Harold Acton KBE (1904-1994)
Born in Florence to an English father and wealthy American mother, educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, writer and aesthete, incorrectly thought to be the model for Evelyn Waugh's character, Sebastian Flyte.
Saturday night I went to see the new Brideshead Revisited with a very charming group of fellows who were all too young to have either seen or properly appreciated the Granada Television/PBS serialization of the novel which aired in 1981 and starred Jeremy Irons and Anthony Andrews.
"Too young," I repeated for emphasis, telling D. about it the next day.
"So unusual for you, Hyacinth," said D., who enjoys comparing me to Patricia Routledge's character from Keeping Up Appearances. "Out and about on a Saturday night."
I had indeed broken with my usual routine. "Well I do enjoy a good tale about English Catholics," I explained.
"I hope you didn't bang on to everybody afterward about how different the movie was from the book."
"I'd have gotten whiplash from the eye-rolling if I had," I replied curtly. "I intend to blog about it instead."
"Of course you will," D. reassured me, struggling to keep a straight face.
"From now on," I warned him, "I shall only reference contemporaries of Evelyn Waugh and his circle. There were loads of them born in 1904, as you can imagine. Nancy Mitford and Graham Greene and Alastair Graham and Patrick Balfour. And Harold Acton of course." I then looked off vaguely into the distance in what I imagined to be a manner both foreboding and suggestive.
D. sighed. "We live in L.A." he observed. "We live in the eternal Now."
"My theme is Memory," I retorted, quoting Charles Ryder in Book Three of Brideshead. "These memories, which are my life...." Which, it seemed unneccesary to point out, is where the Revisited part of the title comes from.
Saturday night I went to see the new Brideshead Revisited with a very charming group of fellows who were all too young to have either seen or properly appreciated the Granada Television/PBS serialization of the novel which aired in 1981 and starred Jeremy Irons and Anthony Andrews.
"Too young," I repeated for emphasis, telling D. about it the next day.
"So unusual for you, Hyacinth," said D., who enjoys comparing me to Patricia Routledge's character from Keeping Up Appearances. "Out and about on a Saturday night."
I had indeed broken with my usual routine. "Well I do enjoy a good tale about English Catholics," I explained.
"I hope you didn't bang on to everybody afterward about how different the movie was from the book."
"I'd have gotten whiplash from the eye-rolling if I had," I replied curtly. "I intend to blog about it instead."
"Of course you will," D. reassured me, struggling to keep a straight face.
"From now on," I warned him, "I shall only reference contemporaries of Evelyn Waugh and his circle. There were loads of them born in 1904, as you can imagine. Nancy Mitford and Graham Greene and Alastair Graham and Patrick Balfour. And Harold Acton of course." I then looked off vaguely into the distance in what I imagined to be a manner both foreboding and suggestive.
D. sighed. "We live in L.A." he observed. "We live in the eternal Now."
"My theme is Memory," I retorted, quoting Charles Ryder in Book Three of Brideshead. "These memories, which are my life...." Which, it seemed unneccesary to point out, is where the Revisited part of the title comes from.
hyacinth.
wonderful!
you are not ever allowed to stop amusing me, which is to say, writing.
EVER!
xxx
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Re-reading the novel for the first time in forty years (second in sixty), I'm finding that I'd rather see the new movie again — or else read "Vile Bodies."
In other words, I see why I ended my teens with the discovery of Anthony Powell.
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