The Operation of Grace

Bookclub often involves heated arguments, whether about the aforementioned science fiction issue or related with a particular interpretation of a certain character or theme, the participants are always up for a bit of loud, racous defence of silly ideas. Last night, we examined Waugh's self-proclaimed opus, Brideshead Revisited and engaged in a particularly heated debate concerning the religious quality of the novel.

There is (and was) no denying the strong religious themes dealt with in the book. The inhabitants of Brideshead are set apart by their religion, although the protagonist is adament in his atheism. This is with several large exceptions, chief of which is this passage taken from Charle's first discussions with religion:

I had no religion. I was taken to church weekly as a child, and at school attended chapel daily, but, as though in compensation, from the time I went to my public school I was excused church in the holidays. The masters who taught me Divinity told me that biblical texts were highly untrustworthy. They never suggested I should try to pray. My father did not go to church except on family occasions and then with derision. My mother, I think, was devout. It once seemed odd to me that she should have thought it her duty to leave my father and me and go off with an ambulance, to Serbia, to die of exhaustion in the snow in Bosnia. But later I recognised some such spirit in myself. Later, too, I have come to accept claims which then, in 1923, I never troubled to examine, and to accept the supernatural as the real. I was aware of no such needs that summer at Brideshead. (page 18)

This passage alone hints at a conversion, although admittedly offers no claim of creed or even monotheistic character. However, a cursory glance at what the author has said about the novel and his own context reveals much. Waugh wrote to his literary agent A. D. Peters, "I hope the last conversation with Cordelia gives the theological clue. The whole thing is steeped in theology, but I begin to agree that the theologians won't recognise it." The writing style does not explicitly state anything, but carefully threads the concepts beneath the relationships. The author's avowed intent is to "deal 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".

While in other books of the time, secularlism rules unheralded, it is the secular values that Charles holds that are somehow empty in the face of the deep spirituality expressed through the Catholic tradition. The flawless logic that Charles employs does not even convince himself, when he sits at the side of Lord Marchmain's bed and prays for a sign.

Whether Charle's converts in the book is contested in the critical literature but kneeling down in front of the tabernacle of the Brideshead chapel and saying a prayer, "an ancient, newly learned form of words" - implies "recent instruction in the catechism" and the strange smile is testament to some form of enlightenment.

Waugh speaks of his own faith in grace in a letter to Lady Mary Lygon: "I believe that everyone in his (or her) life has the moment when he is open to Divine Grace. It's there, of course, for the asking all the time, but human lives are so planned that usually there's a particular time — sometimes, like Hubert, on his deathbed — when all resistance is down and Grace can come flooding in."

This is not to say the author portrays Catholicism in an entirely positive light. Waugh paints a tainted picture of his ideal, the deeply flawed Brideshead family torn apart from the offset. Sebastian could be happier without religion and Cordellia agrees "Sebastian is very holy and no one is holy without suffering." Julia believes one has to sacrifice happiness to be close to God and Charles logically deconstructs every aspect of religion that he can. I believe these issues simply display religion in a real light: Catholicism does not preach that having faith will bring happiness. Happiness is seen as a transitory thing in the novel, something ultimately unfulfilling. There is something more that exists, that perhaps one must be faithful to understand.

By no means am I claiming understanding, the concept of faith falls outside my worldview but Waugh, in his strangely poignant tale of his relationship with the Brideshead family, sheds some light on the strange nature of divinity and its interaction with our fleeting existence.