strange and random happenstance

The Mitford Vanishing by Jessica Fellowes
Published by: Minotaur Books
Publication Date: January 18th, 2022
Format: Hardcover, 368 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy

Louisa and Guy are about to start the next chapter of their lives. After their disillusionment with the establishment they have set up a private detective agency, Cannon and Sullivan. They hope to help those who the police overlook, though Guy is more sanguine, warning Louisa that they are probably going to spend most of their time on petty domestic disputes. Given their history with the Mitfords it shouldn't come as a surprise to Louisa that they are going to be their first clients now that she has finished her maternity leave. Louisa is summoned to Rutland Gate by Nancy because Jessica, familially known as Decca, has run away. This shouldn't be such a shock to the family. The nineteen year old Decca started her "running away" fund when she was twelve, so actually running away while claiming to be on a motoring tour of France with friends seemed inevitable. The problem is, if the press gets wind of this it would ruin her and her future. So they are hoping that Louisa and Guy can discretely discover what has happened by popping over to France. What has happened is that Decca's run off to the Spanish Civil War as the bride of her cousin, Esmond Romilly. From the family's point of view things couldn't be worse. She has divorced herself from her family forever. Esmond is a known firebrand and a Communist. He also happens to be Winston Churchill's nephew. Which is how the foreign office gets involved. And once the press finds out, it's front page headlines. With their reputation on the line, Louisa and Guy realize that they must succeed in finding Decca. The Mitford case will put their name on the map if they succeed. And if they fail? Their business will be a bust before it's even begun. Seeing as the government is now involved, they decide that not both of them are needed in France and Guy continues on to Bayonne while Louisa heads home to their darling daughter Maisie, and another disappearance all together. Julia Attwood has come to Cannon and Sullivan because her sister Petunia has gone missing. Petunia was a secretary at Lee Worth. A middle-aged woman who had no political power or clout. Someone who wouldn't be missed. The exact opposite of Jessica Mitford. This is someone not even the police are looking for. The poignancy of this makes Louisa take the case to heart. She learns about Petunia and a contretemps with her coworker, Bernard Plum. As soon as she starts digging into the man she finds connections to the Spanish Civil War, and, as impossible as this may seem, even Decca and Esmond. Could Petunia's case, as well as two other missing women cases that fall into Louisa's lap, all be tied together with the Mitfords for some inexplicable reason? Only time and Bayonne will tell.

Seeing as each book in this series has been focused on one of the six Mitford sisters, in the order they were born, before the title was even announced I knew this book would be about Decca. Once the title was revealed as The Mitford Vanishing I knew it would be about Decca running off to the Spanish Civil War with her cousin Esmond Romilly. Because, as any Mitford fan has, I've read Jessica Mitford's stellar autobiography, Hons and Rebels. Which makes me question the purpose of this book. Why did Jessica Fellowes choose this event from Decca's life to dramatize? It's been well documented and there's not much new ground to cover. Unless it was that Jessica Fellowes wanted us to see it from the point of view of the Mitford clan, collective noun still to be finalized, and how they were furious with Decca. Flipping the script of Decca's own writing and seeing her as throwing her life away and being nothing more than a spoiled brat than a girl on a romantic adventure. Well, having read extensively about the Mitfords, I say running away was the healthiest decision Decca could have made. Her family was a next of fascist vipers who would eat their own and this break with her family is what made her. But Jessica Fellowes takes this selfishness further and applies it to anyone who went to fight in the Spanish Civil War. Yes, there were people who viewed it as an romantic adventure, much as Jessica did at the start, but looking down on those who were actually trying to stop the spread of hate is hypocritical when Jessica Fellowes is also saying that we need to look to the past to stop the spread of fascism now. Plus it was because of the journalists on the ground that we learned about the true horrors of what was happening in Spain. It's weird to think of this large country involved in it's own conflict outside of the rest of the European theater. Yes, maybe this book took away some of the romanticism of those who went to Spain, but anyone who looks seriously at war knows there's nothing romantic about it. And Jessica Fellowes just felt like she was preaching. Hating on the naivete of these people while trying to give a teachable moment to her very naive leads. At the end I came away with the distinct feeling that Jessica Fellowes doesn't really like any of the Mitfords. And as for her mystery with the missing women? It was implausible and amorphous. No, like really implausible. Guy was in London on the phone with Louisa only hours before he showed up in Bayonne. That is the most implausible thing ever.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Esmond Rommilly, Guy Sullivan, Hons and Rebels, Jessica Fellowes, Jessica Mitford, Louisa Cannon, Missing, Mitfords, Murder Most Foul, Private Eyes, Romanticism, Runaway, Spanish Civil War, The Mitford Vanishing

Bright Young Dead by Jessica Fellowes
Published by: Minotaur Books
Publication Date: October 30th, 2018
Format: Hardcover, 400 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy

Pamela may be turning eighteen, but she isn't one of the fast bright young things like her sister Nancy. Pamela would far prefer a quiet and sedate birthday party, perhaps with a nice ride through the country on her horse, but does Nancy listen? Oh no. Nancy and her friends have descended on Asthall Manor and have concocted quite a delicious scavenger hunt, because it is the done thing! Though most scavenger hunts don't end in a dead body at the base of the local church tower. Because if they did, this scavenger hunt would make all the partygoers winners. Adrian Curtis has been murdered and his sister's maid Dulcie is arrested. Dulcie's shadowy past working for Alice Diamond, the Queen of the Forty Thieves, makes her guilty because of her past. But Louisa Cannon is someone who was given a second chance from her own criminal past thanks to the Mitfords and she can't see someone else who has worked so hard trying to go straight to go down for a crime she didn't commit. Therefore it's time for Louisa to dust off her rusty detective skills and get to work. As luck would have it her old crime solving partner Guy Sullivan is now a Sergeant in the actual police force, no more of this railway police thank you very much! Even more of a coincidence is that he is working with his colleague, Constable Mary Moon, investigating Alice Diamond and her latest shoplifting spree. Who knows, the two cases could be connected! One thing is certain, they both need information the other has. As they flit through the underground of London's nightlife, from dance halls to pubs, responding to the thumping urgency of the music thrumming through the clubs, emotions will run high and relationships will be strained as a murderer is lured out into the open. Can they catch a killer before everything implodes?

The ability of humans to adapt shouldn't surprise me given everything we've all been through during the pandemic, but still it sneaks up on me occasionally. Case in point is this series. I can unreservedly say that I hate these books and yet I gave this one two stars. Meaning I didn't hate it as much as I thought I did, at least when I was rating it. I've often thought that a book should have two ratings, the one you give right after reading it and the one you give a few months later as to how your memories have either favored or soured to it. In this case they have soured, more and more. The reason this book got two stars is I have already adapted after reading only one book in this series to the fact they aren't good and any improvement, no matter how slight, means it's not complete shit. Perhaps there's a song here, "I've Grown Accustomed to Your Crap?" The main reason is I wasn't shocked this time around by the fact that there are basically no Mitfords in this series despite being "A Mitford Murders Mystery." In fact half way through Bright Young Dead Jessica Fellowes completely gives up on the Mitford pretense altogether and it's just Louisa, off doing stupid things, in particular abandoning herself to Jazz music, a trope that always annoys the hell out of me and makes me want to scratch out the author's eyes, until Jessica finally remembers she's writing a series with a veneer of Mitfords and drags them hastily back on scene for the denouement. A denouement I might add that is just ripping of the movie Clue. So watch Clue instead is my recommendation. Because besides being just boring and unoriginal, this book also talks down to the reader in a way that made me want to shake some sense into the author. You really had to tell us what a fence is in such a condescending manner? Because I think at this point you need all the good will you can get to have any reader pick up the next volume.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Alice Diamond, Bright Young Dead, Bright Young Things, Clue, Jessica Fellowes, Jessica Mitford, Louisa Cannon, Mitfords, Murder Most Foul, My Fair Lady, Nancy Mitford, Scavenger Hunt, The Mitford Murders

The Mitford Vanishing by Jessica Fellowes
Published by: Minotaur Books
Publication Date: January 18th, 2022
Format: Hardcover, 416 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"A mystery with the fascinating Mitford sisters at its heart, Jessica Fellowes's The Mitford Vanishing is the fifth installment in the Mitford Murders series, inspired by a real-life murder in a story full of intrigue...

1937. War with Germany is dawning, and a civil war already rages in Spain. Split across political lines, the six Mitford sisters are more divided than ever. Meanwhile their former maid Louisa Cannon is now a private detective, working with her policeman husband Guy Sullivan.

Louisa and Guy are surprised when a call comes in from novelist Nancy Mitford requesting that they look into the disappearance of her Communist sister Jessica in Spain. But one case leads to another as they are also asked to investigate the mysterious vanishing of a soldier.

As the two cases come together, Louisa and Guy discover that every marriage has its secrets - but some are more deadly than others. Suddenly home feels a long way away..."

Me continuing to read this series shows I'm insane because I keep expecting them to improve.

