strange and random happenstance

Highland Fling by Nancy Mitford
Published by: Vintage
Publication Date: 1931
Format: Paperback, 208 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy

"I first came to Nancy Mitford my freshman year of college via her later books: Pigeon Pie, In Pursuit of Love, and Love in a Cold Climate, in that order. When I finally got my hands on Highland Fling, in grad school, I was deeply disappointed. The characters all struck me as deeply unpleasant; the writing was snide; and nothing really happened. (Other than a fire. There was a fire. But unlike a proper Gothic fire, where mad wives are immolated, here people just sat around in their pajamas and watched it burn, or ran in to rescue the odd Victorian knick-knack.)

Re-reading Highland Fling after a crash course on the 1920s was a very different experience. I still don’t love it as a novel, but as a testament about the mood of a certain group at a certain time, it’s incredibly telling, particularly vis a vis the clash between the generations and the self-imposed alienation of the younger, artsy set (while, of course, still taking advantage of things like wealthy relatives and free stays in castles).

It’s instructive to read Highland Fling in conjunction with In Pursuit of Love and Vile Bodies in conjunction with Brideshead. Both Mitford and Waugh got out, so to speak. They managed to rise above their Bright Young Origins, take a longer view, and mature into novelists who took a big picture view of their world. One gets the sense that many of their colleagues didn’t, that they remained trapped in a very small and recursive world.

What did you think of Highland Fling?" - Lauren Willig

Albert Gates has been in Paris making a name for himself as an artist. He is only returning to England, the land of creative blocks, because he has a show opening in the fall and he wishes to see his dear friends Walter and Sally Monteath as well as the venue for his exhibit. Turns out Walter and Sally are having a cash flow problem due to Walter's impecunious nature wherein he doesn't feel a lack of money should impact his good time. It doesn't help that his occupation is a poet, so there's not much cash coming in at all even when he gets work. Walter is trying to convince Sally and Albert to go on vacation to the Lido, an expense Sally says they can do without, when Sally is given a great opportunity.

Sally's Aunt Madge and Uncle Craig Craigdalloch, the Lord and Lady of Dulloch Castle, spend every August at said Castle entertaining a hunting and shooting party. But sadly Uncle Craig has been asked to go to Rhodesia and they are desperate to have someone host the house party, because cancelling it is out of the question. Sally agrees to play hostess, mainly because by living in Scotland for a few months her and Walter's outlay will be nothing, and by inviting Albert to entertain Walter and her friend Jane Dacre to entertain herself, it will be a jolly holiday. The bright young things don't quite mesh with the old horse and hounds military folk and their wives, but they do have quite a time making fun of them. Plus, to an artist and Victorian fanatic like Albert, the attics of the castle are strewn with fascinating relics that he can't wait to discover, of course with the help of the lovely Jane Dacre. It is quite a fun time in Scotland till the house starts on fire, but no one could have guessed that that would be the result of this jaunty trip.

My love of the Mitford sisters has lead me to read much on their diverse and odd lives. But reading nonfiction isn't quite the same as reading fiction, no matter how much that fiction may walk the line between reality and invention. I felt a profound relief in sinking back into my first love, Nancy's writing. In her writing Nancy has taken the bones of her life and made it into humorous fodder. Her writing is a light and breezy roman à clef. There is a bite to her wit, but there isn't a depressing darker side, there aren't sad family separations or miscarriages, just people jaunting about a castle in Scotland and watching men throw cabers, but viewed with a jaundiced eye.

The highlands were part of Nancy's growing up. Being shipped off to Scotland during various times in her life for holidays and hunts to sit in damp locales waiting for the guns to go off. While Nancy was born and raised a country girl, she really loved the glittering world of London into which she emerged after what must have felt like years of exile with her family. She was a bright young thing, and bright young things have a humorous take on this other life they are a part of, this horse and hounds set. Mockery is easiest to achieve with something that you love or have loved, hence teasing your family is so easy. Highland Fling is a loving tease of all that is Scotland and a hunting holiday, and it lightened my heart and made me wonder, once again, why so many of Nancy's books have been out of print for so long in the United States.

