Robert Lukens

I do.

And I did think about this a bit before coming in because it felt a bit, well, I'll just cough it up and say it.

It's Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Moore, which I've already squeezed into the conversation once before.

But it feels a bit like, you know, it's like a musician coming in and saying, oh, you should listen to Sergeant Pepper.

It's great.

It feels a bit silly to be saying that, but it really is.

Being honest, it's one of those, you know, and as big readers, you have those certain books that are sort of the columns that hold your house up.

And Brideshead Revisited is that for me.

What do you love about it?

I think it's that it's Evelyn Waugh, who I'm a great fan of, but it's really him at this amazing midpoint of his career and a high point, really.

It's this incredible trapeze act, really, of...

You'd almost say extravagant, decadent prose.

He's absolutely flying at this point.

The florid descriptions, the nostalgic descriptions, but that's all sitting above this incredibly tender, raw, very real, simple love story.

The story of Charles and Sebastian, to me, is one of the most moving and heartbreaking love stories I've ever read.

And I suppose it's that amazing integration of those two styles that he can do that dazzle us with that prose, which really, if it was just that, it would still be enough for me.

It's so beautiful and it's so luscious.

But then to have that incredibly moving story underneath, I think it's just an integration that you don't see very often.

And I think it's a point even Evelyn never got to again.

But then I don't think many other people did either.