Hotel Portofino by J.P. O'Connell
Published by: Blackstone Publishing
Publication Date: January 18th, 2022
Format: Paperback, 376 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"For fans of Downton Abbey and The Crown...welcome to Hotel Portofino, where romance, revelry, and intrigue await.

A heady historical drama about a British family who opens an upper-class hotel on the magical Italian Riviera during the Roaring Twenties.

Hotel Portofino has been open for only a few weeks, but already the problems are mounting for its owner Bella Ainsworth. Her high-class guests are demanding and hard to please. And she's being targeted by a scheming and corrupt local politician, who threatens to drag her into the red-hot cauldron of Mussolini's Italy.

To make matters worse, her marriage is in trouble, and her children are still struggling to recover from the repercussions of the Great War. All eyes are on the arrival of a potential love match for her son Lucian, but events don't go to plan, which will have far-reaching consequences for the whole family.

Set in the breathtakingly beautiful Italian Riviera, Hotel Portofino is a story of personal awakening at a time of global upheaval and of the liberating influence of Italy's enchanting culture, climate, and cuisine on British innocents abroad."

Exotic Bright Young Things, yes please!

Murder at the National Gallery by Jim Eldridge
Published by: Allison and Busby
Publication Date: January 18th, 2022
Format: Hardcover, 311 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"1897, London. The capital is shocked to learn that the body of a woman has been found at the National Gallery, eviscerated in a manner that recalls all too strongly the exploits of the infamous Jack the Ripper.

Daniel Wilson and Abigail Fenton are contacted by a curator of the National Gallery for their assistance. The dead woman, an artist's model and lady of the night, had links to artist Walter Sickert who was a suspect during the Ripper's spree of killings. Scotland Yard have arrested Sickert on suspicion of this fresh murder but it is not the last...

Copycat murders of the Ripper's crimes implicate the artist who loves to shock but Sickert insists that he is innocent. Who would want to frame him? Wilson and Fenton have their work cut out catching an elusive and determined killer."

Jack the Ripper! Jack the Ripper! Jack the Ripper! Oh, and Sickert as the suspect! Patricia Cornwell would be pleased.

The Tally Stick by Carl Nixon
Published by: World Editions
Publication Date: January 18th, 2022
Format: Paperback, 288 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Lost in the wilderness: subjugation, survival, and the meaning of family.

Up on the highway, the only evidence that the Chamberlains had ever been there was two smeared tire tracks in the mud leading into an almost undamaged screen of bushes and trees. No other cars passed that way until after dawn. By that time the tracks had been washed away by the heavy rain. After being in New Zealand for only five days, the English Chamberlain family had vanished into thin air. The date was 4 April 1978. In 2010 the remains of the eldest child are discovered in a remote part of the West Coast, showing he lived for four years after the family disappeared. Found alongside him are his father's watch and what turns out to be a tally stick, a piece of scored wood marking items of debt. How had he survived and then died in such a way? Where is the rest of the family? And what is the meaning of the tally stick?"

New Zealand disappearance? I am here for this!

Disappearance of a Scribe by Dana Stabenow
Published by: Head of Zeus
Publication Date: January 18th, 2022
Format: Hardcover, 272 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"The second in the trilogy of Ancient Egyptian crime novels that began with Death of an Eye.

Two Alexandrian fishermen come across a horrifying sight - the body of a skeleton floating upright at the bottom of the sea, anchored in place by a cement weight around his feet. In Alexandria's rough-and-tumble construction trade they call that 'being fitted with a pair of Rhakotis sandals' and what's worse, he's the second such victim in two years.

Queen Cleopatra is busy rebuilding her city after the Alexandrian War and these murders are not to be allowed to interfere with this primary task, so she charges Tetisheri, her new Eye of Isis, with the task of finding out who these men were, when they were murdered, and, above all, why."

Egypt!!!

Servant Mage by Kate Elliott
Published by: Tordotcom
Publication Date: January 18th, 2022
Format: Hardcover, 176 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"In Kate Elliott's Servant Mage, a lowly fire mage finds herself entangled in an empire-spanning conspiracy on her way to discovering her true power.

They choose their laws to secure their power.

Fellian is a Lamplighter, able to provide illumination through magic. A group of rebel Monarchists free her from indentured servitude and take her on a journey to rescue trapped compatriots from an underground complex of mines.

Along the way they get caught up in a conspiracy to kill the latest royal child and wipe out the Monarchist movement for good.

But Fellian has more than just her Lamplighting skills up her sleeve..."

Dragons!!!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Bright Young Things, Carl Nixon, Cleopatra, Dana Stabenow, Dragons, Egypt, J.P. O'Connell, Jack the Ripper, Jessica Fellowes, Jessica Mitford, Jim Eldridge, Kate Elliott, Mitfords, New Zealand, Walter Sickert

Bright Young Dead by Jessica Fellowes
Published by: Minotaur Books
Publication Date: October 30th, 2018
Format: Hardcover, 400 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy

Pamela may be turning eighteen, but she isn't one of the fast bright young things like her sister Nancy. Pamela would far prefer a quiet and sedate birthday party, perhaps with a nice ride through the country on her horse, but does Nancy listen? Oh no. Nancy and her friends have descended on Asthall Manor and have concocted quite a delicious scavenger hunt, because it is the done thing! Though most scavenger hunts don't end in a dead body at the base of the local church tower. Because if they did, this scavenger hunt would make all the partygoers winners. Adrian Curtis has been murdered and his sister's maid Dulcie is arrested. Dulcie's shadowy past working for Alice Diamond, the Queen of the Forty Thieves, makes her guilty because of her past. But Louisa Cannon is someone who was given a second chance from her own criminal past thanks to the Mitfords and she can't see someone else who has worked so hard trying to go straight to go down for a crime she didn't commit. Therefore it's time for Louisa to dust off her rusty detective skills and get to work. As luck would have it her old crime solving partner Guy Sullivan is now a Sergeant in the actual police force, no more of this railway police thank you very much! Even more of a coincidence is that he is working with his colleague, Constable Mary Moon, investigating Alice Diamond and her latest shoplifting spree. Who knows, the two cases could be connected! One thing is certain, they both need information the other has. As they flit through the underground of London's nightlife, from dance halls to pubs, responding the the thumping urgency of the music thrumming through the clubs, emotions will run high and relationships will be strained as a murderer is lured out into the open. Can they catch a killer before everything implodes?

The ability of humans to adapt shouldn't surprise me given everything we've all been through this year, but still it sneaks up on me occasionally. Case in point is this series. I can unreservedly say that I hate these books and yet I gave this one two stars. Meaning I didn't hate it as much as I thought I did, at least when I was rating it. I've often thought that a book should have two ratings, the one you give right after reading it and the one you give a few months later as to how your memories have either favored or soured to it. In this case they have soured, more and more. The reason this book got two stars is I have already adapted after reading only one book in this series to the fact they aren't good and any improvement, no matter how slight, means it's not complete shit. Perhaps there's a song here, "I've Grown Accustomed to Your Crap?" The main reason is I wasn't shocked this time around by the fact that there are basically no Mitfords in this series despite being "A Mitford Murders Mystery." In fact half way through Bright Young Dead Jessica Fellowes completely gives up on the Mitford pretense altogether and it's just Louisa, off doing stupid things, in particular abandoning herself to Jazz music, a trope that always annoys the hell out of me and makes me want to scratch out the author's eyes, until Jessica finally remembers she's writing a series with a veneer of Mitfords and drags them hastily back on scene for the denouement. A denouement I might add that is just ripping of the movie Clue. So watch Clue instead is my recommendation. Because besides being just boring and unoriginal, this book also talks down to the reader in a way that made me want to shake some sense into the author. You really had to tell us what a fence is in such a condescending manner? Because I think at this point you need all the good will you can get to have any reader pick up the next volume.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Alice Diamond, Bright Young Dead, Bright Young Things, Clue, Jessica Fellowes, Jessica Mitford, Louisa Cannon, Mitfords, My Fair Lady, Nancy Mitford, Roaring Back to Reading, Scavenger Hunt, The Mitford Murders

