The Pursuit Of Love
In The Pursuit Of Love, a girl named Fanny visits her Uncle Matthew and Aunt Sadie at their home Alconleigh becoming caught up in the whirl of her cousins (mainly Linda) as they enter society.
The difficulty with reviewing this one is that I actually read it months ago and forgot to review it so part of me is now thinking : What were the highlights here again?
There is another difficulty. I've read so much about the Mitfords now that going through this "fiction novel" of Nancy's is to be acutely aware that hardly any of it is fiction and that it is not only semi autobiographical of her own life but that she has cannibalised the lives of her sisters inserting the most amusing anecdotes about their childhoods into the character that most represents her.
In some ways I've ended up reading the books the wrong way round.
Here we can find The Hons Cupboard, Child Hunts, Farve's thoughts on Romeo and Juliet and his preparation for the coming of the Germans. We can recognise that "Lord Merlin" is Lord Berners, and that the "sewer" that Farve took a shine to and the "sewer" he threw out are Mark Ogilvie Grant and James Lees-Milne respectively etc etc
This said, it is enjoyable, funny and undemanding. A good Sunday in the garden read, or holiday read.
It was said of Nancy that she gave up writing fiction because she couldn't think up any plots but truthfully she couldn't think up characters either, borrowing extensively and sometimes in a way that caused offence the character traits of her sisters and her friends and family and setting versions of them on the page. Other novels featured/mocked Unity and Diana, Debo and her daughter Sophie, her nephew Alexander and Lady Diana Cooper.
Nancy privately sneered at the release of Jessica's autobiography Hons and Rebels but actually it's much better than the Pursuit Of Love which is quite lightweight, it has this pink cover that looks like candy floss and it's a bit like reading candy floss really.
Despite this will it deter me from reading her entire back catalogue? Inevitably not.
7/10
Showing posts with label Mitfords. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mitfords. Show all posts
Saturday, 29 November 2014
Monday, 27 October 2014
Book #39 Love From Nancy : The Letters Of Nancy Mitford ed. Charlotte Mosley
Love From Nancy
Nancy Mitford began planning her memoirs around the time she became ill, and subsequently died without writing them and instead her friend Harold Acton wrote a biography. Later, her sister Diana's daughter in law Charlotte edited a collection of her letters. She is also the editor behind all the Mitfords letters to each other and of Debo's correspondence with Paddy Leigh Fermor.
I guess the reason for this was that if anyone was going to make money out of the intense interest in the sisters well it may as well be the family themselves, and there's something fair about that I think; though an early footnote implies that this new development considerably annoyed Acton who withheld his letters and may not have had the same level of access as Charlotte.
Her foreword tells us that she removed sections from six letters on the basis that they could be considered libelous and that Debo, who was the executor of Nancy's estate, asked her to remove sections from a further six because they were excessively spiteful about persons still living and could cause embarrassment. Having read that it struck me that the 12 most interesting letters she ever wrote aren't really in it!
Nancy is a terrific snob and a bit of a bitch, reacting like the Dowager Countess of Grantham might when a LOWER CLASS man sits next to her in a restaurant. Her most interesting letters are to or about Evelyn Waugh who comes across as a very eccentric character with a great capacity to offend or become offended. Randolph Churchill and Duff Cooper also come across as great characters I would like to know more about. Randolph particularly seems thoroughly awful.
I've read two Waugh novels 'Brideshead Revisited' and 'A Handful Of Dust' and took to neither but this has persuaded me to keep trying.
In some ways Nancy's life was tragic. Her first engagement and then her marriage were both disasters, she was infertile, and she was in love with a philandering Colonel, Gaston Palewski who never fully committed to their relationship. In her letters to him, her unguarded desperation for him to love her the way she loved him comes across profusely. In that I empathised.
It was heartbreaking too, that whilst Diana and Debo lived quite long lives, both living into their 90s, Nancy died in her 60s but oddly lived to experience most of her best friends & contemporaries "going first" dropping like flies around her over a three year period, the death of Evelyn Waugh shaking her particularly. As they passed she crossed each out in her address book writing the date of their death next to the entry.
I enjoyed reading this but I think I would have enjoyed reading the responses she got mixed in among her letters more. I also found it strange that certain of the letters in this collection which she wrote to her sisters were missing from that bumper collection (Letters Between Six Sisters) in a way that I noticed; for example a letter to Nancy from Diana about Unity, and a query about a childhood memory from Decca are in that collection, but there's no response from Nancy. The response appears here, which seems like an odd thing to do.
Probably the most telling sequence of letters comes on the publication of Decca's autobiography, Nancy writes to tell her it is wonderful, if ' a cold wind to the heart' but writes to others including Mark Ogilvie Grant and Evelyn Waugh to slag it off, which I felt gave the clearest indication of her as a character. Witty, yet not to be trusted and highly insincere. Something her own sisters and friends all thought of her.
A good read 8/10
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Nancy Mitford began planning her memoirs around the time she became ill, and subsequently died without writing them and instead her friend Harold Acton wrote a biography. Later, her sister Diana's daughter in law Charlotte edited a collection of her letters. She is also the editor behind all the Mitfords letters to each other and of Debo's correspondence with Paddy Leigh Fermor.
I guess the reason for this was that if anyone was going to make money out of the intense interest in the sisters well it may as well be the family themselves, and there's something fair about that I think; though an early footnote implies that this new development considerably annoyed Acton who withheld his letters and may not have had the same level of access as Charlotte.
