This week we step into Stage II — Oxford & Innocence, where the novel truly begins. Here we meet Charles Ryder as a young man, newly arrived at Oxford, full of vague ambition, aesthetic hunger, and an undefined longing for beauty and belonging. He does not yet know what he believes, or whom he loves, or what he is being prepared to lose. Like many young men, he thinks he has come to Oxford to study. In truth, he has come to be formed.