Some Musings

Uh, hi. I exist.

I have enjoyed reading everyone's comments so far. Since we all represent different fields of study (philosophy, sacred music, computer science, literature), I’m going to stick to what I know which is writing. I know a bit about literature, but Marta knows more so I bow to her superior knowledge (incidentally she graduated summa cum laude so we should all flatter her a lot;)). My way of appreciating the beauty of Waugh’s work is by analyzing things like sentence structure.

I am totally in awe of Waugh’s command of language and have greatly enjoyed reading his work. The quintessential British bits, in particular, are very amusing. His descriptions are ridiculous and his vocabulary is immense. I don’t know how he can write in such long adjective laden sentences without losing me, but I love it. Waugh uses these bits to really immerse the reader in the setting. I think he used polysyndeton (excessive use of conjunctions) in the prologue to keep the pace sort of slow and monotonous like life in the army at the time.

In contrast, the dialogue is very sparse. Charles even mentions after one of his conversations with Lady Marchmain that the dialogue that has just been given is actually a condensed version of the actual conversation. Waugh also uses short sentences at various points in the narrative. I’m personally WAY too addicted to the use of short sentences (observe how I opened this post) but writers are only supposed to use them sparsely to give emphasis to whatever they are saying. Waugh uses this technique brilliantly.

I also don't find the interior monologue tiresome. My classmates in my fiction writing class last semester LOVED interior monologue and they drove me crazy. Amateurs can easily overuse this device in their attempts to sound realistic. Waugh uses interior monologue to connect the reader to Charles's thoughts and ideas (which will presumably be the most important in the novel), but he doesn't overdo it.

I'm weak on imagery, but I'm suspicious of the fountain at Brideshead. I have a feeling it has something to do with baptism. I could be making that up, but I read a lot of Raymond Carver last semester so forgive me. I haven't found Nate's avalanche yet (when did that pop up exactly?).

Hmm. I want to comment on the characters at some point, but I think I'll save that for another post. In the end, I think that writers' commentaries mainly involve gushing about how much they like some stuff and groaning about how much they hate other stuff. I guess that's basically what this post is.