Six sisters raised in an unorthodox manner, with their own argot, Honnish, with education being for boys, not girls, they never had a formal education, yet despite that hindrance, two of them went on to become celebrated writers, with Nancy Mitford regarded as one of the best writers of the 20th century. They are a topic of conversation that would make any Anglophiles sqweee with joy and historians of the bright young things generation pant. In any time period the Mitfords would be called eccentric which made them all the more memorable. As The New York Times said: "A Nazi, a Fascist, a Communist, a Novelist, a Countrywoman, a Duchess...Sisters." The eldest, Nancy, went on to be famous for her novels satirising her family, Pamela's lesbian relationship didn't raise many eyebrows especially because her younger sister Diana married the heir to the Guinness fortune then left him for Walter Mosley, the leader of Britian's Fascist movement, eventually marrying in Joseph Goebbels' drawing room with Hitler in attendance. Unity was much like her sister Diana, in that she too flocked to Hitler, but was so torn when Britain and Germany declared war that she shot herself in the head, but didn't die until after the war, lingering but wounded. Jessica meanwhile was a staunch Communist and ran off with her cousin to the Spanish Civil War, they eventually married. Deborah on the other hand was quite docile, having married the Duke of Devonshire and eventually taking the reigns of Chatsworth, one of the great houses of England, and turning it into one of the most successful country homes and tourist attractions. Of the six sisters, only Pamela and Unity never took pen to paper. While Nancy wrote fiction, it seems that the sisters main literary interest was in non-fiction. Writing biographies, not just of famous people, but also contrasting biographies of themselves. Besides their own writing there has been a plethora of books written on them, even a series of murder mysteries wherein they solve crimes from when they were bright young socialites. Controversial, stylish and notorious... They are an unforgettable family.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Argot, Chatsworth, Communist, Deborah Mitford, Diana Mitford, Duchess, Duchess of Devonshire, Fascists, Jessica Mitford, Mitfords, Nancy Mitford, Nazis, Pamela Mitford, Roaring Back to Reading, Unity Mitford, Writer

The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford
Published by: Vintage
Publication Date: August 10th, 2010
Format: Paperback, 240 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy

Fanny's mother is known throughout the family as "The Bolter." Leaving your child behind to be raised by your siblings isn't that odd in a family that uses children instead of foxes in hunts, has their own distinct argot, and lives in such an old house that only one closet has the warmth to be bearable in cold weather. It is in this "Hons" closet that Fanny and her cousin Linda spend all their time dreaming of true love. Because love is what life is all about. As they grow up their thoughts turn less from the fantasy of marrying the Prince of Wales and more towards any decent chap that can be lured to Alconleigh for their debut ball. Linda, growing up at Alconleigh, has not had the luxury of the education that Fanny has had living most of her time with their Aunt Emily in London. Linda therefore is so desperate to fall in love that she mistakenly falls for the first man who comes along. The wrong man, Tony Kroesig. While Fanny happily settles down with an Oxford don and starts having babies, Linda's marriage to Tony becomes nothing more than a sham. They have one daughter, whom Linda can't stand, but she keeps up the pretense of happy families, until one day she throws off her Facist husband for a Communist Christian. But yet again Linda has misstepped, thinking that she is in love when really she is just in love with being away from Tony. Always wanting so desperately to be in love Linda mistakes any male attention for the real deal. Could she be turning into Fanny's mother, The Bolter? Or will her desperate search for love pay off in the oddest of ways?

I remember one winter day when I first picked up the Vintage omnibus of The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate. The selling point to me was the big silver sticker they had put on the cover for Masterpiece Theatre. I covet those PBS tie-in editions of yore with the beautiful artwork and here was a brand new one waiting for me to buy it. I have mentioned this before, but I am the book dork who must always read a book before watching the show, so I set to reading this before the miniseries was to air. This was a hard time in my life, I had just temporarily dropped out of college because of multiple deaths in the family and I took solace in this little escape. While I enjoyed the book, I was really looking forward to watching the miniseries more than anything. Of course, nothing goes to plan. My main problem was I was living with my family and we had only two tvs. This was to air on a Monday night, which meant one of the TVs was designated for my little brother watching Monday Night Wrestling, which meant I had to negotiate for the second TV with my mother. My mother agreed to watch it, so long as it was good. She lasted less then five minutes before she claimed boredom and changed the channel, to Two and a Half Men, to add insult to injury. I was so fed up with everyone else getting what they wanted when all I wanted to do was watch one episode of Masterpiece Theatre that I went into my room and cried. I had waited months and my mom had let me have five minutes. I had to wait more than four years to finally see the series... so logically enough, my memory of the book faded because of the incident and the emotion that followed.

Therefore a re-read was in order! I had remembered very little in the years that followed my initial reading, many of my memories were tied up in the aforementioned incident and in the second volume of the book, so I was pleasantly surprised by what I had forgotten and what I had remembered. The odd thing about this book is, truthfully, there really isn't a plot. Instead it is about the yearning and desire for love and how that can go unexpectedly right and horribly wrong. Of all the love stories told, the two that I enjoy the most were Jassy's and Linda's final love. Jassy, Linda's younger sister, has spent her entire life saving up money to run away, finally she does so in order to go to Hollywood and court an actor she has fallen for, who played a background artist in a pirate movie. The media sensation that follows is almost more entertaining than the end of the courtship, with her father viewing the reporters trying to sneak into his house as the first real and formidable enemies since he killed Germans with his entrenching tool in The Great War. While Linda's love of Fabrice is so unexpected when they meet at the train station as she is leaving her second husband, it is their banter and their easy natural conversation that makes you realize that it's not the money and it's not the looks, it's how you click that matters. Linda and I learned that love can be found in the most unexpected of places when you least expect it.

Yet, what I found most interesting about this book is how it was a mirror for the Mitfords themselves. The first time I read this book I knew about them in the vaguest of terms. Sisters, writers, one or two hung out with Hitler, whatever, it wasn't of concern to me, this was fiction. But as Nancy's sister Jessica points out in the introduction "we all know [Nancy's] got no imagination" because "there we were, larger than life, Mitfords renamed Radletts, reliving our childhoods as seen through Nancy's strange triangular green eyes." And this was a trait shared by all Nancy's books, just look to the controversy surrounding Wigs on the Green, therefore the more you know about the Mitfords the funnier her books are. Here Nancy revels in lampooning herself and her family. Her sisters Pamela, Diana, Unity, Jessica, and Deborah, and brother Tom are all fair game, from what they did to even how they spoke, Hons being the family argot for their honorable titles and here lovingly given to a closet. Let's look as to what happened in real life that was included in this book? Jessica running off to Spain with a communist, yes times two. Diana up and leaving her catholic husband for a fascist, yes, but in reverse. Nancy's affair with a Frenchman, thankfully showing she is willing to lampoon herself, also happens. But it's not just the big things, the life changing events that are mirrored, it's their love of animals, that weird language all their own, a million things that made up this family.

This book is the Mitfords as seen through a slightly wobbly magnifying lens and I love the book for this more than any other reason. It brings these people to life in a way a thousand biographies never could, though granted I've only read a few. And Nancy continued these characters stories in Love in a Cold Climate and Don't Tell Alfred. But here's the rub, Don't Tell Alfred is often forgotten and pushed aside. Albeit it is set twenty years later, and was written eleven years after Love in a Cold Climate, I find it odd that it's so often omitted. The first two books in this trilogy are often released as an omnibus and have even been dramatized twice, once in 1980 with Judi Dench and again in 2001, which was the version I mentioned above. Yet where is Alfred? I could be cruel and say it's because it's a far inferior book, which is my personal truth, but I just find it odd that Nancy Mitford only wrote a handful of books in her life, only eight "fiction" books, and of those so many were purposefully pushed aside. As I mentioned before her book Wigs on the Green had a bit of a to-do, which resulted in it never being reprinted until recently, and not many people rhapsodize about The Blessing, which overly romanticizes the philandering ways of French men, but it is my belief that we can't just omit something because it doesn't reach the heights attained by it's predecessors. For someone who so ruthlessly portrayed the painful truths of her family it's odd to me that Nancy would willingly excise parts of her own history. But that is the beauty of being the one who writes down the history am I right? You can make of it what you will. Or in this case you can just go read one of the books written by her sisters for another opinion.   

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Alconleigh, Diana Mitford, Hitler, Jessica Mitford, Love in a Cold Climate, Masterpiece Theater, Mitford March, Mitfords, Nancy Mitford, PBS, Sweet Reads, The Bolter, The Great War, The Pursuit of Love

Deborah Mitford has died. This is the first time in over a hundred years that we haven't had a Mitford sibling still in the world, and it will be a far sadder place because of it. As the luminaries of the world, from celebs to royalty step forward to share their grief, I say pick up a book (even if she claimed she wasn't a reader) and enjoy the life that Debo lived, chronicled in many tomes. For what is death but the period at the end of a great life story. The last of the Mitfords shall forever be remembered, for her love of animals, chickens in particular. Here's to Debo! 31st of March 1920 to 24th of September 2014.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 4:21 PM 0 comments  

Labels: Debo, Deborah Mitford, Diana Mitford, Jessica Mitford, Mitfords, Nancy Mitford, Pamela Mitford, Unity Mitford

The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family by Mary S. Lovell
Published by: W. W. Norton and Company
Publication Date: March 17th, 2003
Format: Paperback, 640 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy

The Mitford sisters were the most dynamic family in England during the 20th century. They were front and center for world events, two of them even being so reviled in their own country that they were the subject of public scorn and debate in the houses of parliament. Despite a slightly unconventional upbringing with no medical care, little schooling, and constantly moving houses due to monetary issues, all six of the sisters would leave their mark on the world. Nancy as a great author, Pamela as a loving aunt, Diana as a notorious fascist married to Oswald Mosley and imprisoned with him, Unity who was in Hitler's inner circle and tried to kill herself when WWII was declared, Jessica who became the red sheep of the family with her Communist leanings as well as a noted journalist, and then Deborah, the Duchess of Devonshire.