Her foreword tells us that she removed sections from six letters on the basis that they could be considered libelous and that Debo, who was the executor of Nancy's estate, asked her to remove sections from a further six because they were excessively spiteful about persons still living and could cause embarrassment. Having read that it struck me that the 12 most interesting letters she ever wrote aren't really in it!
Nancy is a terrific snob and a bit of a bitch, reacting like the Dowager Countess of Grantham might when a LOWER CLASS man sits next to her in a restaurant. Her most interesting letters are to or about Evelyn Waugh who comes across as a very eccentric character with a great capacity to offend or become offended. Randolph Churchill and Duff Cooper also come across as great characters I would like to know more about. Randolph particularly seems thoroughly awful.
I've read two Waugh novels 'Brideshead Revisited' and 'A Handful Of Dust' and took to neither but this has persuaded me to keep trying.
In some ways Nancy's life was tragic. Her first engagement and then her marriage were both disasters, she was infertile, and she was in love with a philandering Colonel, Gaston Palewski who never fully committed to their relationship. In her letters to him, her unguarded desperation for him to love her the way she loved him comes across profusely. In that I empathised.
It was heartbreaking too, that whilst Diana and Debo lived quite long lives, both living into their 90s, Nancy died in her 60s but oddly lived to experience most of her best friends & contemporaries "going first" dropping like flies around her over a three year period, the death of Evelyn Waugh shaking her particularly. As they passed she crossed each out in her address book writing the date of their death next to the entry.
I enjoyed reading this but I think I would have enjoyed reading the responses she got mixed in among her letters more. I also found it strange that certain of the letters in this collection which she wrote to her sisters were missing from that bumper collection (Letters Between Six Sisters) in a way that I noticed; for example a letter to Nancy from Diana about Unity, and a query about a childhood memory from Decca are in that collection, but there's no response from Nancy. The response appears here, which seems like an odd thing to do.
Probably the most telling sequence of letters comes on the publication of Decca's autobiography, Nancy writes to tell her it is wonderful, if ' a cold wind to the heart' but writes to others including Mark Ogilvie Grant and Evelyn Waugh to slag it off, which I felt gave the clearest indication of her as a character. Witty, yet not to be trusted and highly insincere. Something her own sisters and friends all thought of her.
A good read 8/10
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Saturday, 25 October 2014
Book #29 Wait For Me! by Deborah Devonshire
Wait For Me!
Debo, the Duchess of Devonshire was the youngest of the famous Mitford sisters and the last to pass away, just recently, at the age of 94. I only got to really know the Mitford sisters story this year and Debo was by far my favourite, which made her passing all the sadder for me.
There is a slight problem with the portions of the book that cover her childhood and her sisters in that nothing new that isn't already known about them is imparted and feels slightly like a retread. Other stories are familiar too. How many times does one need to read about the 'hilarious' occasion when Woman failed to recognise Lord Mountbatten?
At this point, having read so much about them I was more keen to hear about Debo post her marriage to Andrew Cavendish, when having unexpectedly inherited the dukedom, the couple became determined to turn around the fortunes of Chatsworth House.
Ownership of Lismore Castle also reverted to the Devonshires after the death of Adele Astaire and talk of both these buildings made me want to visit them.
All the Mitfords 'moved in society' but perhaps Debo more than any of them having been related to two Prime Ministers and a US president. Whilst Diana, exiled, socialised with fellow exiles the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Debo was close to Prince Charles and spent time with the Queen, the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret.
Her friend the apparently legendary Sybil Chomondley as mentioned in letters to Paddy Leigh Fermor, gets three pages, personally I'd have liked a biography.
Debo also speaks with perhaps unexpected candour about her difficulties carrying children to term, and her husbands struggle with alcoholism.
Easy to read and with a warmth sometimes lacking in the other sisters, Wait For Me is perhaps nonetheless one for the Mitford fans only. 7/10
Debo, the Duchess of Devonshire was the youngest of the famous Mitford sisters and the last to pass away, just recently, at the age of 94. I only got to really know the Mitford sisters story this year and Debo was by far my favourite, which made her passing all the sadder for me.
There is a slight problem with the portions of the book that cover her childhood and her sisters in that nothing new that isn't already known about them is imparted and feels slightly like a retread. Other stories are familiar too. How many times does one need to read about the 'hilarious' occasion when Woman failed to recognise Lord Mountbatten?
At this point, having read so much about them I was more keen to hear about Debo post her marriage to Andrew Cavendish, when having unexpectedly inherited the dukedom, the couple became determined to turn around the fortunes of Chatsworth House.
Ownership of Lismore Castle also reverted to the Devonshires after the death of Adele Astaire and talk of both these buildings made me want to visit them.
All the Mitfords 'moved in society' but perhaps Debo more than any of them having been related to two Prime Ministers and a US president. Whilst Diana, exiled, socialised with fellow exiles the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Debo was close to Prince Charles and spent time with the Queen, the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret.
Her friend the apparently legendary Sybil Chomondley as mentioned in letters to Paddy Leigh Fermor, gets three pages, personally I'd have liked a biography.
Debo also speaks with perhaps unexpected candour about her difficulties carrying children to term, and her husbands struggle with alcoholism.
