Don't Tell Alfred

I love Nancy Mitford and I loved this novel. It may not quite have the comic punch that The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold climate do - but it is often very funny, and best of all reunites us with some of those beloved characters from her other books. Fanny is now middleaged, the mother of four boys, two grown up, and causing their parents to despair, and two still at Eton, who during the course of this novel run away and have a few adventures, causing a few more anxieties. When Alfred is made Ambassador to Paris, Fanny's cosy Oxford life changes to one of diplomacy, receptions, cocktail parties, and dodging the gutter press. She hires a cousin of hers Northey as her social secretary - an hilarious (and typical Mitford) character show more and definitely the best part of the book. She is flighty, prone to tears - especially over animals - she adopts a badger and rescues some crabs that were destined for table, and has half of Paris falling at her feet. show less

Oh this was a lot of fun. Ostensibly the third book of the series that includes Love in a Cold Climate and The Pursuit of Love, it's been so many years since I read the first two that I barely remember the important characters, but it made not a lick of difference. Don't Tell Alfred takes place 30 years after the events of the first two books, and anybody who is still alive is almost too different to recognise anyway.

Fanny is now the main character, rather than just the narrator, but it seems she's also a helpless bystander in the three ring circus her life has become when Alfred becomes the Ambassador to France. One hilarious calamity after the other - most involving her extended family, if not her own children - has her scurrying to show more keep one step ahead of the chaos, and if not one step ahead, arranging the fall out so that Alfred comes out looking his best.

Not quite under the surface of these calamities - it bubbles up regularly throughout the story - is every parents lament over their childrens' avowal to reject every principle they were ever taught. This being the late 50's, the rejection is, as the age of Aquarius looms, that much more outsized and outrageous.

Throughout the narrative, Mitford takes potshots in turns at the British, the French and, of course, the Americans (I'm pretty sure it's a national sport in the UK); about the only country to come out unscathed from her pen are the Irish, which she feels a rather lot of sympathy for. It all reads as though it's meant in good fun and it adds to the often manic laughs.

So far, Mitford is 3 for 3; I have a couple of her other titles on my TBR and I'm curious how well the humor will hold with a whole new cast of characters. show less

This is my favourite - and I think the funniest - of all Nancy Mitford's books. This is Fanny (from Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate) now in her middle years. Her university don husband is now the English Ambassador in France and her boys have grown into not what she quite ever expected. Interestingly it is set in the 50s when the world was changing, teds, hippies and entrepreneurs. Some of the characters from her earlier books make an appearance and it is interesting to think how much of it was real as she had been very good friends with one ambassador and not keen on another in real life. Certainly many of the characters are based on real life friends and family. It didn't get all good reviews but I love it and will laugh show more when I read it again and again show less

In modern parlance, this feels like a reboot of a beloved series, a treat for the fans of Love in a Cold Climate and the Pursuit of Love (and maybe The Blessing too as Sigi and his family features here).

It was comforting to be in Mitford's capable and deft hands, and to have Fanny more front and centre. I enjoyed a lot of the social commentary (Mitford is really showing off here with her insider knowledge of English-French relations from politics to polite societies) and youthful rebellions and inevitable intergenerational disputes. Truly nothing ever changes!

This follows Love in a Cold Climate and The Pursuit of Love when Fanny is middle-aged and less confident in her abilities as she faces a life in Parisian high society attendant with her husband Alfred's appointment as Ambassador to France. Filled with eccentric characters, Mitford's writing is, as always, witty and sparkling.

This is the third book in Nancy Mitford's loose series that started with The Pursuit of Love. Instead of narrating the more glamorous lives of her cousin and friend respectively, Fanny has center stage here as she and her husband move to Paris after he becomes the ambassador to France.

While the first two books occurred more or less contemporaneously, this book happens many years down the road, with Fanny's children all in their late teens/early adulthood and the war years firmly behind them. This title also seems to lean more into the humor, with really no sad events occurring. Fanny's life as wife of ambassador is full of small trials and tribulations, like the previous ambassadress refusing to give up the residence, an obnoxious show more journalist who writes about them as though writing for a gossip column, a silly secretary who never does her work but is a beloved family member so must stay, and so on. Meanwhile, her children keep giving Fanny grief by rebelling against conformity, each in his own way.

There are definitely some connections here to the previous two books, but most of the main characters from those titles are sidelined here with only a few brief mentions. This title could more or less stand on its own. For those who did read the predecessor novels though, this is a little bit like visiting with old friends again -- comforting and entertaining for a little while at least. show less

Don't Tell Alfred continues with the characters who first appeared in Mitford's The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate. By now, Fanny is middle-aged, still married to Alfred - who is now the British Ambassador to Paris - and is still grapelling with the demands life places upon her, her children and their woes, her need to be stylish in Paris, and the manners and mores of haute societe Parisienne. As always this is a delightful imbroglio. Comfort reading.