Book Review - Brideshead Revisited

Oh good grief, this book was the suck.

The book cover had a blurb declaring it 'the best novel of the 20th century'.

Seriously?!?!

It wasn't even that blurb that sucked me in. I mean Ulysses usually makes the top of every "Best Novels of the 20th Century" list and I wouldn't read that pile of doody if you paid me. No. What conned me into reading this book was the picture of Emma Thompson on the cover. Apparently she played one of the main characters in a movie adaptation of the book. Emma Thompson does not do crap books people. Until now apparently.

I can hardly explain this. The main character Charles is a soldier in WWII. His unit moves camp and ends up at Brideshead. Charles begins a long flashback about how he came to know the family that once occupied Brideshead. So far, so good. That's a pretty awesome setup in my opinion. I had high hopes at this point. Great intro, beautiful sentences, English countryside. What could go wrong?

Ugh.

What follows is 300 pages of meandering nonsense. Charles falls in man love with Sebastian. Sebastian is a drunk. The family is worried about Sebastian being a drunk. They all move on with their lives for about ten years until Charles meets Sebastian's sister on an ocean liner. They are both married to other people. They fall in love? They begin an affair. They cause scandalous divorces. Sebastian is still a drunk. I don't care about any of these people.  Blah, blah, blah.

  It took me over a week to read this 300 page book. I'm never gonna get those days back.