Easy to read and with a warmth sometimes lacking in the other sisters, Wait For Me is perhaps nonetheless one for the Mitford fans only. 7/10
Sunday, 12 October 2014
Book #25 A Life Of Contrasts by Diana Mosley
A Life Of Contrasts
When Diana Mosley's autobiography was published, a friend of hers wrote a review of it in which he accused her of "lacking a dimension" and they subsequently fell out. I only discovered this as I read the additional chapters tacked on to the end of the book, which she added at a later date and I thought it summed up perfectly what was wrong with it.
The 3rd oldest of the Mitford sisters - I was initially reluctant to read Diana's book being so personally at odds with her choice of politics, but I was encouraged to by someone I tweet with and was quite glad I did in the end.
There is a tone to Diana's writing which as her contemporary critics noted lacks something, a je ne sais quoi. if I was to characterise this lack I would call it a sense of normalcy, a sense of awareness of the real world, and definitely a lack of self awareness.
But these absences in her writing lead to a unique book, which is repeatedly unintentionally hilarious, as she laments the lack of a seaside "of their own" (you know as opposed to the norm where people have their own seaside) so they went with their Nanny to visit her sister and the thrill was that "one might pass a Negro on the stairs" OK....then.
A lot of the childhood reminiscences are familiar to those who've read other Mitford books, Farve's opinion on Romeo and Juliet and the nurse who said she was too beautiful to live etc.
I was more interested in later Diana and what I found was a seemingly endless round of houses and interior design and trips abroad on yachts with Daisy Fellowes and pals and that everyone from her cousins to Evelyn Waugh was in love with her. Occasionally there is an astounding indolent vapidity to it in the later years. Her experience at Holloway prison where she was imprisoned without trial for nearly 4 years is the one event of real note and it does come across like the grim event it likely was. My favourite Diana anecdote remains that she bought a fur coat to wear in her cell from the money she got from suing a newspaper accusing her of living in luxury.
What is probably most staggering is her genuine attempt to blame the Holocaust on the Jews - who really should have seen the way the wind was blowing and left Germany. In almost the same breath she incongruously blames those Jews who did leave Germany for making things worse by drawing international attention to it.
She points to other atrocities and leaders and defends Hitler as no worse than Mao or Stalin, and whilst she may have a point, it shows an utter lack of compassion and the same loss of perspective of which she accuses others of in the "two wrongs don't make a right" sense.
Being tarred with the Hitler brush she admits did ruin her life and her sister Unity's life and her husbands political career and yet she stands by her good opinion of him and the fact that in 1935 "there was nothing exceptionally wrong in wanting to have tea with Hitler". There is something almost disarmingly honest in that.
In letters between her other sisters it is said that she stood by her fascist beliefs not because she truly still held them but that to publicly abandon them would be an admission that she and more to the point Mosley had wasted their time, most of their lives and certainly most of their money, pursuing political suicide. If there is one certain thing about Diana it is that she loved Oswald Mosley beyond reason. To leave ones husband in the 1930s to become the mistress of a married man shows a kind of bravery and/or foolishness rare for a woman of that era
Which brings me to a further mystery, Diana and Mosley's finances. How they were able to move from fabulous house in England, to fabulous house in Ireland to fabulous house in France despite his losing most of their fortune in various follies baffled me. It's very hard to see what either one of them DID for a living after leaving Holloway, particularly Diana. When Nancy dies, Debo describes her life as sad, she only had her books, yet Diana doesn't seem to have anything except Mosley whom she propped up as he went from failure to failure. Whilst Nancy wrote, Pamela farmed and ran a stables, Decca had a series of normal jobs, and Debo was busy running Chatsworth as well as commitments associated to being a Duchess, Diana seems to have done little even her children and grandchildren were on the whole looked after by nannies.
A life of contrasts indeed, and a book of contrasts, on the one hand the carefree lifestyle of the rich against the status of pariah in ones own nation state. The writing, joyous and carefree, often funny, and then by turns completely offensive and deluded; do make this book and Diana Mosley as a character unique. She was almost certainly the only woman in history to be well acquainted privately with both Winston Churchill and Hitler which is remarkable of itself.
An interesting and intriguing addition to the Mitford canon well worth reading. 8/10
When Diana Mosley's autobiography was published, a friend of hers wrote a review of it in which he accused her of "lacking a dimension" and they subsequently fell out. I only discovered this as I read the additional chapters tacked on to the end of the book, which she added at a later date and I thought it summed up perfectly what was wrong with it.
The 3rd oldest of the Mitford sisters - I was initially reluctant to read Diana's book being so personally at odds with her choice of politics, but I was encouraged to by someone I tweet with and was quite glad I did in the end.
There is a tone to Diana's writing which as her contemporary critics noted lacks something, a je ne sais quoi. if I was to characterise this lack I would call it a sense of normalcy, a sense of awareness of the real world, and definitely a lack of self awareness.
But these absences in her writing lead to a unique book, which is repeatedly unintentionally hilarious, as she laments the lack of a seaside "of their own" (you know as opposed to the norm where people have their own seaside) so they went with their Nanny to visit her sister and the thrill was that "one might pass a Negro on the stairs" OK....then.
A lot of the childhood reminiscences are familiar to those who've read other Mitford books, Farve's opinion on Romeo and Juliet and the nurse who said she was too beautiful to live etc.
