This a book I wish my friends had read, but I'm not sure that I myself want to give them to read. It's actually two books - both stories told by the same narrator - set in that charming it-can't-be-true period of English country houses between the wars. The characters are absurd like Wodehouse but there is no Jeeves to set things right, nor do the increasingly absurd folks in these books possess that general innocent but good idiocy that you ca expect from Wodehouses' heros, if not his heroines. Both books are very funny and the reason I want other folks to read them is selfish - I want to be able to be able to refer to the funny stories and phrases contained herein and have someone actually know what I'm talking about. Within ten minutes of starting the first book, I've been thinking what fellow-Hon I will give it to next. You'll know its you, I suppose, if you receive it in the mail. I prefered The Pursuit of Love to Love in a Cold Climate (I'm sorry but the idea of a crazy Lord hunting his children when foxes are scarce cracks me up - I can't help it), but the source of the second title is really funny, too. And, since they are in the same volume, you might as well read both. I'm sure I will again. ( )

The Pursuit of Love:
It was a great relief to finally read a love story wherein a Rollo wasn't one of the main interests, usually gumming up the works. In PURSUIT OF LOVE Linda Radlett makes two bad marriages, meets a loquacious Frenchman, has his baby and dies shortly thereafter, due to complications while giving birth. The story is told by her relative "Fanny" who along the way gives us a peek into the lives of an upper-crust family with at least a few eccentrics to boast of. Among the most noticable is Uncle Matthew.
He is a singular piece of work who is sparing with the "thin edge of the wedge," calls those he disapproves of: stinkers, sewers, and is no friend to foreigners, especially of the variety Hun.
Mitford pulls all this off with restraint and a steady hand. She seldom if ever strains for effect. She does everything with sprezzattura, the temperature of the duelist, that is: no sweat. She makes no forays into the world of stylistic experimentation; and makes no miss-steps describing the world of those wearing the high hats. Though I am a Detroiter, so maybe I am not the right sort to comment on her understanding of the muckety-mucks.

LOVE IN A COLD CLIMATE
This Novel is again narrated by "Fanny." It mostly tells the story of a Polly, daughter of the Lady Montdore. The job is to get Polly married off. She's quite beautiful but is not making much headway. She finally marries an older relative, and upon doing so, gets disinherited. Lady Montdore completely cuts off relations with Polly who had been the apple of her eye till she made the uacceptable union with her uncle.
Mitford is very adept at describing this world that is closed to most of us. here is a description of Lady M.:
Lady M. sat well back on the sofa, both her feet on the ground. She seemed planted there, immovable and solid, not actually fat, but solid through and through. Smartness, even if she had sought after it, would hardly be attainable by her in a world where it was personified by the other and had become almost as much a question of build, of quick and nervous movement as of actual clothes. Her hair was shingled, but it was gray and fluffy, by no means a smooth cap, her eyebrows grew at will, and when she remembered to use lipstick and powder they were any color and slapped on anyhow, so that her face, compared with that of Mrs. Chaddesley Corbett was a hayfield is to a lawn, her whole head looking twice as large as the polished little head beside her. All the same she was not disagreeable to look at. There was a healthiness and liveliness about her face which lent it a certain attraction. Of course she seemed to me, then, very old. She was in fact, about 58.
Later on in te novel she gets a make-over from Cedric the pouvy new heir. Another amusing section of the novel had to do with the reading or not reading of TO THE LIGHTHOUSE:

"Oh, yes, I know what I wanted to ask you," she said, "Who is this Virginia Woolf you mentioned to me?. . . "She's a writer," I said, "A novelist really." "Yes I see. And as she's so intellectual, no doubt she writes about nothing but stationmasters."
"Well, no ," I said, "she doesn't."
"I must confess that I prefer books about a society people, not being myself a highbrow."
"She did write a fascinating book about a society person,"
I said, "called Mrs. Dalloway."
. . .but she brought it back the following week, saying that she really must write a book herself, as she knew she could do much better herself."
. . . "Couldn't read it," she said, "I did try, but it is too boring. And I never got to that society person you told me of."

The novel ends rather abruptly, and the reader is not certain right away what the ending means. Isn't this the case with many good stories? ( )

Read only Love in a Cold Climate. Fanny, such an inconspicuous first person narrator that one is always startled when her name appears, has been raised by aunts and uncles after her parents’ early divorce. On the one hand, she has a large family of rambunctious cousins, most, it seems, girls, the older of whom joke about sex a lot and the younger of whom ask a lot of questions about it. On the other hand is her friend Polly, a beautiful only child of rich, elderly parents. Other characters include Fanny’s own husband, a remote figure; Polly’s mother, Lady Montdore; a flaming young heir, via entail, to the Montdore’s estate; and Boy Dougdale, known to the Radlett cousins as the “Lecherous Lecturer” for his inappropriate attentions to young girls. Complications and pairings ensue.

I enjoyed it while I was reading it; it was funny. After I was finished, though, I felt rather empty. It did not leave a lasting impression. I also was a little mystified by the ending and had to resort to a Wikipedia summary to make sense of it. ( )

The six Mitford sisters were stylish young members of English high society during the 1920s & 30s. These two novellas provide an entertaining look at their world, as seen by their cousin, Fanny. Pursuit of Love is the most autobiographical of the two, as it centers on the Radletts, a large family of mostly daughters, who divide their time between London and a country house. The second-oldest daughter, Linda, is a contemporary of Fanny's, and they spend much of their childhood together. As Linda matures she finds herself "in pursuit of love," moving from one relationship to another ... in contrast to Fanny who rather easily finds love and forms a happy marriage.

Love in a Cold Climate tells of Fanny's other cousins, the much wealthier Montdores and their daughter, Polly. Polly came of age in India and returned to England to come out in society. She rejects the young men presented to her, and eventually her reasons become apparent, with painful consequences for the entire family.

Happily, these rather serious-sounding story lines are overshadowed by quirky, eccentric characters portrayed in a very humorous, over-the-top style. Take, for example, Polly's mother, Lady Montdore: "You know, Fanny," she went on, "it's all very well for funny little people like you to read books the whole time. You only have yourselves to consider, whereas Montdore and I are public servants, in a way, we have something to live up to, tradition and so on, duties to perform, you know. It's a very different matter. A great deal is expected of us, I think and hope not in vain. It's a hard life, make no mistake about that; hard and tiring, but occasionally we have our reward -- when people get a chance to show how they worship us." (p. 396)

While I enjoyed Nancy Mitford's skewering of her own family & society, I enjoyed even more the way these two novellas complemented each other. Many characters appear in both books, but in different settings, such that the reader develops a more complete picture of that character. This is particularly true of the narrator, Fanny, who moves with ease among the two very different families. The stories take place in the same time period, the Radletts and Mountdores know one another, and occasionally their worlds intersect, i.e.; for weddings and funerals. These books are best read together in order to appreciate this richness. ( )

upperclass british twits at play ( )