Such a clash of personalities and all in one family couldn't help capture the attention of the world. But this book explores not just the public image, but all the horrors of their lives; the marriages (7), the divorces (3), the children (14), the miscarriages (7+), the stillbirths (3), the lost children (2), the abortions (2), the deaths in the war (2), the attempted suicides (2), Cancer (2), the list goes on and on; because once you look into a person's life, you realize the sadness that is masked by the joie de vivre and the sparkling wit.

Very rarely have I experience this phenomena, but I am reading a book and I start to notice things, really just little things, but soon they gain momentum. The text is uneven, but obviously skewed purposefully. One section is lavished with attention, the littlest details are lingered on, while other sections are rushed through like an oncoming train, speeding past important details to get back to that other subject. The more you read the more obvious it becomes that the author doesn't love what they are writing. Why would you write something that you didn't love? Yes, I could go into contracts and all that here, but I won't. Instead, perhaps it's because there is one small aspect that they are fascinated with and were sadly saddled with the rest. They are not writing the book they want to write, and it shows.

The most obvious example I have is the book Fear of Music by Jonathan Lethem. This book is part of the 33 1/3 series that has an author cover an album track by track. Lethem did the Talking Heads album "Fear of Music." You can see that he loves this band, but you get the distinct impression that this isn't the album he wanted to write on. What happened with Fear of Music is that, aside from being the worst book I've ever read, is that there was this imbalance, like in The Sisters, where you could feel the author's discontent and it resulted in your discontent, which eventually escalated into rage, and then you and your book club are coining the phrase "rage reading" to signify how the book made you feel as you pushed through to the bitter end.

An unhappy author leads to an unhappy reader. Letham loves Talking Heads but didn't love the album he was saddled with, much like Mary S. Lovell loves Unity Mitford, while the remaining five sisters she couldn't care less about. Look at it this way, for 200 pages occupying 10 years of the 20th century, roughly 40% of the book, Unity is front and center. This book covers 106 years but 40% is in the war years. Yes, a lot did happen to the Mitfords during this time... but still... this leads to decades of Jessica and Nancy's lives being glossed over and we hardly know what Pamela was up to! If this book was equal in weight Unity should have only occupied about 16% of it. In simpler terms, Mary S. Lovell really needed to just write a biography on Unity and not have disguised it as a biography on "The Sisters." Therefore right from the start, the author was not the ideal candidate to write this book because she didn't have a love of the subject.

A lack of love can lead to many problems. Mainly you wouldn't care if you fudged the details, got some things wrong, moved space and time, because if it wasn't about that one slightly deranged Nazi loving Mitford, what does it matter right? Well, to us readers who wanted to read about the Mitfords, it matters a lot. Also it brings into question the whole idea of accuracy. If I can find errors in this book, big, obvious glaring errors, how can I trust anything that she is telling me? The first warning signal was when the author said that the Mrs. Simpson affair with the King was all the newspapers were talking about. NO! People might have been talking about it, but out of loyalty to King and country the story didn't break in the newspapers till literally DAYS before the abdication, not months, not early in the year, I believe the author hints at February, but DAYS before it happened, in DECEMBER! So right there, anything that she says might be a lie or wrong.

The author also distorts facts into her favor. She's loosey-goosey with dates having things timeslip to when it suits her. In the chapter about the year 1938 she has moved events that happened in 1937 to better fit her narrative (just check the footnotes to see what I'm talking about). Past, present, and future apparently can all happen when Mary S. Lovell decrees it. Borrow a bit from the future, add bit from the past and viola, this certain year was made a little more interesting, but a lot more inaccurate. Not to mention her other foibles of how she refers to herself in the footnotes... pick first or third person, stop switching it up already! Or that she assumes you know every minor celeb from the day, you know what they say about assuming... only, you're the ass Mary, not me.

So, I'm guessing by now I've pretty much turned you off reading this book, so my work here is done. The Sisters is a flat, skewed history that lacks the sparkling wit and vivacity of any of these amazing sisters. Yes, I might have learned a few new things about them, but I don't know if I can trust the source at all so it's really all hearsay. But then again, reading up on the Mitfords, they had a tendency to mythologize their own lives, so can anything we learn about them be the whole truth? Well, one thing is certain, you're not going to get any sort of truth in this book. And for such a literary family, it's a sin to pick up secondary source materials. If you want to know more about them read Nancy's books, pick up Decca's or Diana's autobiographies, choose from the vast books of Debo's. Why bother with anything else when you can get a first hand account? Sure they might be trying to make themselves look better or exaggerating a story for laughs... but it's how they would have wanted you to know about them, not through some hack writer, but through their own words... which Mary S. Lovell borrows freely to pad her book, which makes her own writing appear even more wane.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Biography, Deborah Mitford, Diana Mitford, Jessica Mitford, Jonathan Letham, Mary S. Lovell, Mitford March Mach Deux, Nancy Mitford, Pamela Mitford, The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family, Unity Mitford

Unity and Pamela are possibly the most diametrically opposed of the Mitford sisters, with Unity being the most notorious for her relationship with Hitler, and Pamela being the most unobtrusive, settling for a life out of the limelight with her horses. The warrior and the woman.

Unity Valkyrie Mitford was ironically conceived in Swastika, Ontario, where her parents would occasionally work a gold mine they owned. Later when she became involved with the Third Reich she would take this as a sign that she was destined to be with Hitler. By the time Unity was debuting in society her family had already made quite a ruckus, with her sister Diana leaving her husband, the heir of the Guinness fortune, for Oswald Mosley, the head of the British Union of Fascists. Unity was never the wit or the beauty of the family and seemed to set herself apart through her shock value. She notoriously would bring her pets to balls and when things got a little boring she would spice them up by saying her rat or snake was on the loose. She longed to find the perfect tease and initially she thought she had found it by joining the BUF and setting up against her younger sister Jessica and her fervent communist beliefs. But Unity's tease seems to have become real devotion, if a bit fanatical, to fascism. 

Unlike her sisters she didn't want to be "finished" in France and begged to go to Germany. Her parents relented and soon Unity found her place in the world and in history, dubious though it may be. She became obsessed with the Nazis and worshipped Hitler, spending months and months figuring out his routine and how she could cross paths with him. Her months of stalking paid off and she soon became a confidant of Hitler's, one of his inner circle. No one knows the extent of their relationship, but they were frequently in each others company. There is every chance that it was just true friendship and not salacious at all, but their closeness as war loomed on the horizon made Unity one of the most reviled women in England, along with her sister Diana. As war seemed more and more inevitable those close to Unity worried about her because she began to make cryptic messages about not being around if there was war because she couldn't face the two countries she loved fighting. On the day war was declared between England and Germany Unity shot herself in the head, but survived. She would live to see the end of the war in a bizarre infantile state brought on by the brain damage the bullet wrought. She would never make a full recovery and contacted meningitis and died before she was even 34 years old.

Unlike Unity, Pamela was quiet and retiring, the rural Mitford. She was called "Woman" by all her family members for her domestic aptitude and her love of home and hearth, becoming "Tante Femme" to her various nieces and nephews whom she adored. Pam also loved the horse and hounds life even though she had problems with one of her legs due to a case of polio as a child, which would trouble her more and more as she aged. She married and divorced without making waves and spent several of the war years caring for her sister Diana's children while Diana was in prison, but was sadly not blessed with her own children, suffering several miscarriages. Living for years on the Cavendish estate in Ireland, she eventually settled down in Zurich where she lived with an Italian horsewoman, Giuditta Tommasi. Much like Unity and Hitler, there was much speculation even among the other siblings about the relationship between Pam and Giuditta. Pam was still living an active life till the end, not letting age (and considerable age at 86) slow her down. On her deathbed her main concern was "Who won the Grand National."

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: BUF, Diana Mitford, Fascists, Germany, Hitler, Jessica Mitford, Mitford March Mach Deux, Oswald Mosley, Pamela Mitford, Suicide, Tante Femme, Unity Mitford, Woman, WWII

Last March I finally was able to get around to doing my long planned "Mitford March." I had so much fun delving into the lives and loves of this eccentric family that I decided to do it again! Well, that's stretching the truth a bit, the fact is when I made up my reading list last year I realized I had more books then would fit in one month (yes, I have a lot of books by and on them, would you expect anything less?) So I thought, just perhaps, if it works the first time, I might do it again. Huzzah! It worked and I'm back with more (worked as in, didn't bottom out with you, my readers, like February always does, you fickle fickle audience, I love everyone of you).