I was more interested in later Diana and what I found was a seemingly endless round of houses and interior design and trips abroad on yachts with Daisy Fellowes and pals and that everyone from her cousins to Evelyn Waugh was in love with her. Occasionally there is an astounding indolent vapidity to it in the later years. Her experience at Holloway prison where she was imprisoned without trial for nearly 4 years is the one event of real note and it does come across like the grim event it likely was. My favourite Diana anecdote remains that she bought a fur coat to wear in her cell from the money she got from suing a newspaper accusing her of living in luxury.
What is probably most staggering is her genuine attempt to blame the Holocaust on the Jews - who really should have seen the way the wind was blowing and left Germany. In almost the same breath she incongruously blames those Jews who did leave Germany for making things worse by drawing international attention to it.
She points to other atrocities and leaders and defends Hitler as no worse than Mao or Stalin, and whilst she may have a point, it shows an utter lack of compassion and the same loss of perspective of which she accuses others of in the "two wrongs don't make a right" sense.
Being tarred with the Hitler brush she admits did ruin her life and her sister Unity's life and her husbands political career and yet she stands by her good opinion of him and the fact that in 1935 "there was nothing exceptionally wrong in wanting to have tea with Hitler". There is something almost disarmingly honest in that.
In letters between her other sisters it is said that she stood by her fascist beliefs not because she truly still held them but that to publicly abandon them would be an admission that she and more to the point Mosley had wasted their time, most of their lives and certainly most of their money, pursuing political suicide. If there is one certain thing about Diana it is that she loved Oswald Mosley beyond reason. To leave ones husband in the 1930s to become the mistress of a married man shows a kind of bravery and/or foolishness rare for a woman of that era
Which brings me to a further mystery, Diana and Mosley's finances. How they were able to move from fabulous house in England, to fabulous house in Ireland to fabulous house in France despite his losing most of their fortune in various follies baffled me. It's very hard to see what either one of them DID for a living after leaving Holloway, particularly Diana. When Nancy dies, Debo describes her life as sad, she only had her books, yet Diana doesn't seem to have anything except Mosley whom she propped up as he went from failure to failure. Whilst Nancy wrote, Pamela farmed and ran a stables, Decca had a series of normal jobs, and Debo was busy running Chatsworth as well as commitments associated to being a Duchess, Diana seems to have done little even her children and grandchildren were on the whole looked after by nannies.
A life of contrasts indeed, and a book of contrasts, on the one hand the carefree lifestyle of the rich against the status of pariah in ones own nation state. The writing, joyous and carefree, often funny, and then by turns completely offensive and deluded; do make this book and Diana Mosley as a character unique. She was almost certainly the only woman in history to be well acquainted privately with both Winston Churchill and Hitler which is remarkable of itself.
An interesting and intriguing addition to the Mitford canon well worth reading. 8/10
Book #24 The Mitford Girls by Mary S Lovell
The Mitford Girls
I read The Mitford Girls a biography by Mary S Lovell on the back of their collection of letters between each other just because I wanted "more" and I found myself disapproving of it from the off.
To understand why requires a prior knowledge of the sisters for context which a reader has if they've read their letters first but not if they read this first.
Most important of these is when this book was conceived and written because at the time four of the six sisters (Unity, Nancy, Pam and Decca) were dead leaving only Diana and Debo alive. Both agreed to cooperate with the book although letters indicate they found the interest in their family tedious. Reading this made me wholeheartedly believe that they cooperated with it in "exchange" for certain things and that the author of the book agreed to their terms.
Though Debo remained in contact with Decca following her elopement and emigration, Diana did not as their polar opposite politics drove them apart. Debo remained angry with Decca over issues she had with her autobiography, namely that some anecdotes were outright lies and the portrayal of their mother was excessively negative. Diana shared this view and had written to newspapers to object to Decca's memoir, in later life a flurry of letters critical of Decca was exchanged.
What I felt most about this book is that it was The Mitford Girls according to Diana and Debo as opposed to an objective all seeing eye of the author. Their mother Sydney is championed as a wonderful mother whose views on education (she did not allow her daughters to go to school) were not as backward as they had seemed. The governesses she employed were of a first rate kind espousing the highly thought of at the time PNEU system. The book is gushing about her both at the beginning and the end.
Contrast this view to Diana's own autobiography in which she more or less confirms Decca's assessment; Sydney is described as "disinterested" and that she learned more in 6 months at her French finishing school then she learned at home in six years and it doesn't add up well.
Decca it is repeatedly implied was a liar, a fantasist, a thief, and a bad mother. Yet, when it becomes clear that Diana herself spent very little time with her older sons, Jonathan and Desmond leaving them home alone with a Nanny whilst she jaunted off all over Europe, this is dismissed as typical for women of that class in that era, and that she "simply adored her sons".
Given that Evelyn Waugh was in love with Diana - I did end up wondering if he took some inspiration from her divorce from Bryan Guinness for A Handful Of Dust. Diana cheated on him, but Bryan had to 'commit an indiscretion' in order that Diana could be the one to file for divorce so as not to ruin her own reputation. Pretty much exactly what happens to the characters in Waugh's novel.
This book is also massively critical of Decca's first husband Esmond, who admittedly does come across as a bit of an idiot in Decca's own autobiography.
