Last quick hit for the day
I want to get on to the next chapter tomorrow so there is a lot I'll have to leave untouched in chapter one. Before moving on, however, I'd like to note how good the advice Charles' cousin Jasper gives him. This is true in the context of the book—we'll see that Charles eventually comes to see many things the same way as Jasper—but it is also just good advice period and university students today would do well to pay heed.
1. "You want either a first or a fourth. There is no value in anything in between. Time spent on a good second is time thrown away."
What he is talking about here is different grades of honours degrees and this is good advice. You either want first class marks or just enough to get your degree. First class marks will allow you to move on and there are certain bragging rights that come with high marks BUT the sad truth is that in the twenty five years since I graduated no one has ever asked me even once what marks I got. I've been asked several times to produce a diploma as proof that I actually had a degree but that degree would have been just as valid if I'd scraped by by the skin of my teeth instead of getting the rather good marks I did get.
2. "You're reading history? A perfectly respectable school."
Okay, English lit students will be a bit hurt at what Jasper says next but the important thing to remember is that English lit was still a newfangled degree at the time and newfangled degrees are a bad idea. Today the very worst are degrees in sociology, criminology, women's studies, pop culture and comparative literature. To study this trendy crap is to throw away your money.
3. "You should go to the best lectures ..."
Very good advice, no matter what your degree, figure out who the best people teaching at your university are and figure out a way to hear them speak. The stars almost always give a few general admission lectures or there will be some special symposium you can crash.
4. "If you want to run for the Union—and it's not a bad thing to do ..."
The point here is that your degree is only a small part of what a university offers you. In a sense, Charles sort of follows this advice by learning about love (note, he learns about love, not about casual sex). Two of the best things I did at university were joining the debating society and writing for the student paper.
The very best thing I ever did was becoming part of a notorious group of men and women loosely associated with the debating society who affected to be aristocratic snobs who cherished bamboo fly rods and hand-made English or Spanish side by side shotguns more than the plight of the poor. We'd argue, only half joking, that a return to good manners would do more to help women than feminism. We met at a house where a core of the group lives (I was one of them) decorated with various hunting and fishing trophies. We together and we met for various formal occasions with formal dress, speeches and debates and consumption of fine wines and real ale and the good things in life generally.
The first post in the Brideshead series is here.
The next post is here.
I want to get on to the next chapter tomorrow so there is a lot I'll have to leave untouched in chapter one. Before moving on, however, I'd like to note how good the advice Charles' cousin Jasper gives him. This is true in the context of the book—we'll see that Charles eventually comes to see many things the same way as Jasper—but it is also just good advice period and university students today would do well to pay heed.
1. "You want either a first or a fourth. There is no value in anything in between. Time spent on a good second is time thrown away."
What he is talking about here is different grades of honours degrees and this is good advice. You either want first class marks or just enough to get your degree. First class marks will allow you to move on and there are certain bragging rights that come with high marks BUT the sad truth is that in the twenty five years since I graduated no one has ever asked me even once what marks I got. I've been asked several times to produce a diploma as proof that I actually had a degree but that degree would have been just as valid if I'd scraped by by the skin of my teeth instead of getting the rather good marks I did get.
2. "You're reading history? A perfectly respectable school."
Okay, English lit students will be a bit hurt at what Jasper says next but the important thing to remember is that English lit was still a newfangled degree at the time and newfangled degrees are a bad idea. Today the very worst are degrees in sociology, criminology, women's studies, pop culture and comparative literature. To study this trendy crap is to throw away your money.
3. "You should go to the best lectures ..."
Very good advice, no matter what your degree, figure out who the best people teaching at your university are and figure out a way to hear them speak. The stars almost always give a few general admission lectures or there will be some special symposium you can crash.
4. "If you want to run for the Union—and it's not a bad thing to do ..."
The point here is that your degree is only a small part of what a university offers you. In a sense, Charles sort of follows this advice by learning about love (note, he learns about love, not about casual sex). Two of the best things I did at university were joining the debating society and writing for the student paper.
The very best thing I ever did was becoming part of a notorious group of men and women loosely associated with the debating society who affected to be aristocratic snobs who cherished bamboo fly rods and hand-made English or Spanish side by side shotguns more than the plight of the poor. We'd argue, only half joking, that a return to good manners would do more to help women than feminism. We met at a house where a core of the group lives (I was one of them) decorated with various hunting and fishing trophies. We together and we met for various formal occasions with formal dress, speeches and debates and consumption of fine wines and real ale and the good things in life generally.
The first post in the Brideshead series is here.
The next post is here.
You're right, I think, that Charles does eventually come to see some things the way Jasper does. In light of that, it's interesting that right after the bit you quoted, Charles says, "I do not know that I ever, consciously, followed any of this advice."
ReplyDeleteThe key word is likely "consciously"; however, I can't help but wonder whether this is one of those instances of middle-aged people not really remembering what they were like when they were young. Of course, it could also be an error on Waugh's part or, as the wording might suggest, an acknowledgement that Charles did eventually come to see things Jasper's way but that pride prevented him from admitting that Jasper was actually right about some things.
I had to think about this one a while. I have two examples of advice that Charles later acknowledges in mind and will bring them up in the next little while. The first Charles remarks on but makes no connection to Jasper. The second he does connect. And we might take this as a problem because, as you say, here Charles tells us that he never consciously followed any of this advice and we will soon learn that he did in fact do so.
ReplyDeleteWe might argue that maybe Charles ends up living according to the standards Jasper sets forth here but doesn't do so by following advice sort of like the person who says play by ear and can't read music and just coincidentally happens to play the tune that is on the sheet music sitting on the piano. But I think we need another explanation.
I think that other explanation is that Waugh has a literary problem here. He has constructed this story with a definite purpose. But the literary device is that Charles is telling the story. In theory Charles already knows how the story will turn out but Waugh has to keep us believing that Charles does not yet grasp the real significance of his own story until the very end.