Tuesday 28 October 2008

brideshead revisited

The manor that served as the setting for Brideshead Revisited's latest cinematographic incarnation is an absolutely sumptuous example of English baroque architecture, replete with the artistic hallmarks of aristocratic decadence at its luxurious best!

Although its real name is Castle Howard, the edifice is not technically a castle, since it was obviously not designed to serve a military function. The early-18th Century stately residence in North Yorkshire was built by the Third Earl of Carlisle and incredibly, still serves as a private residence for his decedents to this day. That such an ostentatious vestige of an era defined by insatiable opulence and institutionalized social inequity should still serve a private function in this day and age seems almost obscene. But to be fair to the current owners, they have allowed the building to be gazetted as a national heritage site and it is seasonally open to the public who are free to roam its expansive verdant vicinities and attend a number of concerts hosted on its grounds throughout the year.

The film, based on the eponymous novel by Evelyn Waugh (who was a dude, in case you're wondering) dilutes the theological didacticism found in the original work of its author and is more concerned with recounting the scandalous romances revolving around the protagonist, an young man of modest means who suddenly finds himself in the favour of the scion of a noble family dominated by a maniacally staunch Catholic matriarch. The noblelad, who is unambiguously gay, takes his unassuming handsome friend to his ancestral home - Brideshead - and into his confidence and overtime, the two become bosom buddies, seeing in each other a part of the social and ideological misfit that each had always believed himself to be.

Their unlikely friendship unravels when he is caught by his rich friend, who by now had obviously taken a more-than-platonic interest in him, trying to seduce his sister while the trio were on a holiday to visit their father and his mistress in Venice. Tensions mount as his erstwhile benefactor descends into alcoholism in an attempt to numb both his perceived betrayal and his mother's overbearing religious strictures. Meanwhile, his mother detects a budding-if-tense romance between his sister and his friend (who is an avowed atheist) and arranges for her to be wed to an obnoxious Canadian man, whose only virtue is apparently the religion that they shared.

Four years later, his former friend's desperate mother begs him to go to Morocco, where he had run away to, to persuade him to come home. He traces him down but discovers that his body is so ravaged by his years of drinking that he is in no condition to endure the arduous journey by ship back to England. The now-sober scion becomes an afterthought for the rest of the movie and we eventually learn that he joined a monastery where he is to spend the rest of his life.

Years pass and our protagonist is now a promising painter - the darling of high society on both sides of the Atlantic. Chance leads to an encounter aboard a ship between protagonist and love interest and they both consummate their latent love on board without regard for their own spouses from whom they are estranged. Although they agree to separate from their spouses in order to be together, the prospects of "living in sin" loom over her like a dark cloud as her Catholic neuroses inflicted upon her by her now-deceased mother come back to haunt her. As the illicit pair return to Brideshead to seek an annulment from her husband and bid a final farewell to her elder brother, they meet their dying father who had come home to spend his final days. Thoughts of eloping take flight in the face of her father's impending death. Upon his deathbed, she is overwhelmed by emotion as she sees her father makes the sign of the cross, a signal that he repented of his infidelity and was reconciled to god. In the same vein, she decides that she could not bring herself to offend god's mercy by living in sin, in spite of her love for our protagonist.

Years later, during the Second World War, he revisits Brideshead as a military officer. The manor has now been possessed by the military for use as an army base. Walking the familiar halls, he reminisces and finds himself in the chapel, where his friend had brought him to half a lifetime ago. He is tempted to extinguish the votive candle lit in front of the Virgin's statue, an act of resentment and retribution for the loss that religion had cost him, but hesitates and eventually decides not to. He turns around and leaves the chapel, walking into the chaos of the War, but not before remembering an internal battle that had claimed him long before.

pax hormones

I woke up this morning feeling a calmness and peace of mind that I had not experienced for a long time. Taking into account the pile of work that was awaiting me in the office, I shouldn't have felt such sanguinity. I couldn't help but wonder if this was the "peace that the world cannot give" that the Christians are so fond of talking about - a mere hormonal cycle.

Friday 24 October 2008

ramblings

I don't care I will write no matter what. I don't know why but Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment just popped into my head. It's a story about a deranged man who sinks into a guilt-induced fevered delusion - or "mania" as the English translation termed it. I love archaic expressions like that. A modern person would probably say "obsession" or "paranoia", but "mania" has such a visceral feel to it. It connotes a maniac - someone ruled purely by the craziness of his own miasmic imaginings. Miasma - another term that strikes a chord in me. It is a word introduced to me by someone I used to date. I still remember the setting - we were strolling along Marina Bay on a Sunday evening, watching the kite flyers refusing to yield to the ebbing gusts and retiring sun, and I was talking about how messy my room was. "Miasma" was introduced into my vocabulary then by my more literarily-sophisticated date. That was the last time we went out I think. I received a message over MSN a few days later from my date, complaining that I did not seem to reciprocate a satisfactory degree of mutual affection. I did not want to pursue it. The prospects of a relationship at that point in time with that particular person would have felt contrived anyway. That was the first medical student I dated. The second medical student I got to know and dated for a bit turned out to be living almost in the same neighbourhood as the first. More coincidences were uncovered after that. It didn't work out either because both of us had our fair share of emotional baggage. But it was from this experience and facing up to my own emotional baggage that I learned the most about myself. I know I am a better person today and am able to manage my current relationship much better precisely because of the lessons I took away from it. I think I have written enough at this point. I just needed to flex my literary muscle again, which has all but atrophied over the past few weeks of intellectual ennui. Apropos of my previous post, I hope the figurative nib of my mental pen has now been sufficiently lubricated by this deliberate exercise in rambling.

short posts

My posts have become markedly shorter of late. It seems symptomatic of some impediment to constructing a more developed train of thought.

Monday 20 October 2008

daydreams

In a room full of Morphean mirrors we see fantasies of ourselves in a cacophony of images. Moving through the waking dream, skipping from blink to wink within hypnogogic spaces.

Wednesday 15 October 2008

zz_

Physiology's need has been relegated by the latent passion for success.