A pivotal moment concerns Unity. Esmond writes a letter to his in laws threatening to expose her, and this threat is dismissed by the author of this book in a footnote as "some nonsense invented by Decca"
Yet when Lovell writes the story of Unity's friendship with Hitler she shillyshallys around the 'did they or didn't they?' question. First Unity is just a starstruck fan, and Hitler in any case wouldn't have slept with her because she wasn't German, then they are clearly more than just good friends with pet names and gifts and spending alone time together, then Unity 'is probably in a relationship with a friend of Tom's' then Hitler is paying her bills, then Diana is saying they were just friends, but if Hitler had asked her she would have said yes....At one point, Lord Redesdale is described as liking Hitler much better than the spouses of his daughters 'the man Mosley, the boy Romilly and the bore Rodd' thereby equating Hitler among them. the hovering around the question suggesting then dismissing, suggesting again then dismissing again, seems to be trying to point the reader at the hints between the lines. Though it does not concretely state she was his mistress, it implies it to a great degree in my view, perhaps as though Lovell uncovered something in her research yet didn't want to offend the family; though others might not see it the same way.
Stylistically too, the author does something infuriating, and starts to almost think of herself as one of them, adopting the nicknames they gave others in a way that seems presumptuous, Nancy's husband Peter Rodd for example is referred to throughout as Prod, their own name for him. I think what I'm trying to say is that it lacks the professional distance one expects from a biography.
As a result I felt that this biography was a jaundiced one, and really, that readers are much better served by reading the sisters in their own words through their letters and their own autobiographies
There is also not a lot of "new" detail in this book except that both Decca and Diana had abortions something nobody really needed to know.
I still savoured it though, the Mitfords being my new obsession, and I still, thankfully have plenty more to read.
7/10
I read The Mitford Girls a biography by Mary S Lovell on the back of their collection of letters between each other just because I wanted "more" and I found myself disapproving of it from the off.
To understand why requires a prior knowledge of the sisters for context which a reader has if they've read their letters first but not if they read this first.
Most important of these is when this book was conceived and written because at the time four of the six sisters (Unity, Nancy, Pam and Decca) were dead leaving only Diana and Debo alive. Both agreed to cooperate with the book although letters indicate they found the interest in their family tedious. Reading this made me wholeheartedly believe that they cooperated with it in "exchange" for certain things and that the author of the book agreed to their terms.
Though Debo remained in contact with Decca following her elopement and emigration, Diana did not as their polar opposite politics drove them apart. Debo remained angry with Decca over issues she had with her autobiography, namely that some anecdotes were outright lies and the portrayal of their mother was excessively negative. Diana shared this view and had written to newspapers to object to Decca's memoir, in later life a flurry of letters critical of Decca was exchanged.
What I felt most about this book is that it was The Mitford Girls according to Diana and Debo as opposed to an objective all seeing eye of the author. Their mother Sydney is championed as a wonderful mother whose views on education (she did not allow her daughters to go to school) were not as backward as they had seemed. The governesses she employed were of a first rate kind espousing the highly thought of at the time PNEU system. The book is gushing about her both at the beginning and the end.
Contrast this view to Diana's own autobiography in which she more or less confirms Decca's assessment; Sydney is described as "disinterested" and that she learned more in 6 months at her French finishing school then she learned at home in six years and it doesn't add up well.
Decca it is repeatedly implied was a liar, a fantasist, a thief, and a bad mother. Yet, when it becomes clear that Diana herself spent very little time with her older sons, Jonathan and Desmond leaving them home alone with a Nanny whilst she jaunted off all over Europe, this is dismissed as typical for women of that class in that era, and that she "simply adored her sons".
Given that Evelyn Waugh was in love with Diana - I did end up wondering if he took some inspiration from her divorce from Bryan Guinness for A Handful Of Dust. Diana cheated on him, but Bryan had to 'commit an indiscretion' in order that Diana could be the one to file for divorce so as not to ruin her own reputation. Pretty much exactly what happens to the characters in Waugh's novel.
This book is also massively critical of Decca's first husband Esmond, who admittedly does come across as a bit of an idiot in Decca's own autobiography.
A pivotal moment concerns Unity. Esmond writes a letter to his in laws threatening to expose her, and this threat is dismissed by the author of this book in a footnote as "some nonsense invented by Decca"
Yet when Lovell writes the story of Unity's friendship with Hitler she shillyshallys around the 'did they or didn't they?' question. First Unity is just a starstruck fan, and Hitler in any case wouldn't have slept with her because she wasn't German, then they are clearly more than just good friends with pet names and gifts and spending alone time together, then Unity 'is probably in a relationship with a friend of Tom's' then Hitler is paying her bills, then Diana is saying they were just friends, but if Hitler had asked her she would have said yes....At one point, Lord Redesdale is described as liking Hitler much better than the spouses of his daughters 'the man Mosley, the boy Romilly and the bore Rodd' thereby equating Hitler among them. the hovering around the question suggesting then dismissing, suggesting again then dismissing again, seems to be trying to point the reader at the hints between the lines. Though it does not concretely state she was his mistress, it implies it to a great degree in my view, perhaps as though Lovell uncovered something in her research yet didn't want to offend the family; though others might not see it the same way.
Stylistically too, the author does something infuriating, and starts to almost think of herself as one of them, adopting the nicknames they gave others in a way that seems presumptuous, Nancy's husband Peter Rodd for example is referred to throughout as Prod, their own name for him. I think what I'm trying to say is that it lacks the professional distance one expects from a biography.