Last spring, while mentioning all six of the sisters raised in such an unorthodox manner to make Anglophiles sqwee with joy and historians of the bright young things generation pant, I concentrated on the most, not literate, but most proficient literaryily speaking, those being Nancy, Jessica, and Deborah (go Debo). That meant I kind of left poor Diana, Unity, and Pamela by the wayside... well two of them were Nazis, so history has labelled them the losers and therefore they must wait. So this March, not only am I concentrating on the less popular of the sisters, as well as some more from Nancy, seriously Vintage publishing has got to stop putting dents in my pocketbook, but the group of sisters as a whole... that's right, it's time to start bringing in the outside biographies! So here's to March! Here's to Debo's 94th birthday! And here's to the Mitfords!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Debo, Deborah Mitford, Diana Mitford, Jessica Mitford, Mitford March, Mitford March Mach Deux, Nancy Mitford, Nazis, Pamela Mitford, Unity Mitford

The Bolter: Edwardian Heartbreak and High Society Scandal in Kenya by Frances Osborne
Published by: Vintage
Publication Date: 2008
Format: Paperback, 368 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy

"Every now and again you come up against a book that has a real and unexpected impact on your life. The Bolter was one of those books for me. Knowing that I like to vacation in the 1920s, a friend gave me the book to read for fun back in the fall of 2010, at the same time that my grandmother, previously hale and hearty, wound up in the hospital, not once, but repeatedly. Opening “The Bolter”, I was incredibly struck by Frances Osborne’s comment that she hadn’t known that Idina Sackville, aka the Bolter, was her great-grandmother, until a chance television program sparked the revelation. The combination of events got me thinking, hard, about how little we know about our own families, about the secrets our grandparents take with them.

And that was how The Ashford Affair was born…" - Lauren Willig

Idina Sackville was was born in 1893. Raised in affluence amid a family of loose morals, she herself grew up to be not only unconventional, but some might even say scandalous. In a time when divorce was not prevalent, she went on to marry five times, it might have been six if her daughter hadn't begged her to not marry again and return to her maiden name. The first bolt to Africa left behind her very small children with her ex and his new bride. She would grow to love Africa, so much so that despite numerous divorces and reclamation of her property, she would set up three separate homes there over the years. Her parties in the Happy Valley became notorious for the booze, drugs and bed jumping. Her life became the stuff of fiction and parody in her own lifetime, with Nancy Mitford, among the many authors to take on Idina as a subject, immortalizing her as "The Bolter" in her books The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate. Despite making the rift valley in Kenya "happy," her life wasn't that glamorous, and one has to wonder if she brought down the misery on herself in the end.

So, I fully admit that, seeing as this is the book that inspired Lauren Willig to write The Ashford Affair, that logically, "Ashford April" should have started with this book... rarely can it be said that I am logical, and therefore this is the second book reviewed this month. I just felt that Wigs on the Green was a nice transition between a month of Mitfords and a month of Ashford. I really liked the concept of this book more than the actual execution of it. I should have known I was in for trouble just by the fact that this book was recommended by Oprah's magazine, O. Oprah's selections tend to be... how shall I put this... books that I avoid like the plague. There is some sort of dynamic and polar opposites between me and Oprah. I have long ago accepted it, she, well, she doesn't even know I exist. But she was sneaky, instead of that "O" sticker, there was a little red band at the bottom that I didn't even bother to read the reversed out type on. Well played Oprah, well played.

The first hurtle that I couldn't get past was that every single person in this book was unlikable. They weren't just mildly annoying, but full on, me banging my head against the wall declaring that they deserved all the ill will that befell them because of their lack of morals or likability. Supposedly Idina could transfix anyone and endear them to her, so that despite all that she had working against her, the scandals, the affairs, that to those who personally knew her, she was the life of the party and a wonder to behold. Yet this never came across in the stories I read about her. Instead her great-granddaughter, who is obviously lacking in this ability to transfix anyone, has to repeatedly say it over and over as if to assure us, that despite appearances to the contrary, Idina was likable. OK... guess I'm going to have to take her word for it because rarely have I met someone who I wanted to throttle as much as India.

On top of Idina, the book is peopled with too many other characters that you don't care for because of their odiousness. Sometimes it feels like Frances Osborne goes out of her way to highlight the bad traits so that her book comes across as unbiased. Instead I felt like she just really hates her family. Then the odd rants about people other then Idina where wearing... I picked up the book because it was about Idina, not because of her son David, or anyone else. Excise David, sure she was Idina's son, but guess what, he died, so the end. In fact, they all die. And I couldn't give a damn. They all led lives that I found amoral and depraved, and they all deserved what they got. Sure she inspired some great fiction... but that's the thing about fiction, it makes this more palatable. Truth is harder to digest.

Next rant... Kenya. I picked up this book because of the "chief seductress of Kenya's scandalous 'Happy Valley set'." That meant to me, that the book was about Idina and Kenya... well... Kenya doesn't even get a look in until 130 pages after lugubrious family history and the destruction of her first marriage, that really she just gave up on in my opinion. Plus, once Idina gets to Kenya, she has a tendency to leave it quite rapidly again. It's only in her 3rd and 4th into 5th marriages that she actually spends any length of time there. Those sections of the book I found interesting. It was how the members of this little community lived and interacted that fascinated me. How they all got together at house parties and lived for the races in Nairobi. So, at least I did get some of what I expected to get in this book, but it was too little too late. These passages where not able to redeem themselves for the history of Idina's father's affairs, or her mother's political fervor. Some probably view it as backstory. I view it as too much exposition and not enough of what I wanted.

Yet all issues pale to that which angered me and put a fire in my belly that just wouldn't quit. Inaccuracies abounded in this book. If one or more facts is glaringly, obviously, 100% wrong wrong wrong... how can we take anything the author says at face value. The first error, which she later repeated, proving that it wasn't a typo, was about the political affiliations of one Oswald Mosley. For those who don't know, Oswald Mosley was the founder of the Blackshirts... those same Blackshirts that where parodied by Nancy Mitford in Wigs on the Green. The Blackshirts are Fascists. Who does Frances Osborne say Oswald Mosley's affliations lie with? The Communists. Because Communists and Fascists are the same right? NO! They HATE each other. Google Oswald Mosley and you will get quite a few politically incorrect jokes that Mosley said about Communists. In fact, Diana Mitford, sister of Nancy and Jessica, eventually married Oswald, after being his mistress for quite some time, and Diana's Fascisim led to a prolonged silence between her and Jessica, because Jessica was a Communist.

If this error wasn't enough, Osborne goes on to say that in Nancy Mitford's The Pursuit of Love, the one with a character based on Idina, that when the fictional Bolter arrives to visit her daughter Fanny at the end of the book that Fanny is delivering her 1st child... not her 3rd, which is actually the case... but her first. These errors indicate a problem that might run deeper in the book. These are just two errors that I, who is not an afficianado of Africa or the Happy Valley set picked up on. Where there are two glaring errors, there are probably more. So how can I believe ANYTHING this author says? It shouldn't be shelved in biographies, but in fiction... Osborn in fact could conceivably make the book far more readable if she where to do this... historical fiction, not biography. Gaw... at least one good thing came out of this book, and that's The Ashford Affair.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Ashford April, Frances Osborne, Happy Valley, Idina Sackville, Jessica Mitford, Kenya, Lauren Willig, Love in a Cold Climate, Nancy Mitford, Oswald Mosley, The Ashford Affair, The Bolter, The Pursuit of Love

Home to Roost and Other Peckings by Deborah Devonshire
Published by: John Murray
Publication Date: 2009
Format: Hardcover, 168 Pages
Rating: ★★★
To Buy

While Deborah has always been considered the horse and hounds sister of the Mitfords, but involving chickens, I think that she has a secret... that despite her protestations ("[m]y father would not have wasted time reading - a trait I have inherited from him") that she is actually quite well read and loves to write. Despite Home to Roost being a very slim volume, it clearly shows that the writer is well educated, a fact we know is not due to her upbringing, and adept at pulling out the right literary quote at the right time, traits that I wouldn't lay at people who aren't readers. The little essays in this beautiful book (there are adorable illustrations) run the gamut from book reviews (see she does admit to read a little!) and her awkward book signings to family history and how one looks in a tiara. So there is a little something for everyone you might say.

Yet, like her most literary of sisters, Nancy and Jessica, it's not the slightly turgid and formulaic book reviews or weird ramblings about motorways that capture your interest, it's her own experiences and the history of her husband's family that not only sparkle with wit and insight but draw you completely into her world. I think it's because this is what she loves to write, plain and simple. Sure, she'll write the other stuff if asked or if the mood suits her, but really she'd rather tell you about a party at Chatsworth House during the height of Queen Victoria's reign. In fact, this family history I think is what lured her into being a writer, especially if you take note that her earliest writings where all on Chatsworth. It's her love of Chatsworth and it's history that make a simple story about a post office closing something more. A post office isn't a post office, it's the beating heart of a community, which anyone who is a fan of Lark Rise to Candleford will agree. Therefore the closing of the Edensor post office was a poignant story.