My favorite part of this book is a poem about the history of the tower that is part of Dulloch Castle called "The Lament of Lady Muscatel." Of course, the poetic history of Scotland is in the hands of Robbie Burns. Everybody knows Robbie Burns even if they don't realize it. The phrase "the best laid plans of mice and men/often go awry" is a modernization from Burns's poem "To a Mouse" which said "the best-laid schemes o' mice an' men/Gang aft agley." Don't believe me? Just go ask Eddie Izzard. Well, I have a love hate relationship with Robbie Burns. Back in 2005 I had this kind of weird experience where I felt I was being stalked by Robbie Burns, and in the end it kind of relates back to Eddie Izzard. During the spring of 2005 I was traveling on the east coast, New York to Halifax. For some reason poetry was in the air, we wrote an ode to the town across the harbor from Halifax, Dartmouth, because of a lost wallet. This must have somehow summoned forth Robbie, because from then on out he was everywhere.

One rainy day I was wandering around Halifax with my friend Orelia and we found a statue to him in Victoria Gardens. On the drive back to New York we listened to The Proclaimers, and there were Burns references in their songs... then on the poets walk in New York, Burns again! The final appearance of Burns was on the drive home to Wisconsin while listening to every Eddie Izzard live show available and Burns reared his mousy head. Needless to say, I was a little sick of Robbie and have never quite forgiven him for haunting my every step. Therefore, Nancy, taking the piss out of him with her refrain "The pibroch i' the glen is boony/But waley, waley, wheer's ma Ronnie?" brought tears of joy and laughter to me. Also, the word waley entertains me to no end. But I think the fact that the poem is actually well done helps maintain that tease just right with a little love on one end and a little hate on the other.

The other aspect of the book I found fascinating is that the younger generation is obsessed with the Victoriana of their parents generation, ie the tat their parents hate. Albert, oh such an appropriate name, is so obsessed with the Victorian clutter that has been hidden away in Dulloch Castle that he goes about excavating everything he can lay his hands on from the dusty attics and moving it into the billiards room so he can document and photograph it for a little pamphlet he's writing. While this book was written in the thirties, it has a universal truth. The fact is style and taste is cyclical. When I was younger I remember loving sixties fashion, which my parents just hated, because they had had to live through it. I had a similar reaction when the eighties came back, and even more now that the nineties are. There's a nostalgia for the near past that we ourselves didn't live through. I personally had never thought much on this, thinking it was more a recent trend, but Nancy shows, without a doubt, this is something that has probably always been going on. And from a personal point of view we have to really feel for Lady Craigdalloch who views the destruction of the house as a good thing because at least all the horrid old Victorian tat is gone... she is not well pleased when she learns that Albert saved it all.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Dulloch Castle, Eddie Izzard, Evelyn Waugh, Highland Fling, Horse and Hounds, Jazzy July, Lauren Willig, Nancy Mitford, New York, Robbie Burns, Scotland, Victorian, Victoriana

Bright Young People by D. J. Taylor
Published by: Farrar Straus Giroux
Publication Date: October 4th, 2007
Format: Hardcover, 361 Pages
Rating: ★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

"There’s an old rhyme about Fuzzy Wuzzy that ends with “Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn’t very fuzzy, was he?” By the same token, although they’ve certainly cast a long and sparkly shadow, the Bright Young People weren’t very bright, and no one manages to convey this better than D.J. Taylor in his Bright Young People. He faithfully chronicles the increasingly inventive parties, but also the ennui, the disillusionment, and waste of time and talent.

I first read this book when I was doing my research for The Ashford Affair, which zigzagged around 1920s London and 1920s Kenya. It was a bit out of my field for that—I was really more interested in a slightly older crowd, the men and women who came of age during World War I rather than after—but I was fascinated by a) what a small and narrow circle the Bright Young Things moved in, b) how short their tenure, and c) what a disproportionate effect they created.