As a result I felt that this biography was a jaundiced one, and really, that readers are much better served by reading the sisters in their own words through their letters and their own autobiographies
There is also not a lot of "new" detail in this book except that both Decca and Diana had abortions something nobody really needed to know.
I still savoured it though, the Mitfords being my new obsession, and I still, thankfully have plenty more to read.
7/10
Monday, 23 June 2014
Book #22 Hons and Rebels by Jessica Mitford
Hons and Rebels
As my growing obsession with The Mitfords continues my next stop was Jessica Mitford's autobiography Hons and Rebels which runs from her childhood through to her husbands departure to fight in World War Two, a conflict he died in.
I read Hons and Rebels in one sitting and it doesn't read at all like a standard autobiography more like a quirky novel about posh people, and as such is eminently easy to read. Autobiographies can prove difficult, particularly celebrity ones and the Mitfords were that in their day, as the author can often be disingenuous particularly if fellow subjects are still living.
In Charlotte Mosley's collection of the Mitford sisters letters, Debo and Diana are both scathing of Decca's portrayal of their parents which they see as hostile. For my part I couldn't really see that, both Muv and Farve come off as eccentric but no more so than anyone else of their era with their suspicion of doctors, anyone who wasn't Upper Class and the lack of merit in educating women. Muv herself was said to have enjoyed it, so I can't really see what the problem was.
Inevitably the first two thirds of the book are the best those parts which cover the girls childhood and then Decca's elopement.
She reveals a closeted, isolated existence as the Mitfords, careful who their aristocratic daughters could associate with, largely only allowed them each others company and the company of cousins. Inevitably this led to all the girls developing the eccentricities which they became famous for, Decca recalls being kept in the schoolroom or the nursery as loud battles raged on over something that Diana or Nancy had done, and being clueless as to what was happening.
Bored and frustrated she was desperate to run away, Unity was desperate to meet Hitler, and Debo was desperate to marry a duke, all of which, bizarrely came to fruition. Particular highlights include how all three girls ran off a succession of governesses, until one came that was a useless teacher but whose one significant contribution to their education was to teach them to shoplift, so they made her life easy so that she would stay; all of their efforts to embarrass their mother when she takes them on a cruise and Unity's habit as a teen of giving the Nazi Salute and shouting Heil Hitler to everyone including those who served her in the post office.
To be honest if anyone comes off badly in this autobiography it would be Decca's first husband, her cousin Esmond. This doesn't seem to have been intentional on Decca's part either. She becomes infatuated with Esmond before ever even meeting him via reports of his Communist exploits and subversive underground newspaper for Public Schoolboys.
When she does finally does meet Esmond from the start he comes across as financially motivated and largely self-interested. My low opinion of him increased once they emigrated to the States whereupon the narrative gets a little dull. Decca's account of their elopement is quite brilliant though, particularly how a British Captain was sent on a destroyer to bring her home and tried and failed to lure her aboard with a Roast Chicken!
Many people enjoy reading autobiography above fiction and if you are one of these people I heartily recommend this one, if you do have a preference for fiction anyway this autobiography is written and reads like a good novel anyway.
Marvellous 10/10
As my growing obsession with The Mitfords continues my next stop was Jessica Mitford's autobiography Hons and Rebels which runs from her childhood through to her husbands departure to fight in World War Two, a conflict he died in.
I read Hons and Rebels in one sitting and it doesn't read at all like a standard autobiography more like a quirky novel about posh people, and as such is eminently easy to read. Autobiographies can prove difficult, particularly celebrity ones and the Mitfords were that in their day, as the author can often be disingenuous particularly if fellow subjects are still living.
In Charlotte Mosley's collection of the Mitford sisters letters, Debo and Diana are both scathing of Decca's portrayal of their parents which they see as hostile. For my part I couldn't really see that, both Muv and Farve come off as eccentric but no more so than anyone else of their era with their suspicion of doctors, anyone who wasn't Upper Class and the lack of merit in educating women. Muv herself was said to have enjoyed it, so I can't really see what the problem was.
Inevitably the first two thirds of the book are the best those parts which cover the girls childhood and then Decca's elopement.
She reveals a closeted, isolated existence as the Mitfords, careful who their aristocratic daughters could associate with, largely only allowed them each others company and the company of cousins. Inevitably this led to all the girls developing the eccentricities which they became famous for, Decca recalls being kept in the schoolroom or the nursery as loud battles raged on over something that Diana or Nancy had done, and being clueless as to what was happening.
Bored and frustrated she was desperate to run away, Unity was desperate to meet Hitler, and Debo was desperate to marry a duke, all of which, bizarrely came to fruition. Particular highlights include how all three girls ran off a succession of governesses, until one came that was a useless teacher but whose one significant contribution to their education was to teach them to shoplift, so they made her life easy so that she would stay; all of their efforts to embarrass their mother when she takes them on a cruise and Unity's habit as a teen of giving the Nazi Salute and shouting Heil Hitler to everyone including those who served her in the post office.
To be honest if anyone comes off badly in this autobiography it would be Decca's first husband, her cousin Esmond. This doesn't seem to have been intentional on Decca's part either. She becomes infatuated with Esmond before ever even meeting him via reports of his Communist exploits and subversive underground newspaper for Public Schoolboys.