Because of this diverse range of topics, Home to Roost has a very uneven feel until about half way through the book. What happens half way is that Deborah shifts the book right into that which she writes best, her own life. It becomes a diary, and oh what a diary. The three pieces on the Kennedys is amazing. While the Mitfords where kind of the lay royalty of England, the Kennedys where the same for America. To find out that not only that they had this connection, but that the families where joined by Kit Kennedy's marriage to Debo's brother-in-law was fascinating. Too bad that ended in the tragedy which made Deborah the Duchess of Devonshire... yet that this intimacy between the families continued long after the tragedy is what drives these little vignettes. That Deborah was there for not only the inauguration but then the funeral, brought a sad reality to it. For me, JFK was always someone of the past and a part of history, but Deborah made him more real, more human. Also, it didn't hurt that she thought he was an all round swell guy.

Though hands down there was one article, for sheer humor, that made the book for me. Being raised in the art world and then being an artist myself, who at one point was considering going to get a Masters Degree at Christie's Auction House, I know the vagaries of naming art work and the inherent humor. Debo herself mercilessly skewered and made fun of these naming conventions in the short piece "Auction Catalogues." I was howling with laughter and her thinking of how the names where created by the compiler of the catalog. "The figures in rural scenes are always Peasants or Cottagers. If the female peasants have got pots on their heads they will be In an Italianate Landscape. Any water in the way puts them into A River Landscape. If you can see for miles, start with An Extensive Landscape." Deborah views the modern "untitled" art as a wise move, to avoid these lenghty and downright odd conventions. Go Debo! I am heartily glad that there is still one Mitford out there we can count on for some barbing! Where would we be without a Mitford?

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Alan Bennett, Chatsworth, Deborah Mitford, Home to Roost, Jessica Mitford, JFK, Lark Rise to Candleford, Mitford March, Nancy Mitford

Deborah Mitford grew up with two goals, marry a duke and take care of her chickens. She succeeded in both goals. She married Lord Andrew Cavendish, the younger son of the Duke of Devonshire, whose seat was the great house of Chatsworth. Chatsworth is the epitome of English Country Estates and was used by Jane Austen as the model for Pemberley in Pride and Prejudice, which makes it no surprise then that they used the great house in several of the book's adaptations to the big and small screen. When the Duke's heir apparant, William, died in combat, Andrew became heir and the 12th Duke of Devonshire upon his father's death.

The youngest of the six sisters, Debo is sadly the only one still alive at 92 years of age. Deborah has put her life into the estate and the farm as the Duchess of Devonshire. When many people thought that the war would end the reign of the landed gentry, through tourism and other commercial avenues, such as signed books for sale on her website, (yes, I bought one, don't judge, because I know you're really just jealous), Deborah has ensured that Chatsworth will endure through The Chatsworth House Trust. She has even been known to run the ticket booth at the estate from time to time. Yet still of an artistic and literary ilk like Nancy and Jessica, she has continued to grow the estates art collection, filling out the old masters with modern artists such as Lucian Freud. That much criticized painting of Freud's of Queen Elizabeth... Debo was quick to snap that up once the Queen refused it. As for her literary side, she has written many books on Chatsworth as well as memoirs, and of course, one must not forget the chickens.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Chatsworth, Chickens, Debo, Deborah Mitford, Duchess of Devonshire, Jane Austen, Jessica Mitford, Lucian Freud, Mitford March, Mitfords, Nancy Mitford, Pemberley, Pride and Prejudice, Queen Elizabeth

Poison Penmanship: The Gentle Art of Muckraking by Jessica Mitford
Published by: NYRB Classics
Publication Date: 1979
Format: Paperback, 288 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy

Jessica Mitford is a self admitted muckraker, once she found out what the label meant, she heartily agreed and called herself such from then on and was happy to see that each new dictionary had a nicer take on the word as it became more commonly used. In 1957 she published her first expose, which, as she was willing to admit, was rather dull and fell flat. Yet that is the charm of this book. Jessica views this book as a kind of "how to" for the muckraker to be. She details her techniques and theories of friendlies and unfriendlies and then after you read a given article of hers, she has a little commentary on how she felt the article worked or didn't work, and in some cases, the far reaching consequences of that article. Therefore, without any hesitation, she republishes some very slip shod work, and she agrees that it is such. Yet how are we to learn if we don't see her mistakes along the way.

For Jessica there where many mistakes, even later in her career there are articles that fall dreadfully flat, while others sparkle with her wit and wisdom. To say this is an uneven book would be an understatement. For me, being a worshiper of her autobiography Hons and Rebels, it was interesting reading Jessica's writing over a twenty year period and seeing how she was able to find her voice. Her first articles are so stiff and uninviting. Plain facts infused with no Mitford wit. Yet, if you look at the articles that fail versus succeed, you can see a pattern. The stories she was more involved in have a great depth and a personal feel, like a diary. Jessica's style not only lends itself to this way of writing, but it feels as if she was made for writing memoirs and autobiographies. You feel as if you are gossiping over tea as she is telling you about going to the extravagant Maine Chance Resort run by Elizabeth Arden, not reading an article in McCall's. Or as she tells you how important life long enemies are and that Liberace was really excited to hear her ideas about his role in the adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's The Loved One. These stories make the book enchanting to read. Though it's not all tea and biscuits with the Hon.

The article, "St Peter, Don't You Call Me" is one that sticks out because it was what would become the basis for her famous book, The American Way of Death. At this point I will admit that I have not read this yet, seeing as funerary exposes are not exactly "my thing." Yet, seeing as it was written by Jessica Mitford, I will admit that I will eventually get to it, it's waiting on my shelf for me even now. The article though is so stiff and boring that I wondered, would the book that came from this article be like this. Later though she includes three more articles about what has happened since the first article spurred the book and therefore changed her life. These articles, written five years later, have more of her conversational style that I love. Which makes me wonder... was her style still developing during the time of the article and therefore the book will be fabulous, unlike the article, or was it just the freedom of being done with the book that let her sink back into her witty patter? Because, if I could get more stories about Pet Cemeteries and directors running wild in funeral parlors, sign me up.

One thing that nagged me though was once she was known for The American Way of Death she wouldn't shut up about it. It didn't feel like she was inflating her ego... but that she was riding the books coattails was very evident. Her teaching and anything she was to speak on was all "The American Way of..." I felt a little sorry for her that this book had so become synonymous with her name that they became inseparable. Yet she didn't seem to mind. I think I might have minded a little... or at least stopped harping on about it. Though she went on to do several other big exposes, from the deathly dull expose on the Famous Writers School, to prisons and policies existing in California Universities, to me it was the little stories that I loved best. The rude treatment at a restaurant, the little things that lend a similar feel of Helene Hanff to them, who is another author whom I adore. Though, in the end, it was of course the article on Egypt that kept me way up until the wee hours. While she thought it a failure of an article because she didn't rake any muck, I felt it wonderful, because it was just what I loved about this book, a little diary about an English woman in Egypt immune to the Eyptomania as she called it, which sadly, I think she would diagnose me as having.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Egypt, Evelyn Waugh, Helene Hanff, Hons and Rebels, Jessica Mitford, Mitford March, Muckraking, Poison Penmanship, The American Way of Death, The Loved One

Jessica Mitford is known as the most politically active of the Mitford sisters who didn't align themselves with the Third Reich, gaining herself the nickname the "red sheep" because of her Communist affiliations. Jessica eloped with her cousin Esmond Romilly at the age of nineteen. They ran away to Spain where Esmond covered the war there as a reporter. At one point their family sent a British destroyer to retrieve them home, because when you marry Churchill's nephew, well, the House of Lords might just send the might of the British Navy after you. This over the top gesture did nothing to dissuade them and eventually they immigrated to the United States. At the outset of WWII Esmond enlisted and died a short time later in a bombing raid. 

Jessica remained in the United States, concentrating on her political activism and social justice. She eventually became quite a journalist and muckraker, with her book, The American Way of Death, becoming a classic in it's own right for exposing the funeral industry in America. Jessica is perhaps my favorite of the Mitford sisters because with her book Hons and Rebels, she doesn't hide behind satire and the illusion of "fiction" to make fun of her family. But you don't have to take my word for it, how about the opinion of JK Rowling?

"My most influential writer, without a doubt, is Jessica Mitford. When my great-aunt gave me Hons and Rebels when I was 14, she instantly became my heroine. She ran away from home to fight in the Spanish Civil War, taking with her a camera that she had charged to her father's account. I wished I'd had the nerve to do something like that. I love the way she never outgrew some of her adolescent traits, remaining true to her politics – she was a self-taught socialist – throughout her life."

