“Ought we to be drunk every night?” Sebastian asked one morning.
“Yes, I think so.”
“I think so too.”
(Charles and Sebastian as students discuss their drinking habits in Brideshead Revisited)
Brideshead Revisited is probably Evelyn Waugh’s most famous novel, simply because of the huge success of the 1981 ITV dramatisation. Which is ironic, because there’s a strong case for arguing that Brideshead is the least representative of Waugh’s works.
It’s also odd that it’s so popular, considering it amounts to a prolonged description of the destructive effects of alcoholism, the bitterness of adultery and infidelity, and a sustained account of one of the most dysfunctional families in literature.
Brideshead Revisited is divided into five sections: a short prologue (13 pages) and even shorter epilogue (6 pages) and 3 long central parts which each cover a distinct period in the characters’ lives. At 331 pages in the Penguin paperback…
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Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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