When she does finally does meet Esmond from the start he comes across as financially motivated and largely self-interested. My low opinion of him increased once they emigrated to the States whereupon the narrative gets a little dull. Decca's account of their elopement is quite brilliant though, particularly how a British Captain was sent on a destroyer to bring her home and tried and failed to lure her aboard with a Roast Chicken!
Many people enjoy reading autobiography above fiction and if you are one of these people I heartily recommend this one, if you do have a preference for fiction anyway this autobiography is written and reads like a good novel anyway.
Marvellous 10/10
Sunday, 22 June 2014
Book #19 The Mitfords : Letters Between Six Sisters ed. Charlotte Mosley
The Mitfords : Letters Between Six Sisters
I will start by saying that I was utterly obsessed by and engrossed in this book. After I, for no apparent reason read the letters between Deborah, Duchess Of Devonshire and Patrick Leigh Fermor, I had to know more about both Debo and her sisters.
Most people have very ordinary lives : school, job, house, car, marriage, children. The same cannot be said for the Mitfords who each had extraordinary lives.
Their letters are touching as they often write to each other using their childhood pet names 'Dear Boud', 'Dear Hen', 'Dearest Woman', 'Dear Honks' and so on, on some occasions the letters are mind blowing, particularly the pre-war ones written by Unity. Though later letters have neither the same energy nor the same level of bonkers they are still excellent from a historical perspective.
Why would anyone be interested in reading a book about 6 sisters you may not have heard of? I'll give a short biography on each, which may explain why this book enthralled me so much.
Nancy :
Though Nancy was a successful writer she was quite bitter and jealous of her younger siblings, largely of their romantic successes in comparison to her own. She had a fake engagement to a gay man, a short lived marriage to a man who only cared about her money and status and an ongoing affair with a Colonel she adored to whom she was merely one of many. She informed on her sister Diana to the British Government during the war, something Diana, who cared for her devotedly towards the end of her life never knew. Of her Debo says "When you take away the books, she had a miserable life really"
Pamela :
Known as Woman, Pamela seldom writes but through the letters of her sisters I built an image of a Miss Trunchbull type character who is large, strides about with dogs in tow, hates children and is obsessed with food.
Diana :
Diana married young to the heir of the Guinness fortune, but, feeling stifled, left him following an affair with Oswald Mosley the fascist, whom she later married (in Goebbels house!) Both massive Nazi sympathizers they were interred at Holloway for the duration of the war as threats to the British nation. Following this, they became pariahs and lived in Ireland and France.
Unity :
Unity and Diana bonded over their mutual affinity for fascism, and their letters to one another are by far the strangest and most alarming to read. Unity had what was tantamount to a schoolgirl crush on Hitler and her letters about him read like a teenager talking about a member of a boyband. "I heard he was in a cafe so I rushed straight there" When war breaks out Unity shoots herself in the head in Berlin, she doesn't die, but has the mental age of child and is prone to rages. The brunt of caring for her falls to her Mother and Debo whose letters reveal how terrible it was. There is a strong sense that no-one in the family besides Diana and their mother, ever took Unity remotely seriously and Debo comments that she hates how Unity is only ever associated to the 'Hitler thing'.
Jessica :
'Decca' was a Communist but was closest to Unity and never parted ways with Unity the way she did with Diana. There is a sense that this is not only due to what befell Unity but because Diana was the more sincere fascist and therefore the more dangerous. Decca eloped with her cousin and after various relatives were unable to persuade them home, married him. Decca was beset by tragedy, but became a civil rights activist, one photo shows her playing Boggle with Maya Angelou! Her Americanisation caused her to both distance herself and become distanced from her sisters who remained quite traditionally British Upper Class. Though unable to ever forgive Diana her far right views; and following upset caused over her autobiography, difficulties among all her family relationships, Jessica bonded with Nancy in later life over the shortcomings of their parents and their anger over never receiving a formal education.
Deborah :
Debo had the happiest childhood of all the sisters, but as the youngest was repeatedly impacted by their outlandish deeds, telling Decca in later life that her elopement was one of the worst things that ever happened to her. Their father once commented : "Whenever I hear of a peers daughter in a scandal I already know it's going to be one of you". She married Andrew Cavendish and when his brother died in the war they became Duke and Duchess of Devonshire. She often socialised with the great and the good, and now in her 90s still does. She was also related by marriage to both JFK and Harold Macmillan, all the Mitfords were also related to the Churchills. I read an article by Guy Walters regarding her memoir which heavily criticises her for not condemning either Diana or Unity for their politics. Having read two sets of Debo's letters, Debo both couldn't care less about politics and loved her sisters no matter what and is the most unilaterally loyal of all and to all of them. When asked by Princess Margaret why Oswald Mosley is in attendance at a soiree, Debo is alleged to have replied with : "Well, he IS my brother in law" As they all aged and passed away, Diana became Debo's last link to her childhood, hardly surprising she would not condemn her and hardly fair to ask her to.
Sometime during the Seventies, there is a resurgence of public interest in the sisters and this leads to a massive falling out, chronicled in letters over both a biography of the departed Unity and a missing scrapbook which Pamela has accused Jessica of stealing. From the Thirties onwards Jessica refused to speak to Diana as their politics drove them apart, in later years, due to rifts, Debo, the most well adjusted of the sisters becomes the hub, and it is sad to watch the letters peter out until only Diana and Debo are alive and then just Debo alone.
This is a fascinating chronicle of a group of women, from a historical perspective, a class perspective and a female perspective and if I haven't whetted your appetite here with my descriptions of them then there's something wrong with you.
