revisiting brideshead revisited

I tried to find a Blogtember list of topics to inspire me what to write about, but instead I found a pretty basic list that included describing myself as though I were the author on the sleeve of a novel.

Melanie lives in the official Food Steamer of the country, Austin, Texas, and does nothing outside the house worth mentioning. She enjoys homeschooling, but in the kind of way that she hates it and resents it, but loves it (she's uncomplicated like that). When she's not homeschooling, she's frantically cleaning her living room rug that she stupidly bought, even though it has white lattice design on it. White. When the kids are in bed, she invests no time into anything productive, instead choosing to binge watch TV shows that recently came out on Netflix and reading the news, which in turn keeps her up late at night due to the anxiety she feels about anything other than someone smiling kindly. She has two children who probably need more structure to their lives and a husband who will be the fastest canonized future saint in the history of Holy Mother Church. Feel free to not contact her, as the social interaction will give her hives and possibly a mild heart attack. 

See? Ain't nobody got time for that.

Except you, if you just read it. Joke's on you.

Another was to write about what makes you happy.

Chocolate.

Check.

Be brave and make a vlog.

Google vlog. Heck to the no.

I am passionate about _________.

Does the term "not exercising" mean anything to you?

The obvious trend here is that this list isn't working for me.


So, I have to come up with things to blog about on my own. The trials I have to go through to keep you entertained.

I looked up the list I half-heartedly half-completed last year and lo and behold, September 24th's prompt was to review a book I've recently read.

Fancy that, as I wanted to write about a book I recently read.

How this book slips through the cracks for a gal who has been reading since she could logically put two letters together to form a concept, I don't know. I took AP English classes, my college schedule was filled to the brim with literature courses and honors seminar classes where all we did was discuss great writing (or not great writing, because let's get real - some of the stuff I read was just plain rotten and everyone acted like it was wonderful. Puh-lease. I can see right through you and your weedy-haze, liberal arts major.). Somewhere buried deep in my closet is a fancy piece of paper that certifies that I understand and excel in literature and creative writing.

Sidenote: post-college gets iffy on the choice of literature. I blame the overload of Amish fiction to the overload junky reading I was forced to do in college classrooms.

Sidenote: I really do like those Amish books. Nothing bad really ever happens. It's salve to my anxious soul.

Unpause.

What I'm trying to say is I read a lot. And my choice of reading is extensive. I've plotted vengeance with Dumas, anticipated the Second Coming with Connelly, cried with Dostoevsky; traveled through history with Rivers and the Thoenes; looked in the mirror with shame alongside Fitzgerald and Hemmingway and scoffed at Rand; I even milk cows alongside those Amish folks I just mentioned. There is nary a book cover left unturned by myself.

So I was surprised when that little "List Ten Books" game was going around Facebook and I kept seeing Brideshead Revisited pop up. I scurried to the library after the third recommendation I'd seen and quickly checked out this old, gorgeous copy from our library. The pages were frail and yellowed and if I could smell, I imagine they smelled musty and inviting. I'm convinced that all good books need to look well-loved, complete with dog-ears and food stains and and a little bit of water damage.

This book looked promising.

When I started it, I quickly realized it was British and written in the beginning half of the 20th century. A lot of good authors came from that period and I had a lot to compare this one to (see: degree buried somewhere in a storage closet in our house). I wasn't impressed immediately and the story didn't draw me in, but I pushed through. Very few books are left unfinished once I've started them.

I'm so glad I did.

I won't ruin plot lines, so bear with the ambiguity.

Once I got past the...British...in it (my blood runs Kelly Green, I can't help it), I was really struck by the depth of the characters that Waugh creates. I was so struck by it that I had to look up the plot to make sure that this book had characters with redeeming stories or qualities about them.

(Let's just say Cormac McCarthy and I aren't pen pals or anything. I can't handle his stories.)

Stick with it, pessimists; it does.

We had guests two days after I started reading this book in bursts (see: homeschooling and carpet scrubbing) and Joseph and I bunked with the girls in their room for the night. Once the wife went to sleep, I surreptitiously left Joseph to entertain the husband and laid down with Molly's flashlight and read for another hour and a half. I got up before anyone else the next morning and finished.

I'm so glad it was before anyone else because I sobbed like a baby at the end and that's just plain embarrassing when you have guests.

It wasn't the type of tragedy that McCarthy presents, where all you can think about is blood and gore and death and pain and suffering and all the things bad in this world.

This was the pain of beauty and redemption and mercy. The ache that experiencing God creates in a human soul.

I'm fully of the opinion that we need to fill our minds and souls with good. Not Pollyanna good, even though I get my fair share of that (Amish books for the win), but true goodness, which sometimes manifests itself in that which opposes evil.

Let me explain.

Pope Leo XIII's vision of the future Church and his witnessing the confrontation between Our Lord and Satan makes my blood run cold. But the beauty and goodness found there is overwhelming, too. Out of that preternatural confrontation, the Church was given one of the most powerful prayers of our time, once which was said at the end of every single Mass until fairly recently. One which families still pray at the end of Rosaries and sleepy children lisp at the end of their days. It's beautiful in and of itself, but also because it opposes evil itself.

The stories of the martyrs are filled with terrible suffering and ultimately death, but fill our hearts with the goodness and beauty of the Faith and their ultimate gift of love for God and the rest of the Church throughout time. St. Maximillian, St. Agnes, St. Thomas More, St. Issac Jogues, the Holy Innocents, St. Lawrence. These are some of the bloodiest stories in recorded history, but some of the most inspiring and good in the truest sense of the word.

Those examples to say that we have to fill our minds with goodness. That which lifts our hearts and souls to Heaven and helps them to desire it more. Not that which weighs us down to this world and it's trappings.

Brideshead Revisited isn't a story for the weak. It's a story that challenges the strong to realize just how weak they might be. It's a story of the Church and how She isn't an institution for the perfect, but one to help bring sinners to holiness and to the One who is perfect. It's a reminder that the mercy of God knows no bounds, as long as we're ready to meet Him with a contrite heart and a realization of our own humanness and failings.

It's a story of Christ thirsting for souls and souls, even unknowingly, longing for Him in return.

Brideshead is a book that every Catholic should read and revisit at least once a year; every Catholic household should have it gracing their bookshelf; every Catholic student should study and analyze it in high school, alongside Hemmingway, Steinbeck, Woolfe, and Fitzgerald.

I truly liken this book to Mr. Blue by Myles Connelly, which is no small comparison, as I think Mr. Blue to be the height of literary achievement during it's time period and well beyond. In fact, I think this could be a prelude to Mr. Blue's life story.

The redemptive story found in Brideshead is truly one that has great potential to be life-changing. Go buy yourself a copy and some Kleenex and settle in for the weekend. Netflix can wait, I promise.