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Hons and Rebels, J.K. Rowling, Jessica Mitford, Mitford March, Nancy Mitford, The American Way of Death, Winston Churchill, WWII

The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford
Published by: Vintage
Publication Date: August 10th, 2010
Format: Paperback, 240 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy

Fanny's mother is known throughout the family as "The Bolter." Leaving your child behind to be raised by your siblings isn't that odd in a family that uses children instead of foxes in hunts, has their own distinct argot, and lives in such an old house that only one closet has the warmth to be bearable. It is in this "Hons" closet that Fanny and her cousin Linda spend all their time dreaming of true love. Because love is what life is all about. As they grow up their thoughts turn less from the fantasy of marrying the Prince of Wales and more towards any decent chap that can be lured to Alconleigh for their debut ball. Linda, growing up at Alconleigh has not had the luxury of an education that Fanny has living with their Aunt Emily. Linda therefore is so desperate to fall in love that she mistakenly falls for the first man who comes along. The wrong man.

While Fanny happily settles down with an Oxford don and starts having babies, Linda's marriage to Tony Kroesig is a sham. They have one daughter whom Linda can't stand, but she keeps up the pretense of happy families, until one day she throws off her Facist husband for Communist Christian. Yet again Linda has misstepped, thinking that she is in love once more, when really she is just in love with being away from Tony. Always wanting so desperately to be in love, Linda mistakes any male attention for the real deal. Could she be turning into Fanny's mother, The Bolter? Or will her desperate search for love pay off in the most oddest of ways?

I remember one winter day when I first picked up the Vintage omnibus of The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate. The selling point to me was the big silver sticker they had put on the cover for Masterpiece Theatre. I covet those PBS tie-in editions of yore and here was a brand new one waiting for me to buy it. I have mentioned this before, but I am the book dork who must always read a book before watching the show, so I set to reading this before the miniseries was to air. This was a hard time in my life, I had just temporarily dropped out of college because of multiple deaths in the family and I took solace in this little escape. While I enjoyed the book, I was really looking forward to watching the miniseries more than anything. Of course, nothing goes to plan.

My main problem was I was living with my family and we had only two tvs. This was to air on a Monday night, which meant one of the tvs was designated for my little brother watching Monday night wrestling, which meant I had to negotiate for the second tv with my mother. My mother agreed to watch it, so long as it was good. She lasted less then five minutes before she claimed boredom and changed the channel. I was so fed up with everyone else getting what they wanted when all I wanted to do was watch one episode of Masterpiece Theatre that I went into my room and cried. I had waited months and my mom had let me have five minutes, a trait that more or less continues to this day. I had to wait more than four years to finally see the series... so, logically enough, my memory of the book has faded because of the incident that followed.

Therefore when finally getting around to planning Mitford March for my blog, I was excited for the re-read. I remembered very little in the years that followed my initial reading, many of my memories where tied up in the aforementioned incident and in the second volume of the book, more on that later, so I was pleasantly surprised by what I had forgotten and what I had remembered. The odd thing about this book is, truthfully, there really isn't a plot. Instead it is about the yearning and desire for love and how that can go unexpectedly right and horribly wrong. Of all the love stories told, the two that I enjoy the most is Jassy's and Linda's final love. Jassy, Linda's younger sister, has spent her entire life saving up money to run away, finally she does so in order to go to Hollywood and court an actor she has fallen for, who played a background artist in a pirate movie. The media sensation that follows is almost more entertaining then the end of the courtship, with her father viewing the reporters trying to sneak into his house as the first real and formidable enemies since he killed Germans with his entrenching tool in The Great War. While Linda's love of Fabrice is so unexpected when they meet at the train station as she is leaving her second husband, it is their banter and their easy natural conversation that makes you realize that it's not the money and it's not the looks, it's how you click that matters. Linda and I learned that love can be found in the most unexpected of places.

Yet, what I found most interesting about this book is how it was a mirror for the Mitfords themselves. The first time I read this book I knew about them in the vaguest of terms. Sisters, writers, one or two hung out with Hitler, whatever, it wasn't of concern to me, this was fiction. But as Nancy's sister Jessica points out in the introduction "we all know [Nancy's] got no imagination" because "there we were, larger than life, Mitfords renamed Radletts, reliving our childhoods as seen through Nancy's strange triangular green eyes." And the more you know about the Mitfords the funnier the book is. Nancy lampooning herself and her family. Jessica running off to Spain with a communist is both Linda and her little brother's fate. Up and leaving your husband, just like Diana did. Nancy's affair with a Frenchman. The families love of animals, their weird language all their own. This book is the Mitfords as seen through a slightly wobbly magnifying lens, and I love the book for this more then any other reason!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Alconleigh, Diana Mitford, Hitler, Jessica Mitford, Love in a Cold Climate, Masterpiece Theater, Mitford March, Mitfords, Nancy Mitford, PBS, The Bolter, The Great War, The Pursuit of Love

For some time now I have wanted to do a tribute month to the Mitfords. Now, while I really wanted to do this to coincide with Deborah Mitford's 90th birthday in March of 2010, she being the last living Mitford, as you can see I'm a few years off... but still, better late then never is what I say. For any Anglophile the Mitfords are an interesting subject. Six sisters raised in an unorthodox way, with their own argot, Honnish, with education being for boys, not girls, they never had a formal education, yet despite that hindrance, two of them went on to become celebrated writers, with Nancy Mitford regarded as one of the best writers of the 20th century.

In any time period the Mitfords would be called eccentric. The eldest, Nancy, went on to be famous for her novels saterising her family, Pamela's lesbian relationship didn't raise many eyebrows especially because her younger sister Diana married the heir to the Guiness fortune, then left him for Walter Mosley, the leader of Britian's Fascist movement. They eventually married in Joseph Goebbels' drawing room with Hitler in attendance. Unity was much like her sister Diana, in that she too flocked to Hitler, but was so torn when Britian and Germany declared war that she shot herself in the head, but didn't die till after the war. Jessica meanwhile was a staunch Communist and ran off with her cousin, whom she married, to the Spanish Civil War. Deborah on the other hand is quite docile, having married the Duke of Devonshire and taking care of Chatsworth, one of the great houses of England, and turning it into one of the most successful country homes and tourist attractions.

Of the six sisters, only Pamela and Unity never took pen to paper. While Nancy wrote fiction, it seems that the sisters main literary interest was in non-fiction. Writing biographies, not just of famous people, but also contrasting biographies of themselves. Besides their own writing, there has been a plethora of books written on them. Controversial, stylish and notorious... I can't think of a better gang of ladies to have their own month.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Autobiography, Biography, Chatsworth, Deborah Mitford, Diana Mitford, Hitler, Hons, Jessica Mitford, Mitford March, Mitfords, Nancy Mitford

Thanks to my friend Kristen at Bookworming in the 21st Century I was led to the Perpetual Page-Turners Blog which had a really cool end of the year in books survey. Well, I really don't think there's a better way to encapsulate my life and year then through the books that shape it. So here I go...

1. Best book of 2010?
I'm going to have to go with Terry Pratchett's I Shall Wear Midnight. Not only was it Terry Pratchett at his absolute best, but he provided a wonderful and sweet ending for my favorite witch ever, Tiffany Aching. But of course, this is a really sadistic question, because there are so many other favorites I had this year, from Lauren Willig to Gail Carriger there are so many books worthy of "THE BEST."
2. Worst book of 2010?
Shannon Hale's Calamity Jack. I'm sorry, it just failed on many levels, most of which dealt the forcing of steampunk into the wild west and ending up more crappy Will Smith Wild Wild West than Firefly awesomeness. Plus it lacked the witty banter of the previous book.

3. Most Disappointing Book of 2010?
Hands down, Mockingjay. Now, I know many of you out there loved this ending, I was not one of them. It felt different and disjointed from the rest of the books with all the characters being annoying a petulant. It's like once Suzanne Collins had no actual "Hunger Games" she lost the structure and therefore the narrative thread of the book.

4. Most surprising (in a good way!) book of 2010?
Patricia Briggs' Blood Bound. I read Moon Called last year and was not too trilled with it, but I did have the omnibus edition, so I figured, what the hey... and guess what? I loved the second and third book just devouring them in a matter of days. I was surprised by how much fun I had.

5. Book you recommended to people most in 2010?
This is a hard one... I'm always shoving copies of Lauren Willig, Gail Carriger and Elizabeth Peters on people... so I'm guessing that it was either The Mischief of the Mistletoe or Changeless that was the most recommended... but it would be really hard to determine. Oh, and I totally forgot Jasper Fforde's Shades of Grey, cause I've been peddling that book as well!

6. Best series you discovered in 2010?
Carola Dunn's Dasiy Dalrymple. Just sheer mystery fluff fun. Reminiscent of Agatha Christie, but a little more modern in sensibilities.

7. Favorite new authors you discovered in 2010?
I had never read anything by Jessica Mitford, Nancy yes, Jessica no. I can't be live how wonderful her biography was and can't wait to read more of her journalism, yes, I just bought it with some of my Christmas money. But I also discovered Carola Dunn, Jennifer Lee Carrell and numerous others that would take many, many posts to give them their due.

8. Most hilarious read of 2010?
No doubt, Lauren Willig's The Mischief of the Mistletoe. Laugh out loud wonderful! Also a great re-read.