I’m still struggling with just what it was about this group of party-goers that makes their antics still a by-word today. Was it because they produced a pair of truly brilliant novelists? Was it because, in their own concentrated, exaggerated way, they managed to echo the malaise and restlessness of the times? Or is it the sheer absurdity and flamboyance of it all that still fascinates?" - Lauren Willig

The 1920s in England spawned a unique subculture. The Bright Young Things, people who partied every night, always had just the right bon mot, and never failed to make headlines in the newspapers, many written by their own set, swept through the country. While their parents might have thought of them as the scourge of the country with their depravity, the public couldn't get enough of reading about the antics of these young partygoers. But the artistic and bohemian lifestyle had a price, most of them wasted their talents and were burned out by their hedonistic lifestyle. Of all the Bright Young People, so few names remain memorable in the artistic community, such as Evelyn Waugh and Nancy Mitford. What happened to the rest? They were the symbol of a decade but as that decade grew to a close the world was changing, war started to loom again on the horizon, and decadence wasn't looked on favourably during a time of retrenchment. Though looking back, it is fascinating to examine the beginning of what would become our celebrity obsessed society. It didn't start with Kim and Kanye, it started with Beverly Nichols and Elizabeth Ponsonby!

Biographies written by authors with an overinflated sense of self are hard to read. They don't let their subjects take center stage, being always more concerned with patting themselves on the back then doing justice to their subjects. D.J. Taylor is such a writer, more interested in using obscure words and overblown language to showcase his own "talent" then writing a solid book, whose subject matter I'm not even sure he liked all that much. There is a smugness in the way he assumes that everyone must know who and what he is talking about and that if you don't you are unworthy of this knowledge. This leaves the reader confused in a morass of names and events with only the loosest grasp of who any of the Bright Young People really are. Apparently a simple precise of the cast of characters would sully Taylor's writing and make the book too approachable by the uniformed masses. And the thing is, I'm not uniformed! I know many of the Bright Young People and still I felt like I was futilely trying to catch some meaning out of the fog Taylor creates with his impenetrable text. Bright Young People and authors like Taylor are the exact reason I have problems with biographies and why I so rarely read them. And if he referenced ONE MORE picture that wasn't included in the book I was ready to burn it, library fine or no.

When I read the biography on the Mitford sisters, I faced many of the same problems I faced here. The Sisters just rehashed commonly known facts and oft told stories I had heard in their own books while bringing nothing further to the table. Taylor does the same. He spends copious amounts of time dwelling on repeating plots from books or tales of parties that are better told elsewhere. Why would I be reading this book to read in detail the plot of Vile Bodies? If I wanted to know about Vile Bodies I would read Vile Bodies! Which I am actually planning on doing anyway. But the biggest problem I have with him summarizing these primary sources is he does it so badly. I know it's hard to condense a book's narrative down so that you engage your reader as well as give just enough detail without spoiling the book, heck I do it with every book review I write. So I think I'm a little qualified to pass judgment here. In the book's chapter entitled "Projections" which is near the end of the book, if you make it that far which I don't advise you to do, all Taylor does is badly summarize the literary efforts of the authors this generation spawned. Now I have read all the books Nancy Mitford has written, ALL THE BOOKS, and I could barely recognize Highland Fling from Taylor's description. The same can be said about Christmas Pudding and Pigeon Pie. Therefore I can only assume the books I haven't read were just as atrociously summarized. Plus, why do I want to read this when I could just pick up the original book? You would be better off reading all the primary sources then wading into this pompous and pretentious morass that theoretically attempts to unify the authors lives and works into one book.

