Brideshead Revisited I

This is one of Waugh's most serious novels, set in Oxford in the 1920's. Charles Ryder is a middle class young undergraduate, who has just gone to University and wants to be a painter. His widowed father is an odd difficult man who pays little attention to his only son. Charles mixes with other aristic minded students, but one night, one of the upper class set passes by his window on a drinking binge and is sick in through the window. Charles is annoyed, but the following day, the drinker comes to apologise and invite him to lunch.He is a very handsome charming young man, Lord Sebastian Flyte, from a very rich family... and Charles begins to like him. He has had a dull life himself and Sebastian's eccentricities and pleasure seeking ways seem fascinating to him... He becomes impatient with the serious minded students who work hard and have earnest discussions about Art. He starts to go about with Sebastian and they enjoy drinking and larking about. Gradually, the two young men begin to form a duo, and see less of their friends. Charles over spends and ends up running out of money at the end of the academic year. His father does not scold him but keeps him home for the holidays, and he realises that he is stuck in his own home for the summer and that his father is driving him mad. Its a subtle punishment. He never over spends again. During the summer he gets a message that Sebastian is ill and he goes to Brideshead, the Flyte family home and meets the other members of the family. Sebastian has only broken a toe, but he is bored and delighted to see Charles again. Charles finds the other Flytes difficult to understand, as two of them, Lord Brideshead and Cordelia, the youngest girl, are very devout Catholics and he cant really take their obsession with religion. Julia, the older daughter is not pious, but she is just out in society and seems cool and uninterested in her family...