9. Most thrilling, unputdownable book in 2010?
Haunt Me Still by Jennifer Lee Carrell. So good that I actually tried ignoring the air raid sirens for a tornado to keep reading... luckily I came to the happy conclusion that yes, I could read in the basement as well.

10. Book you most anticipated in 2010?
I Shall Wear Midnight. YEARS! I have been waiting YEARS for this book. Thankfully there was no disappointment following, just contentment.

11. Favorite cover of a book you read in 2010?
Sisters Red, which the addendum that the book is a piece of trash. I was fooled once again by the gorgeous cover... damn those cunning graphic designers... oh wait, I'm a cunning graphic designer.

12. Most memorable character in 2010?
Wallace Wells. He is what made the Scott Pilgrim books work. In fact, his notable absence in volumes 4-6 is what I think led to a crappy and unsatisfying ending.

13. Most beautifully written book in 2010?
While I love classics and beautiful writing, they aren't ever really choices in why I read a book. I read for escapism and the lure of storytelling. But I will say that Daphne Du Maurier's Jamaica Inn was wonderfully written, it did not feel dated, and has filled me with her own longing for Cornwall.

14. Book that had the greatest impact on you in 2010?
Sarah Waters's The Little Stranger. Mainly because I disliked it completely and yet it will not leave my mind and it's taking up valuable real estate that another book could take.

15. Book you can't believe you waited UNTIL 2010 to finally read?
Daphne Du Maurier's Jamaica Inn... this book screams "MISS ELIZA." This book is so a book that has everything I love in good storytelling and has been sitting on my shelf since High School, yet... not picked up till this year. Shame on me. Daphne, I will rectify this by reading all your other books in a more timely fashion, look I already finished another one this year.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 2 comments  

Labels: Carola Dunn, Daphne Du Maurier, Gail Carriger, Jasper Fforde, Jennifer Lee Carrell, Jessica Mitford, Lauren Willig, Mockingjay, Patricia Briggs, Scott Pilgrim, Sisters Red, Steampunk, Terry Pratchett

For those of us colonials who got to catch the new version of Upstairs, Downstairs that aired over the past few nights in England, we had a special treat indeed. All worries that the show would just bank all its credibility on nostalgia and star names was forgotten once the old theme music started playing. But it wasn't all veneer. We get the thrill of the old sets newly built and repainted in a blue that would have made the Beeb producers proud back in the 70s but coupled with story lines that did a credible job creating a new generation for 165 Eaton Place. Sure the comparisons are to be drawn between the current and the past inhabitants, but this reinvention was obviously done with a reverence and a love for the old series. The production also embraced the ideals of the old show to portray current events and politics in a real and human way.

Sir Hallam Holland and his wife, Lady Agnes, have just inherited 165 Eaton Place, which has remained empty since the tragic end of the original series, 35 years ago in our world, a mere 8 in theirs. Hallam's father inherited the house from James Bellamy but never set his foot through the door. Sadly for Hallam, that doesn't stop his mother, Lady Holland, her secretary Mr. Amanjit, and her pet monkey from invading the house and making over one of the rooms as a study for which to write her memoirs of her life abroad, much like a bohemian M.M. Kaye. There is also Lady Agnes' younger sister, Persie, who is brought under the wing of her sister, only to develop radical ideals and ties to the Nazis. Because as ever, Eaton Place is a battleground of politics and intrigue, with Wallace Simpson walking through the doors with her lover, the one who isn't the King. To Cecil Beaton, to the future King of England himself, what happens in Eaton Place is a microcosm of the outside world. There's life and death and acceptance and forgiveness, and humor and tears.

But life above stairs would never be what it is without those below. As ever, we have Rose Buck... who you can barely believe is 35 years older. Jean Marsh looked as stalwart and true as she ever has. Running a household she lived in for 40 years, she is finally back in her element and not in Bucks of Belgravia. We have a new cook, much the perfectionist that Mrs. Bates ever was, and a butler, who warms the cockles of your heart just in the way Hudson did, even if Hudson never had a letter of recommendation from Errol Flynn! We have discontented housemaids who are a little saucy, and a tempting chauffeur, as it seems all chauffeurs must be, radical and just the little extra dash of sex appeal.

What I found most wonderful is how, for the first time, I got the politics. I saw Upstairs, Downstairs originally long ago... long before I had evolved into the Anglophile I am today, in fact I still suspect that Christmas present all those years ago was more of an excuse for my parents to get their hands on the show again. The show had so much more depth knowing who Walter Mosley was when they started to discuss him, so I could see the looming storm clouds of what was to come. He was a fascist who, eventually, married Nancy Mitford's older sister Charlotte, of which Jessica Mitford gives a great account of in Hons and Rebels. Also the waiting with baited breath for the King to abdicate the throne for Wallace Simpson in December of 1936, which was captured very well in the tv movie, Wallace and Edward. But as always I must say that I hate those two selfish people and am grateful for his abdication because Hitler probably would have won the war with Edward's appeasement and buddyy buddy attitude. Because any "fairy tale" that ends with dinner parties with The Hitlers is no happily ever after to me.

Stateside the new miniseries won't air till April, when they will painfully draw it out over three long weeks. My advice. DVR them all and marathon it, it's the only way to watch it. But thankfully there's Downton Abbey in the meantime... but more on that gem later... but until then, a little something to tide you over.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Anglophile, Charlotte Mosley, Eaton Place, Errol Flynn, Facist, Hons and Rebels, Hudson, James Bellamy, Jessica Mitford, M.M. Kaye, Nancy Mitford, Nazis, Rose Buck, Upstairs Downstairs, Walter Mosley

Hons and Rebels by Jessica Mitford
Published by: NYRB Classics
Publication Date: 1960
Format: Paperback, 320 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
Recommended for: Anglophiles, Biography Buffs, Mitford Maniacs, Journalists and History Buffs
To Buy
Jessica Mitford was the "Ballroom Communist" of the engagingly eccentric Mitford Family. The second youngest daughter of the 2nd Baron Redesdalee, she had an unconventional upbringing where education was the bare minimum to make a good wife. Always wishing for an escape from her family, be it through schooling or politics or moving to another continent, she suffered through being a deb and presentation before the queen and watching her family come apart at the seems due to a divergence in beliefs. But at her first chance she ran off with her cousin, Esmond Rommilly, the nephew of Winston Churchill, to fight Franco in Spain. What with all of England trying to force her home, sending really big ships no less, even the courts of Chancery, it's surprising that she actually was able to succeed in her convictions and in marrying Esmond. The madcap and eccentric life that followed from Rotherhithe to the United States with Esmond equals that of her earlier life, but with herself being the master of her fate.

I rarely read biographies. I have to say, if more biographies were as fun and enjoyable as Jessica Mitford's I would read nothing but. The Mitford family has always been fascinating to me, what with the sisters paths being so divergent. Nancy was one of the "Bright Young Things" and a literary darling, with Love in a Cold Climate, which basically skewered her own family for her amusement. Pamela was horse obsessed and kind of out of the limelight. Diana married the heir to the Guinness fortune then divorced him to have an affair with the head of the British Facist party. When they eventually married, Hitler was at their wedding, which was held at the Goebbels' house. She also spent time in prison. Unity was Hitler's biggest fan and when war broke out between England and Germany she failed at committing suicide only to die of meningitis. And Debo... well she married the Duke of Devonshire and lives at Chatsworth, writes books about chickens and is the last remaining Mitford daughter. You could not make this stuff up! From her earliest days with family to her later life with Esmond, Jessica captures the love she had for these people while at the same time the exasperation of her situation. From hoarding money so she could run away, to the ultimate subterfuge that resulted in her being victorious, even if she had to chase the Spanish Consulate representative all over England and France. To the years scarping by in the States doing anything and everything to stay there, from selling stockings door to door to being a bouncer at a bar. That's right, Jessica, not her husband, was the bouncer.

Given the extreme fame of her family and the career Jessica later established as a journalist in her own right, if a muckracker at that, it's beyond enjoyable to see where it all began. The fact that a high born Hon would eschew her family and their beliefs to set out on her own crusade for right, for the poor and disadvantaged, is a noble crusade indeed. But what you also see is that with Esmond, this is a love story. From her first hearing mention of him, she was in love. From their similar backgrounds of trying to shed off what was their families hereditary hangups, she envied him for his actual escape and later he aided her escape as well. Whether he felt the same inevitability as her that they were meant to be is hinted at. But what is certain is that they were perfectly matched. It makes sense that the book ends with the outbreak of World War II. It's the event that, more than anything, shaped that generation, but more personally than that, embodied the division of this family. It was also the event that would claim Esmond's life. But at least in this book, we can see the love still remains.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Ballroom Communist, Bright Young Things, Chatsworth, Duchess of Devonshire, Esmond Rommilly, Franco, Hitler, Hons and Rebels, Jessica Mitford, Love in a Cold Climate, Nancy Mitford, Winston Churchill