Loved this quintessentially Nancy Mitford story, filled with eccentric characters, witty observations of class and English-French distinctions, delightful frivolities. Sigismond you petit monster! ( )

A book that was quite a success in 1951, which is frivolous and amusing, but I would prefer to read it as a social satire rather than a romance or celebration of the life of some very rich people. Nancy Mitford was a member of a privileged, well connected family and was at home in writing a novel about rich and privileged people; it is a world where the only poor people one might meet are the servants. Money and position is everything and to readers outside that social circle (which is the vast majority) it must appear like a sort of fantasy land. We all like to laugh at the "nobs" whose world in reality hardly touches ours. I laughed along with many readers of the book, but was always unsure how deep the satire was meant to penetrate.

The novel tells the story of Grace Allingham's adventures in the marriage market. She falls in love with the Frenchman Charles-Edouard a charming cavalier of a man always wanting to move on to the next thing and a serial womaniser. After a whirlwind romance they are married and soon Grace is pregnant with her first child Sigi (the blessing). Grace is happily married and enjoys the high society life in Paris and turns a blind eye to her husbands dalliances with other women. Charles-Edouard's continual absence from home starts to annoy her and when she catches him in bed with another woman who she believed was a childhood friend, she leaves him and returns to her family home in England. Sigi is a resourceful child of seven years and he discovers that living with both parents, one in France the other in England for an agreed portion of the year; he gets the best of both worlds and the second part of the novel are his increasingly desperate attempts to keep his mother and father apart.

The most obvious satire is the difference between the French, the English and the Americans. Francophiles will love this book, Americans perhaps not so much. Paris high society according to the novel soon gets back to how things were before the second world war. rationing, food shortages hardly get a mention, all is light and glamour and the whirl of Parisian life and the charm of the chateaus in the countryside is compared to the crabby lifestyle in England. Grace loves the culture, the good manners, the more modern approach to love and sex and the conversations around the banqueting tables. Grace's American friend in Paris; Carolyn Dexter is not so enamoured, finding it difficult to get into the society and appalled by the less than sanitary arrangements. Grace's nanny finds the garlicky food inedible and keeps young Sigi away from the horrible rough french children.

The charming energetic Charles-Edouard is everything that a man with privilege and money can be in free wheeling society in Paris. Grace is willing to forgive him almost everything because of her own position as his wife, his charm and success reflects on her and that is enough for her. This message comes through loud and clear in a book which might not be in tune with more 21st century thinking. Grace does assert her independence to the extent that she can afford to go back to her father Sir Conrad, but it is only the machinations of Sigi that keeps her away from Charles-Edouard.

Nancy Mitford's prose flows nicely throughout the book, her characters are well drawn and are not lampooned to the extent that they are unbelievable. They sometimes do crazy things, but then they are rich enough to get away with it. They certainly do nothing to harm their own position, but how light can it be, I asked myself, should I be enchanted by their lifestyles. The novel has some funny moments and never fails to amuse, light. frothy entertainment with satire pitched at a level that rarely gets below the surface. Nancy Mitford moved to Paris in 1946 and became a firm francophile and this is certainly reflected in her novel and so as an ex-pat myself I give it three stars. ( )

More snark from Nancy Mitford.
Quotable:

"I wish I understood Americans," said Charles-Edouard. "They are very strange. So good, and yet so dull. "
"What makes you think they are so good?"
"You can see it, shining in their eyes."
"That's not goodness, that's contact lenses--a kind of spectacle they wear next to the eyeball. I had an American lover after the liberation and I used to tap his eye with my nail file." ( )

64/2020. I found the first two-thirds somewhat dull scene-setting but can't criticise the quality of prose or pacing, and there are occasional enjoyable one-liners to enliven proceedings. After the Blessing, seven year old Sigismond, comes into his own as a character then more entertaining society shenanigans ensue in the final third. The senior mistress, Albertine Marel-Desboulles, is by far the most interesting character, although I would also cheerfully read a novel about any of the Aunts.

Reading notes

Bunbury Park will never stop being amusing, obviously.

Nanny, during the war, with her best complaint of the book: "If he'd had been called after his father he could have been Charlie, or Eddy, but Sigi - ! Well, I don't care to say it in the street, makes people look round."

Thank you comrade Nancy: "They could not be the clever girls they were without seeing life a little bit through Marx-coloured spectacles" ( )

Very charming, funny and often surprising. A totally delightful mid-century read. ( )