Hunting foxes, prim butlers, gossip, old mansions, eccentric lords, witty dives, the era between the world wars, family diamonds and pedigrees dating back to the era of the Norman conquest - Nancy Mitford's book collects bingo from all the stamps of the novel (TV series, film) - substitute what you want) about English high society. In Love in a Cold Climate, you will indiscriminately discern motifs familiar to all fans of Evelyn Waugh and Pelam Grenville Woodhouse's prose, the Downton Abbey series or the Robert Altman film Gosford Park - and realized in the best, without exaggeration, reference quality.
"It was the very worst kind of Banbury-Road house, depressing, with laurels. The front door was opened by a slut. I had never seen a slut before but recognized the genus without difficulty as soon as I set eyes on this one." ― Nancy Mitford, Love in a Cold Climate
If you are a fan of this genre and surroundings, then perhaps you can safely stop at this point - what has been said above should be enough to awaken in you an irresistible desire to read "Love in a Cold Climate" as soon as possible. If you do not have a special love for stories about the British aristocracy, then, perhaps, some details still need clarification.
And, of course, you need to start with the figure of the author. Nancy Mitford was born in 1904 and was the eldest of the six legendary Mitford sisters - beauties, madcapes, aristocrats, socialites and, in general, almost the most striking characters of her time, which was already rich in colorful figures. In other words, everything that Mitford writes about in his novel was not spied on by her on the pages of Tatler magazine, not read in books, but literally lived, absorbed from birth, imprinted in genetic memory.
It is this circumstance that sharpens Mitford's gaze, directed at the people of her circle, to a truly razor sharpness. And although her intentions obviously did not include the satirical flagellation of the aristocratic environment, in her book there is not a trace of emotion and reverence, often inherent in people from other social strata. Mitford's heroes look frighteningly authentic - both in their dazzling snobbery, and in their vanity, and in laziness, and in a truly Olympic contempt for rules and conventions, immutable, in the opinion of aristocrats, for other classes, but happily not spreading to them.
Polly Hampton, the only daughter of Lord Montdor, a beauty, heiress of a huge fortune and one of the best friends of Fanny Logan (it is on behalf of the latter that the story is narrated) since childhood has been in love with a completely inappropriate person much older and is adamant in her desire to connect life with him - it is around this juicy collision revolves the entire content of the novel. However, much more space than the actual storyline in Love in a Cold Climate is occupied by ironic and very accurate sketches about the receptions at the castle of Polly's parents, about mischievous cousins, loud uncles and absent-minded aunts of the heroine-storyteller (also aristocrats, but not so brilliant and rich, like her friend), about the decoration of guest bedrooms, about engagements and the choice of outfits for publication.
The heroes visit each other nonstop, shop, drink tea, but most importantly, selflessly gossip. The boring morality of the middle class in high society does not work: adultery or, say, sex with minors is considered normal here, the death of a newborn child is perceived as an annoying trifle, parental love seems excessive - it seems that neither parents nor children need it, but the rank of the main virtue was raised to "amusement" and some eccentricity - for it a person can be forgiven absolutely everything. But woe to the bore without secular gloss: he will not be justified in the eyes of society.
However, do not think that the world that Nancy Mitford paints in her novel is terrible and inhabited by immoral monsters - such a view will also not be fully correct. Without condemning or idealizing his heroes, Mitford at the same time understands them much deeper than almost any other author who undertakes to write about the English aristocracy. And from this understanding, genuine empathy and reflexive vigilance are born, transforming the "secular melodrama" frivolous at first impression into truly high-class prose.
This article was sponsored by Martin Kuklinski
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