Chapter Themes of Brideshead Revisited - Study Guide by Evelyn Waugh

'Oh, I’m so glad. I had an argument with one of our nuns and she said we shouldn’t criticize what we didn’t understand'" (147, italics are not the author's)

When Cordelia talks to him later about faith, her mother, quomodo sedet sola civitas, etc., he rejects God, deriding her "convent chatter": "I was a man of the Renaissance that - of Browning’s renaissance. I, who had walked the streets of Rome in Genoa velvet and had seen stars through Gallileo’s tube, spurned the friars, with their dusty tomes and sunken, jealous eyes and their crabbed hair-splitting speech" (213).

He does not understand the influence of God - on the Marchmains and on him, as he paints Marchmain house, as he argues with Brideshead - until he sees Lord Marchmain make the sign of the cross on his deathbed. He prays for this sign and his prayer is answered. Until then, he is comfortable in his insulated cabin, devoid of God’s grace. Suddenly, the avalanche that has been building up beneath him is unleashed. His log-cabin is torn apart and he is exposed. He enters a different atmosphere - cold without Julia, but bright and glistening in the presence of God.

A book with such a strong religious theme is bound to elicit varied reactions. Some say that Brideshead is Waugh’s finest novel, others that it is his worst. The difference usually comes down to whether or not the reader can stomach the "mumbo-jumbo". As a craftsman, the book is undoubtedly a great work - the satire is, Anthony Blanche might say, "delicious". Waugh’s obsession with language (see introduction) pays off. But some readers find that for all Waugh’s attention to language, the characters lack a semblance of reality. They are no more than puppets, which Waugh uses to act out a masked confession of his own faith, which is somehow "paganistic" wrought with Waugh’s own social prejudice. Other readers, however, do not share these opinions. A catholic critic should realise that it is a matter that readers must decide for themselves.