What is fascinating about this grouping of authors, photographers, heiresses, and what have you is that they were a very egalitarian group, despite being very clannish. Many people site the first world war as the great equalizer. It was the last war where your status could get you a higher commission. The world started to shift from this Upstairs, Downstairs world to a world more founded on merit. Therefore why should it be any surprise that The Bright Young People were also a more democratic lot. Titled "Hons" rubbed shoulders with "laborers" in their midst. The two most recognizable of these lower orders rising up are Cecil Beaton and Evelyn Waugh. While Beaton was more overtly ambitious, these two men, who ironically hated each other, had humbler beginnings then many of their contemporaries among this glittering society. Waugh's father was an author and literary critic, while Beaton's was a timber merchant. While their beginnings weren't so humble as to be penurious, seeing as they went to the right schools and therefore worked their way into this new social circle, it is just fascinating that they had a-typical backgrounds. When you think of the writer to define this generation, this movement, while Nancy Mitford is a close second, Evelyn Waugh takes the top prize. He immortalized this period for future generations. Likewise if one was to think of a person who captured the images of the age, Cecil Beaton, hands down. Sure he went on to even greater acclaim and Academy Awards, but it is his portraiture of this age the captures it for time in memoriam.

One aspect that I found interesting enough to dwell a few minutes on was the idea of the Bright Young "Thing" versus the Bright Young "Person." Because it's an interesting theory I can unequivocally state that Taylor didn't think it up and it's been floating around for awhile, he just doesn't have it in him. While many people refer to the culture of the Bright Young Thing it would be more accurate to replace "Thing" with "Person" or "People" because this was a generation that, while they had an overall vibe, it was the personalities that made this movement important. Which is why little precises of all the movers and shakers would have been so helpful! If this is a movement about the people, it would be helpful to know who all these people are! Name drop all you want Taylor, if I don't know them just reading their names over and over again isn't going to magically enlighten me! This was really the epoch of what we now know as celebrity culture, of the "personality." Sure, there were famous personages prior to the twenties, but their every single detail down to who was at a bridge party at Nancy Mitford's house wasn't published in the press. This was when the exploits of so-called celebrities daily exploits were written up to be consumed by the masses who could barely comprehend living this party lifestyle. We still consume it at probably an even more rapid rate then they did back then. Turn on the television at any time of day and there are some pseudo-celebrities with cameras following them everywhere. And while it is funny to think about what a reality show with Elizabeth Ponsonby or Evelyn Waugh would have been like, in the end would the show be any more captivating then any current reality TV? Probably not. Just more people trying to stay in the spotlight with stunts and parties.

The biggest flaw though, in this overly flawed book, is that Taylor breaks basically the only rule for writing a work of non-fiction, and that is overreliance on one source. When you write non-fiction using only one person's diaries or journals it gives you a skewed view of what really happened. You are only getting one side of the story. You can't provide any kind of faithful narrative with only this one POV. Here the POV is almost strictly that of the Ponsonbys. Taylor must have been so flattered to be allowed unprecedented access to the Ponsonby family archive that it inflated his already inflated ego and turned this book more and more into a platform for the elder Ponsonbys to rail against their daughter, Elizabeth. Firstly, why didn't Taylor just write about them if they were so obviously his pet project, and secondly, the "generational struggle" that the diary entries are supposed to highlight as a typical reaction to children misbehaving don't work. At all. Instead, these diary entries focused on the behavior of their daughter make Elizabeth's parents seem unstable. They appear, quite dramatically, to be psychotically obsessed with their daughter's comings and goings, even onto the point of her sexual activity. If you think OCD helicopter parents are a new trend, I give you the Ponsonbys as proof against that. Seriously, they just give me the creeps. There's a book in their relationship with their daughter, it just shouldn't have been in any part of this one. Also, Norma Bates, you have been outdone, FYI.