Verdict : 10/10 - and the blog is likely to feature a host of Mitford related items over the next year, as I have become slightly obsessed with them. (Though I was dashed to find no mention of Debo's friend Sybil Cholmondeley anywhere)
I will start by saying that I was utterly obsessed by and engrossed in this book. After I, for no apparent reason read the letters between Deborah, Duchess Of Devonshire and Patrick Leigh Fermor, I had to know more about both Debo and her sisters.
Most people have very ordinary lives : school, job, house, car, marriage, children. The same cannot be said for the Mitfords who each had extraordinary lives.
Their letters are touching as they often write to each other using their childhood pet names 'Dear Boud', 'Dear Hen', 'Dearest Woman', 'Dear Honks' and so on, on some occasions the letters are mind blowing, particularly the pre-war ones written by Unity. Though later letters have neither the same energy nor the same level of bonkers they are still excellent from a historical perspective.
Why would anyone be interested in reading a book about 6 sisters you may not have heard of? I'll give a short biography on each, which may explain why this book enthralled me so much.
Nancy :
Though Nancy was a successful writer she was quite bitter and jealous of her younger siblings, largely of their romantic successes in comparison to her own. She had a fake engagement to a gay man, a short lived marriage to a man who only cared about her money and status and an ongoing affair with a Colonel she adored to whom she was merely one of many. She informed on her sister Diana to the British Government during the war, something Diana, who cared for her devotedly towards the end of her life never knew. Of her Debo says "When you take away the books, she had a miserable life really"
Pamela :
Known as Woman, Pamela seldom writes but through the letters of her sisters I built an image of a Miss Trunchbull type character who is large, strides about with dogs in tow, hates children and is obsessed with food.
Diana :
Diana married young to the heir of the Guinness fortune, but, feeling stifled, left him following an affair with Oswald Mosley the fascist, whom she later married (in Goebbels house!) Both massive Nazi sympathizers they were interred at Holloway for the duration of the war as threats to the British nation. Following this, they became pariahs and lived in Ireland and France.
Unity :
Unity and Diana bonded over their mutual affinity for fascism, and their letters to one another are by far the strangest and most alarming to read. Unity had what was tantamount to a schoolgirl crush on Hitler and her letters about him read like a teenager talking about a member of a boyband. "I heard he was in a cafe so I rushed straight there" When war breaks out Unity shoots herself in the head in Berlin, she doesn't die, but has the mental age of child and is prone to rages. The brunt of caring for her falls to her Mother and Debo whose letters reveal how terrible it was. There is a strong sense that no-one in the family besides Diana and their mother, ever took Unity remotely seriously and Debo comments that she hates how Unity is only ever associated to the 'Hitler thing'.
Jessica :
'Decca' was a Communist but was closest to Unity and never parted ways with Unity the way she did with Diana. There is a sense that this is not only due to what befell Unity but because Diana was the more sincere fascist and therefore the more dangerous. Decca eloped with her cousin and after various relatives were unable to persuade them home, married him. Decca was beset by tragedy, but became a civil rights activist, one photo shows her playing Boggle with Maya Angelou! Her Americanisation caused her to both distance herself and become distanced from her sisters who remained quite traditionally British Upper Class. Though unable to ever forgive Diana her far right views; and following upset caused over her autobiography, difficulties among all her family relationships, Jessica bonded with Nancy in later life over the shortcomings of their parents and their anger over never receiving a formal education.
Deborah :
Debo had the happiest childhood of all the sisters, but as the youngest was repeatedly impacted by their outlandish deeds, telling Decca in later life that her elopement was one of the worst things that ever happened to her. Their father once commented : "Whenever I hear of a peers daughter in a scandal I already know it's going to be one of you". She married Andrew Cavendish and when his brother died in the war they became Duke and Duchess of Devonshire. She often socialised with the great and the good, and now in her 90s still does. She was also related by marriage to both JFK and Harold Macmillan, all the Mitfords were also related to the Churchills. I read an article by Guy Walters regarding her memoir which heavily criticises her for not condemning either Diana or Unity for their politics. Having read two sets of Debo's letters, Debo both couldn't care less about politics and loved her sisters no matter what and is the most unilaterally loyal of all and to all of them. When asked by Princess Margaret why Oswald Mosley is in attendance at a soiree, Debo is alleged to have replied with : "Well, he IS my brother in law" As they all aged and passed away, Diana became Debo's last link to her childhood, hardly surprising she would not condemn her and hardly fair to ask her to.
Sometime during the Seventies, there is a resurgence of public interest in the sisters and this leads to a massive falling out, chronicled in letters over both a biography of the departed Unity and a missing scrapbook which Pamela has accused Jessica of stealing. From the Thirties onwards Jessica refused to speak to Diana as their politics drove them apart, in later years, due to rifts, Debo, the most well adjusted of the sisters becomes the hub, and it is sad to watch the letters peter out until only Diana and Debo are alive and then just Debo alone.
This is a fascinating chronicle of a group of women, from a historical perspective, a class perspective and a female perspective and if I haven't whetted your appetite here with my descriptions of them then there's something wrong with you.
Verdict : 10/10 - and the blog is likely to feature a host of Mitford related items over the next year, as I have become slightly obsessed with them. (Though I was dashed to find no mention of Debo's friend Sybil Cholmondeley anywhere)
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