"It's really long." That's not a good sign. :(

10 hours by my count. That is a longtime in front of the tube. I'm not condemning it.

To me it went very quickly, but then I have no life. That said, if your first response is to the length of the program rather than the content...ah well. I am not communicating well these days and I don't want to have to extract my foot from my mouth.

I'm not saying long is good or bad.

Don't mind me -- and all out of sorts right now and it was a bad idea to share something so personal.

As a piece of film telling an epoch story it reminds me of Visconti's The Leopard or The Damned which did the same thing in under four hours. As a piece of film trying to recreate an author's work it is acceptable to be that lengthy.

The story its self, British peerage does little to inspire me towards anything. There were some very good lines. I'm not sure any of them were very original. They seemed repackaged to me.

The question of religion, one should make up ones own mind to the question, not fall back on 'growing up with it'.

The characters have full lives. That said, they are idiots and after a chance of reform should be shot.

On a whole, I didn't find it unbearable, but it didn't move me either. It was well executed.

That's certainly unforgiving. I won't waste time trying to respond. Sorry it wasn't for you.

I'm sad.

Don't be sad because I didn't love it. I'm a harsh critic of everything. Mainly because I thought the characters idiots?

IMHO, it's beautiful, like looking at a painting that suddenly comes to life and tells you its story in full rich detail, but that's not the reason I'm disappointed. That's personal and not for public discussion. Actually, with the way my brain's been working the last six weeks, it's not for private discussion either.

Going into my hidey hole until my head gets straight.

Oh.

Maybe what you were not liking was Evelyn Waugh himself, condom? I read the book as I watched the series and those were his words and his characters. It wasn't a long book but a small one, and the actors pretty much presented it in its entirety.

That is a distinct possibility. When I'm not cranky I'll read the book and reevaluate.

This thread is making everybody cranky. It's probably Evelyn. Did you know that Evelyn's first wife was named Evelyn?

I'm reading the book. I'm not sure I should watch any version of this afterwards - this is one of those lovely books where the characters and story have come completely alive in my brain, and I can't imagine that watching someone else's version would be good for my blood pressure. I'm sure curiosity will get the better of me eventually, though.

Bless you, little Iz.

What I found, just speaking for myself, is the television thing did nothing to tarnish my memory of the book, the characters looked and sounded the way I imagined them, and Castle Howard was the perfect Brideshead. Very little is left and most of the voice is Jeremy Irons reading verbatim from the book. If you aren't as cranky as ol' condom, you have nothing to fear.

And yay for me, I got two people to read the book from all this!

Yay you! It had been sat on my shelf for so long - I was beginning to suspect I'd never get around to reading it. I'm very glad I did.

On a different forum I was reading something about something else entirely...anyway a poster didn't care for something because it deals with the upper classes and because this poster once knew a really unpleasant rich person, apparently anything about rich people was automatically dogshit or something. Reminded me of this post.

Also, I've loaned out my copy (and despair of it being returned) but I've been youtubing bits now and them and I think you are almost entirely wrong, critically speaking. The other stuff we discussed. But you're still wrong. I blame your crankiness.

I'm afraid you've taken this all too personally. I could defend my opinion, you can defend yours, that isn't progress. Kindly tell me, what exactly I was suppose to gain by this experience, and we can work from that point.

I'm indifferent to class systems.

condom, I dearly wish I could see your face when you are writing these deadpan posts.

Unfortunately, I'm in earnest.

Always?

More often than not.

(The book's still good)

I always think you're being, well, tongue-in-cheek or something. Irene, you know condom - is he serious? Or is being earnest different from being serious?

I'd like to think that I'm situation appropriate.