The feeling this book leaves you with, beside rage at the author and a desire never to meet the Ponsonbys, is that of overwhelming sadness. The Bright Young People burned bright and fast, falling into ruin and disipation. The book couldn't be bothered with going into the whys and wherefores as to how this generation was formed, aside from quotes from far better authors of the time. But you still get that this generation was lost, not in the typical sense. They didn't disappear, they left their mark, but it was fleeting. They were lost in the wilderness and didn't know how to make a life of parties and treasure hunts and dressing up transition into a real life, with productive work and a future. Of all the personalities profiled, Elizabeth Ponsonby, Evelyn Waugh, Cecil Beaton, Anthony Powell, Harold Acton, John Betjeman, Edward Burra, Edward Gathorne-Hardy, Babe Plunket-Greene, Brian Howard, Beverly Nichols, Brenda Dean Paul, Bryan Guinness, Henry Green, the Sitwells, and the Mitfords, and many more, the average person would probably only know Evelyn Waugh. If they are more of a reader, perhaps Waugh, Nancy Mitford, and Anthony Powell. Of the coeterie of personalities, only a small handful are still known. Only these few had any lasting power. Yet all these people wrote or act or were creative and yet there is nothing to remember them by. So maybe they are lost in every since of the word. It's too too sad making.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Beverly Nichols, Bright Young People, Bright Young Things, Christmas Pudding, D.J. Taylor, Elizabeth Ponsonby, Evelyn Waugh, Highland Fling, Hons, Jazzy July, Lauren Willig, Nancy Mitford, Pigeon Pie, Vile Bodies

Christmas Pudding by Nancy Mitford
Published by: Vintage
Publication Date: 1932
Format: Paperback, 368 Pages
Rating: ★★★
To Buy

Paul Fotheringay is gutted. His first book Crazy Capers is an unrivaled success. Most authors would be pleased with this development, but not Paul. He poured his heart and soul into his book that he hoped would be heralded as a literary masterpiece only to have everyone think it is a comedy. Not just that, but the funniest book they have ever read. His tragedy is a laughing matter. In fact his whole life is rather tragic at the moment. His friend Amabelle, a rather notorious woman, tells Paul that the only hope he has now of being taken seriously is to follow up his first book with an in depth biography, something no one could mistake as farcical. He decides that the only possible subject for his masterpiece is the Victorian poetess Lady Maria Bobbin. Paul writes an impassioned letter to the family imploring Lady Bobbin to allow him access to Maria's diaries and ephemera. Lady Bobbin, being more concerned with hoof and mouth and when she'll be able to return to the hunt swiftly denies Paul and his life becomes even bleaker.

If Paul had only consulted Amabelle before approaching Lady Bobbin things could have been easily solved because, as it happens, Amabelle is good friends with Lady Bobbin's son and heir, Sir Roderick Bobbin, and Paul actually knows Bobby too! But instead of a straight forward plea to see the diaries which Paul's letter to Lady Bobbin makes impossible, they come up with an elaborate scheme wherein Paul is pretending to be Bobby's tutor over the winter holidays, so while Bobby sleeps in in the mornings, Paul spends his time immersed in Lady Maria's writings, and then they spend the afternoons "taking exercise" at Lady Bobbin's request. Of course, the "exercise" isn't really what Lady Bobbin expects, because it's really playing cards and gossiping at a nearby farm Amabelle has let for Christmas and is sharing with her friends the Monteaths. Things get even more out of hand when Amabelle's amorous suitor returns from Egypt but falls for Bobby's sister, whom Paul is also falling for. Add to that more relatives then you can possibly imagine descending on Compton Bobbin, and things are about to get real sticky.

Nancy Mitford, while perhaps best known for her witty writing, also seems to have an interesting secondary agenda of addressing the foibles of humans in love, one might even say a primary objective given her later books. While I wouldn't call her view jaundiced, it's more like she can pick up on the folly of those who see their love through rose colored glasses. Love is not put on a pedestal, yet there is true love. Love is viewed more realistically and handled in a way that makes it more true to life then other writers. She has handled this in every book of hers that I've read, though some more successfully then others it must be said. Christmas Pudding is only her second novel and you can easily see that this is the case. While her themes are there she hasn't yet gotten the cohesiveness that will mark her more famous novels. Instead of a well plotted book infused with humor, we get great one liners, wordplay that you will want to quote all day and all night, but her youthfulness in going for the bon mot versus the long game with a constructed storyline makes this book not as memorable.

