One of my favourite subjects ...

... was introduced by my very favourite person. In the comments on the manly experience of being shaved post, the Serpentine One writes:

So do the three scenes in Brideshead Revisited (just to work a Catholic angle in) that involve shaving speak to the manliness of the characters in any way?

-Charles, Sebastian and Boy Mulcaster getting shaved after spending the night in jail
-Charles having his beard removed during the storm on the ocean liner
-Charles shaving in the bathroom in the New York hotel and having the difficult conversation with his wife

It seems to me that these three scenes do say something about the characters involved and their idea of themselves. And isn't that an aspect of manliness? How you portray yourself to the world? 

You missed one. (I'm smirking most arrogantly as I type this. Of course some third person will now come along and spot another that we've both missed.).

A fourth is a sort of suggested shave at the very beginning when Charles goes to the barber right after Sebastian has been to get a brush with which to spank Aloysius. That scene is followed by these curious lines:

The man [the barber], who, in his time, had had ample chance to tire of undergraduate fantasy, was plainly captivated. I, however, remained censorious and subsequent glimpses of him, driving in a hansom cab and dining at the George in false whiskers, did not soften me, although Collins, who was reading Freud, had a number of technical terms to cover everything. [Emphasis added by me.]

And note what an under-appreciated genius Waugh is. The delicious ambiguity of language like "undergraduate fantasy" or Collins technical terms that "cover everything" that they pretend to explain.

Anyway, to backtrack to the point that may  displease some, shaving is indeed connected to manly experiences in Brideshead Revisited but it is especially connected to the manly experience of having sex (the biscuits were thin not the captain, meaning not that sex is always a manly experience but that in this book shaving is always particularly connected to the manly sexual experiences of Charles). The homoerotic experiences with Sebastian are connected to false whiskers. The visit to the brothel at the Old Hundredth with Boy and Sebastian is followed by a shave suggesting that Charles has grown by the experience, and we may remember here Charles's earlier admission on meeting Cara that he was so inexperienced that he could not confidently identify a prostitute in the street. Then there is the shaving in New York after a night in which Charles and Celia have had sex but failed to connect. Charles only shaves to neaten his beard after the fight which, not incidentally, comes after a night in which he and Celia have sex for the first time in months. But later, on the ship, Charles has a barber remove the beard entirely preparatory to his having sex with Julia.


The shave on the ship might be seen as a prelude to his making a real connection with Julia but the paragraph that describes it tells us that Charles is fooling himself. First of all, it is preceded by a conversation in which Julia tells Charles that she has had a massage and she then wonders  "What is it about being on a boat that makes everyone behave like a film star?" Charles claims that he does not and Julia casts doubt on this by reminding him that he sent her some roses. Okay, with that set up, here we go to the actual shave with the question, is Charles now ready for sex with Julia or is he fooling himself?

The barber did his work with extraordinary dexterity—indeed with agility, for he stood like a swordsman in a ballet sometimes on the point of one foot, sometimes on the other, lightly flicking the lather off his blade, and swooping back to my chin as the ship righted herself; I should not have dared use a safety razor on myself. [Again, my emphasis.]

Charles's manly sexual confidence is a sham.

This is reinforced by the way that Waugh has Charles describe the actual experience of having Julia.

It was no time for the sweets of luxury; they would come, in their season, with the swallow and the lime flowers. Now on the rough water there was a formality to be observed, no more. It was as though a deed of conveyance had been drawn and sealed. I was making the first entry as the freeholder of a property I would enjoy and develop at leisure.

As with the shave where he, like Julia herself, is acting like a film star rather than a real person, Charles is acting a part here; he is only a part of a person acting like a whole person. But what is missing?

And here let me ask a terribly indelicate question. The paragraph above describes something incomplete but does it describe something offensive? Should we be offended at Charles's attitude towards Julia?

Even more indelicately, should we be offended on her behalf? That is, is there anything in those scenes in the book leading up to the paragraph above that would entitle us to suppose anything other than that Julia fully understands how she is being taken? That she, in fact, doesn't want to be take in precisely the way Charles takes her?

Okay, the full Monty here, is the problem the way Charles takes Julia or is it that something else, something could sanctify this act (for sex is always an act of surrender and taking) by making it part of something bigger?

My but I am terribly verbose this morning.