This marvelous piece of criticism just in from Mike Potemra, NR’s books editor. Mike is, as he always is, on to something:

I think Brideshead Revisited is a lovely book. It is lacking, perhaps, in realism, and occasionally too complacently didactic in its religious and political opinionizing; but it is nonetheless a feat of great imaginative integrity. Waugh in that book managed to create an alternative world that has fired the imaginations of many thousands of people.
In fact, Waugh succeeded all too well. Let’s leave aside the legitimate literary objections raised by our colleagues, and look at the broader history of the book’s reception. I think the declining popularity of “Brideshead” among the conservative rank and file is directly connected to Waugh’s success in creating a compelling vision of the good life that conflicts fundamentally with the temper of today’s conservatism. Today’s conservative, on the whole, views himself as a middle-class Joe Lunchbox fighting against the Smug Elites; for him, the world of “Brideshead” is a place in which he would be far more likely to meet someone like John Kerry than someone like George W. Bush. (I’m thinking now of the conservative joke proposing a Kerry bumper sticker: “Vote for Kerry. He’s better than you are.”)
I confess that I share, in large measure, this conservative American contempt for societies stratified by social class. But that, I think, makes it all the more a sign of Waugh’s achievement that I found his vision in “Brideshead” a highly appealing one.