This isn't to say that you won't have a good read, Nancy has this way of capturing the conflict between the horse and hounds set versus the bright young things that will leave you wanting more. The conflict I think probably accurately depicts the life she lived. Known to mine the personalities of those around her, you can easily see her parents in those who would rather live in their big drafty old house and shoot things, while she is the young girl longing to be amongst the bright lights in the big city while simultaneously being a bright young thing. Because Nancy has been both. She was trapped in the country and ill educated for so many years that when she did go to London she sparkled as a wit of the day. This dynamic of the two opposite mentalities clashing is what brings some of the heartiest laughs. Yet I think it's Nancy's willingness to make fun of herself foremost that makes this book stand out.

With Paul Fotheringay, we have a character who is very much taking the piss out of writers and therefore Nancy herself. I can just see Nancy chuckling as she wrote Paul's dilemma. Having only written Highland Fling, a well received comedy, she probably thought it would be hysterical if she had meant it as one thing and everyone took it as another. Could you imagine Nancy being viewed as anything but a classic comic writer? But one also wonders if there isn't more then a little truth here. Nancy was great at blending fact and fiction into her works. So what if she wanted to be considered a serious writer? I'm not saying that at the time Christmas Pudding was written she had this ambition, but it is odd that she ending up going the same was as Paul. What do I mean? Well, she did take to writing biographies... now her subjects weren't as satire worthy as the great Lady Maria Bobbin, but we can't ignore the fact that Nancy's biographies are popular. Was this her way of trying to legitimize herself? Because having a character like Amabelle who is obviously a parody of Madame de Pompadour, and then some twenty years later actually writing a biography of Madame de Pompadour... we're getting into a whole other level of meta and it makes me want to sit down with Nancy and have a little chat. What did she mean by this? Did she want to be known for her scholarly books more then her comedic prose? Looking back, is Paul, in the end, a tragic figure to her?

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Biography, Christmas, Christmas Pudding, Crazy Capers, Highland Fling, Horse and Hounds, Madame Pampadour, Mitford March, Nancy Mitford, Paul Fotheringay

Highland Fling by Nancy Mitford
Published by: Vintage
Publication Date: 1931
Format: Paperback, 208 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy

Albert Gates has been in Paris making a name for himself as an artist. He is only returning to England, the land of creative blocks, because he has a show opening in the fall and he wishes to see his dear friends Walter and Sally Monteath. Turns out Walter and Sally are having a cash flow problem due to Walter's impecunious nature wherein he doesn't feel a lack of money should impact his good time. Doesn't help that his occupation is a poet, so there's not much cash coming in at all. Walter is trying to convince Sally and Albert to go on vacation to the Lido, an expense Sally says they can do without when Sally is given a great opportunity.

Sally's Aunt Madge and Uncle Craig Craigdalloch, the Lord and Lady of Dulloch Castle, spend every August at said Castle entertaining a hunting and shooting party. But sadly Uncle Craig has been asked to go to Rhodesia and they are desperate to have someone host the house party, because cancelling it is out of the question. Sally agrees to play hostess, mainly because by living in Scotland for a few months her and Walter's outlay will be nothing, and by inviting Albert to entertain Walter and her friend Jane Dacre to entertain herself, it will be a jolly holiday. The bright young things don't quite mesh with the old horse and hounds military folk and their wives, but they do have quite a time making fun of them. Plus, to an artist and Victorian fanatic like Albert, the attics of the castle are strewn with fascinating relics that he can't wait to discover, of course with the help of the lovely Jane Dacre. It is quite a fun time in Scotland till the house starts on fire, but no one could have guessed that that would be the result of this jaunty trip.

