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''Brideshead Revisited, The Sacred & Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder'' is a novel by English writer Evelyn Waugh, first published in 1945. Waugh wrote that the novel "deals with what is theologically termed 'the operation of Grace', that is to say, the unmerited and unilateral act of love by which God continually calls souls to Himself".〔Memo dated 18 February 1947 from Evelyn Waugh to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, reproduced in 〕 This is achieved by an examination of the Roman Catholic, aristocratic Marchmain family, as seen by the narrator, Charles Ryder. In various letters, Waugh himself refers to the novel a number of times as his ''magnum opus''; however, in 1950 he wrote to Graham Greene stating "I re-read ''Brideshead Revisited'' and was appalled." In Waugh's preface to his revised edition of ''Brideshead'' (1959) the author explained the circumstances in which the novel was written, following a minor parachute accident in the six months between December 1943 and June 1944. He was mildly disparaging of the novel, stating; "It was a bleak period of present privation and threatening disaster – the period of soya beans and Basic English — and in consequence the book is infused with a kind of gluttony, for food and wine, for the splendours of the recent past, and for rhetorical and ornamental language which now, with a full stomach, I find distasteful." In the United States, ''Brideshead Revisited'' was the Book of the Month Club selection for January 1946.〔Jeffrey M. Heath, ''The Picturesque Prison: Evelyn Waugh and his writing'' (1982), p. 186〕 In 1998, the Modern Library ranked ''Brideshead Revisited'' No. 80 on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. In 2003, the novel was listed at number 45 on the BBC survey The Big Read.〔("BBC – The Big Read" ). BBC. April 2003, Retrieved 19 October 2012〕 In 2005, it was chosen by ''Time'' magazine as one of the one hundred best English-language novels from 1923 to the present. In 2009, ''Newsweek'' magazine listed it as one of the 100 best books of world literature.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Newsweek's Top 100 Books: The Meta-List - Book awards - LibraryThing )〕 ''Brideshead Revisited'' was brought to the screen in 1981 in a dramatic serialisation on TV, produced by Granada Television. A film adaptation of the book was released in July 2008. The book was also dramatised episodically as a BBC Radio 4 Extra. == Plot == In 1923, protagonist and narrator Charles Ryder, an undergraduate studying history at Hertford College, University of Oxford, is befriended by Lord Sebastian Flyte, the younger son of the aristocratic Lord Marchmain and an undergraduate at Christ Church. Sebastian introduces Charles to his eccentric and aesthetic friends, including the haughty and homosexual Anthony Blanche. Sebastian also takes Charles to his family's palatial mansion, Brideshead Castle, in Wiltshire where Charles later meets the rest of Sebastian's family, including his sister Julia. During the long summer holiday Charles returns home to London, where he lives with his widowed father, Edward Ryder. The conversations there between Charles and Edward provide some of the best-known comic scenes in the novel. Charles is called back to Brideshead after Sebastian incurs a minor injury, and Sebastian and Charles spend the remainder of the holiday together. Sebastian's family are Roman Catholic, which influences the Marchmains' lives as well as the content of their conversations, all of which surprises Charles, who had always assumed Christianity was "without substance or merit". Lord Marchmain had converted from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism to marry his wife, but he later abandoned both his marriage and his new religion, and moved to Venice, Italy. Left alone, Lady Marchmain focuses even more on her faith, which is also enthusiastically espoused by her eldest son, Lord Brideshead ("Bridey"), and by her youngest daughter, Cordelia. Sebastian, a troubled young man, descends into alcoholism, drifting away from the family over a two-year period. He flees to Morocco, where his drinking ruins his health. He eventually finds some solace as an under-porter and object of charity at a Tunisian monastery. Sebastian's drifting leads to Charles's own estrangement from the Marchmains. Charles marries and fathers two children, but he becomes cold towards his wife, and she is unfaithful to him. He eventually forms a relationship with Sebastian's younger sister Julia. Julia has married but separated from the rich but unsophisticated Canadian businessman, Rex Mottram. This marriage caused great sorrow to her mother, because Rex, though initially planning to convert to Roman Catholicism, turns out to have divorced a previous wife in Canada, so he and Julia ended up marrying in the Church of England. Charles and Julia plan to divorce their respective spouses so that they can marry each other. On the eve of the Second World War, the ageing Lord Marchmain, terminally ill, returns to Brideshead to die in his ancestral home. Appalled by the marriage of his eldest son, Brideshead, he names Julia heir to the estate, which prospectively offers Charles marital ownership of the house. However, Lord Marchmain's return to the faith on his deathbed changes the situation: Julia decides she cannot enter a sinful marriage with Charles, who has also been moved by Lord Marchmain's reception of the sacraments. The plot concludes in the early spring of 1943 (or possibly 1944 – the date is disputed). Charles is "homeless, childless, middle-aged and loveless". He has become an army officer, after establishing a career as an architectural artist, and finds himself unexpectedly billeted at Brideshead, which has been taken into military use. He finds the house damaged by the army, but the private chapel, closed after Lady Marchmain's death in 1926, has been reopened for the soldiers' worship. It occurs to him that the efforts of the builders – and, by extension, God's efforts – were not in vain, although their purposes may have appeared, for a time, to have been frustrated. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Brideshead Revisited」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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