Great Gatsby* captured the grand excess of the American Jazz Age, so too does Evelyn Waugh's masterpiece *Bridehead Revisited* capture the age of pre-war decadence. The clash between have and have not, so called class and commonness and Catholocism and athieism is brilliantly laid agains a backdrop of education and sexuality. A true coming of age novel, *Bridehead* captures a portrait of a young Charles Ryder as an artist. Content to live his destiny of middle class anguish, Charles meets the challange of his lifetime in Sebastian Flyte. Sebastian, an over grwon child, introduces Charles to a teddy bear named Aloysius, as well as his own upper crust band of misfits family who change the way Charles thinks about life, love, religion and money forever. From Oxford to the war, Waugh gives the reader a hint of a Britain loyal to the monarchy, yet more loyal to themselves. Read *Brideshead* with an open mind of the beauty you are receiving as a reader: the sybolism of the flower throughout, grand side characters like Anthony Blanche, and the little red light near the end that ties up Charles Ryder's visit to Brideshead in the same manner the green light across the lake summed up Gatsby's.
Rating:
Summary: The book must be read slowly and carefully to enjoy it
Review: The melancholic mood of the book makes it perfect ot be read under the shadow of a tree or on dark rainy afternoons. The dissapearence of a time, of a family, a class, and a love is perfectly mixed in the same story. But to feel it the book shall be read according to its inner pace. If you read it all in one night somehow you will lose part of its beauty. Also you shall not read this book if you are looking for action and fun.
Rating:
Summary: A moving tale about the destructive force of charm
Review: Brideshead Revisited is a beautiful tale about the destruction charm can cause. How the beauty and charm of upperclass life can destroy relationships.Evelyn Waugh paints his characters very clearly. Charles Ryder is the upper-middleclass intelligent Oxford student who sees that there is more to Oxford life than mere study. He sees the upperclass and wants to be part of it. Of the parties, of the social circle, of the splendour of their world. Sebastian is a lonesome soul. Using his religion as a toy, a frobbel. He yurns for love, but struggles with homosexuality. Therefore he has no romantic relationship with either a man or a woman until Charles arrives. Charles is not homosexual, but he fills the hole in Sebastian's soul. It is one of the best books in English I've ever read. It is superb.
Rating: 
Summary: Snugghflmsspph!
Review: Should you buy this book? Should you pitch your hard-earned geetus down a latrine? Should you get that nose job, chin bob, tummy tuck and lip suction because it'll make you beautiful again? OF COURSE NOT! Waugh writes real good. Ah mean, he's a purt' near darn sight of a highfalutin English gennleman kinda writer, if you know whut ah mean. Problem is that operation he had as a young man where they cut out his soul. The book reverberates with the empty clang of a man who's never loved anyone but the most BEASTLY of upper class English snobs. Take Sebastian. Waugh lets us know fer sure, dude, that Sebastian is a kind of Christ child charming to all and perfect save for that thing with the absinthe, the whiskey, the wine, the tranny fluid. But except for all the accolades bestowed on Sebastian by everyone else, what does the poor lob do in the book to warrant all the love and affection? Waugh tells us he's a 14 karat guy, but remember that old line, "show, don't tell"? And what about Ryder? The opening passage, where he falls out of love with the army...starts great, but Waugh leaves it hanging. We never learn why, and we never learn what drove him to love it in the beginning. Ah don't lak mah whoppers unfinished, boss. And Ryder is a painter........who has fallen in love with the army...please, please! The most idiotic passage in the whole book comes when Ryder informs the reader that he is "unchanged" after two years virtually alone in the "wastes" of Central and South America. Uh, yeah. There is no tragedy here, only rich, cold-hearted dungheads who know they suffer but, like everyone else, know not why. Waugh throws in some of his trademark racism, with Rex protesting that he's Protestant, not black. Ha, ha. Waugh also fights like hell to make the reader think Julia is something more than a stuffed face...and like brother Sebastian, the only thing she ever does is behave like a mannequin. But there's more. Ryder hates his own children like a good Oxford man should and then tries to make his divorce something significant. If these and the theme of repressed homosexuality get your pulse working, then this is the book for you. To his credit, he's a superb writer. Got all the skills, though, and none of the juice. Sorry, Evelyn. Maybe your son'll do better.
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