After reading so much about the Mitford sisters and their diverse and odd lives I felt a profound relief in sinking back into what brought them to my attention in the first place, Nancy's writing. In her writing, Nancy has taken the bones of her life and made it into humorous fodder. Her writing is a light and breezy roman à clef. There is a bite to her wit, but there isn't a depressing darker side, there aren't sad family separations or miscarriages, just people jaunting about a castle in Scotland and watching men throw cabers, but viewed with a jaundiced eye. The highlands were part of Nancy's growing up. Being shipped off to Scotland during various time in her life for holidays and hunts to sit in damp locals waiting for the guns to go off. While Nancy was born and raised a country girl, she really loved the glittering world of London into which she emerged after what must have felt like years of exile with her family. She was a bright young thing, and bright young things have a humorous take on this other life they are a part of, this horse and hounds set. Mockery is easiest to achieve with something that you love or have loved, hence teasing your family is so easy. Highland Fling is a loving tease of all that is Scotland, and it lightened my heart and made me wonder, once again, why so many of Nancy's books have been out of print for so long in the United States.

My favorite part of this book is a poem about the history of the tower that is part of Dulloch Castle called "The Lament of Lady Muscatel." Of course, the poetic history of Scotland is in the hands of Robbie Burns. Everybody knows Robbie Burns even if they don't realize it. The phrase "the best laid plans of mice and men/often go awry" is a modernization from Burns's poem "To a Mouse" which said "the best-laid schemes o' mice an' men/Gang aft agley." Don't believe? Just go ask Eddie Izzard. Well, I have a love hate relationship with Robbie Burns. Back in 2005 I had this kind of weird experience where I felt I was being stalked by Robbie Burns, and in the end it kind of relates back to Eddie Izzard.

During the spring on 2005 I was travelling on the east coast, New York to Halifax. For some reason poetry was in the air, we wrote an ode to the town across the harbor from Halifax, Dartmouth, because of a lost wallet. This must have somehow summoned forth Robbie, because from then on out he was everywhere. One rainy day I was wandering around Halifax with my friend Orelia and we found a statue to him in Victoria Gardens. On the drive back to New York we listened to The Proclaimers, and there were Burns references in their songs... then on the poets walk in New York, Burns again! The final appearance of Burns was on the drive home while listening to every Eddie Izzard live show available and Burns reared his mousy head. Needless to say, I was a little sick of Robbie and have never quite forgiven him for haunting my every move. Therefore, Nancy, taking the piss out of him with her refrain "The pibroch i' the glen is boony/But waley, waley, wheer's ma Ronnie?" brought tears of joy and laughter to me. Also, the word waley entertains me to no end. But I think the fact that the poem is actually well done helps maintain that tease just right with a little love on one end and a little hate on the other.

The other aspect of the book I found fascinating is that the younger generation is obsessed with the Victoriana of their parents generation, ie the tat their parents hate. Albert is so obsessed with the Victorian clutter that has been hidden away in Dulloch Castle that he goes about assembling everything he can lay his hands on from the dusty attics in the billiards room so he can document and photograph it for a little pamphlet he's writing. While this book was written in the thirties, it has a universal truth. The fact is style and taste is cyclical. When I was younger I remember loving sixties fashion, which my parents just hated, because they had had to live through it. I had a similar reaction when the eighties came back. There's a nostalgia for the near past that we ourselves didn't live through. I personally had never thought much on this, thinking it was more a recent trend, but Nancy shows, without a doubt, this is something that has probably always been going on. And from a personal point of view we have to really feel for Lady Craigdalloch who views the destruction of the house as a good thing because at least all the horrid old Victorian tat is gone... she is not well pleased when she learns that Albert saved it all, instead of what was valuable to her.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Dulloch Castle, Eddie Izzard, Highland Fling, Horse and Hounds, Mitford March Mach Deux, Nancy Mitford, New York, Robbie Burns, Scotland, Victorian, Victoriana