[beelzebubbles]

I tried to watch the recent movie based on Brideshead Revisited and found it quite tedious and thought Ben Whishaw was either miscast or wrong-headed in his portrayal of Sebastian. His Sebastian is too effeminate. too sickly looking, too obviously tortured to be charming. Maybe this is my prejudice from having seen the mini-series but I imagine Sebastian to be androgynous rather than effeminate, childlike and playful rather than childish and his hair shirt should never be obvious to anyone else. 'Oh this old thing, I've had it for years, darling.' He should have not just charm but aplomb.

The movie makes obvious what we should slowly be learning and that is that Sebastian's psyche is the battle ground on which his parents are fighting.

I am enjoying the book. Waugh's lyric moments often come as a startling and slightly unnerving surprise to me. I am never comfortable with them. There we are in the particular--it is often a pretty eccentric particular--and all of a sudden he bursts into song. I don't quite know how to take it.