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A review by ejl2623
Don't Tell Alfred by Nancy Mitford
3.0
This is a Review of all three novels in this three book series. I read them all on audible. The narrators for Books 1 and 3 were great. Book 2 kind of whispered the entire novel. I hated that.
Book 1
The Pursuit of Love (1945): Nancy Mitford is a witty writer, capturing a wildly unique family in the period between the world wars. Fanny Logan, our narrator is being raised by her Aunt Emily and Uncle Davy as her mother, a/k/a "the bolter" quickly decided she was not fit for the maternal life and her father certainly didn't wish to raise her alone. Her cousins often end up nearby with her Aunt Amelia and Uncle Mathew, so she spends a good deal of time with her cousin, Linda Radlett with her several siblings. Linda and Fanny are close. This is her story, as, during her year of coming out, she marries poorly - a German banker's son who is handsome but ill-suited to his nonconformist wife. She has the requisite child, a daughter she cares nothing about. She is a great social success and he hates socializing. This novel is so old that I will mention that we follow Linda through an affair and marriage to a communist who never seems to feel any attachment to his various lovers and then she heads to France as WWII has begun and France is soon to be invaded. She meets and finally falls in love with Fabrice, a French Duke. He has been engaged many times and is known as a love 'em and leave 'em type. Nancy Mitford was involved with a similarly fickle Frenchman off and on for years. Linda and Fabrice have a different end. She dies in childbirth of his son and he dies in the war as a resistance fighter in France. By this time, Fanny has married Alfred, a Don at Oxford. They adopt baby Fabrice and the story of Linda draws to a close. Very sad, but the book in general makes one smile and laugh at the goings on of the wealthy aristocracy and the manners of the age.
Book 2 -
Love in a Cold Climate (1949): Looking to a much wealthier and proper yet also dysfunctional family, Fanny's childhood friend returns home from years in India where her father, the Earl of Montdore served as Viceroy.. Her mother desperately wants Polly to marry and based on beauty and prospects, she would be an amazing catch, but she has eyes for nobody. Until her father's sister dies, freeing up her husband, "Boy" Duckworth. Boy has been lecherous with underaged girls, is known for his many affairs and was for a long time, lover to Polly's mother. And that is who Polly loves. In a disastrous turn of affairs, Polly is disinherited and everyone is miserable. Ultimately, Cedric, the heir apparent from Canada, is brought to the family estate where he takes on the formidable Sonia, Polly's mother. A flamboyantly gay man, in this novel, Cedric is a hoot, a complex guy who has a vast knowledge of antiquities and little formal education.
Throughout, we also get to watch Fanny as a young mother, giving hysterical views of the mundane wives of her husband's colleagues and her sad commentary that these scholars never actually speak about their subjects with women present. There are a number of funny collateral stories in Love an a Cold Climate, again highlighting Mitford's wit and frightening insight into the minds and ways of the whole strata of society.
Book 3
Don't Tell Alfred (1960) - This story, many years after the first two, takes Fanny to France, when her husband Alfred is named Ambassador to France. It is the most uneven of the three books but has enough going for it to round out the trilogy. Fanny's social secretary was not her first pick among her sister's children. Northy joins them and kind of learns the job, as she also borrows money against her salary from everyone in the embassy and rescues all sorts of animals, meant to live on embassy grounds -- in Paris. Her oldest son has become a zen buddhist and plans to walk to China with his very pregnant wife and their adopted Asian son; the next one down is working in London were he ends up helping out the two youngest and their close friend who have scarpered, with a friend, from Eton and found jobs packing razors. Meanwhile, the predecessor ambassador's wife has taken residence in an embassy apartment and refuses to leave. She entertains friends and has food brought in. As Fanny desperately tries to find her place in embassy life, the family is the constant target of a British newspaper. This slapstick novel works best when it focuses on the fact it takes place in the very late 1950s. Some of the humor still made me smile. But largely, I'm mostly glad I read the third book in the trilogy.
Book 1
The Pursuit of Love (1945): Nancy Mitford is a witty writer, capturing a wildly unique family in the period between the world wars. Fanny Logan, our narrator is being raised by her Aunt Emily and Uncle Davy as her mother, a/k/a "the bolter" quickly decided she was not fit for the maternal life and her father certainly didn't wish to raise her alone. Her cousins often end up nearby with her Aunt Amelia and Uncle Mathew, so she spends a good deal of time with her cousin, Linda Radlett with her several siblings. Linda and Fanny are close. This is her story, as, during her year of coming out, she marries poorly - a German banker's son who is handsome but ill-suited to his nonconformist wife. She has the requisite child, a daughter she cares nothing about. She is a great social success and he hates socializing. This novel is so old that I will mention that we follow Linda through an affair and marriage to a communist who never seems to feel any attachment to his various lovers and then she heads to France as WWII has begun and France is soon to be invaded. She meets and finally falls in love with Fabrice, a French Duke. He has been engaged many times and is known as a love 'em and leave 'em type. Nancy Mitford was involved with a similarly fickle Frenchman off and on for years. Linda and Fabrice have a different end. She dies in childbirth of his son and he dies in the war as a resistance fighter in France. By this time, Fanny has married Alfred, a Don at Oxford. They adopt baby Fabrice and the story of Linda draws to a close. Very sad, but the book in general makes one smile and laugh at the goings on of the wealthy aristocracy and the manners of the age.
Book 2 -
Love in a Cold Climate (1949): Looking to a much wealthier and proper yet also dysfunctional family, Fanny's childhood friend returns home from years in India where her father, the Earl of Montdore served as Viceroy.. Her mother desperately wants Polly to marry and based on beauty and prospects, she would be an amazing catch, but she has eyes for nobody. Until her father's sister dies, freeing up her husband, "Boy" Duckworth. Boy has been lecherous with underaged girls, is known for his many affairs and was for a long time, lover to Polly's mother. And that is who Polly loves. In a disastrous turn of affairs, Polly is disinherited and everyone is miserable. Ultimately, Cedric, the heir apparent from Canada, is brought to the family estate where he takes on the formidable Sonia, Polly's mother. A flamboyantly gay man, in this novel, Cedric is a hoot, a complex guy who has a vast knowledge of antiquities and little formal education.
Throughout, we also get to watch Fanny as a young mother, giving hysterical views of the mundane wives of her husband's colleagues and her sad commentary that these scholars never actually speak about their subjects with women present. There are a number of funny collateral stories in Love an a Cold Climate, again highlighting Mitford's wit and frightening insight into the minds and ways of the whole strata of society.
Book 3
Don't Tell Alfred (1960) - This story, many years after the first two, takes Fanny to France, when her husband Alfred is named Ambassador to France. It is the most uneven of the three books but has enough going for it to round out the trilogy. Fanny's social secretary was not her first pick among her sister's children. Northy joins them and kind of learns the job, as she also borrows money against her salary from everyone in the embassy and rescues all sorts of animals, meant to live on embassy grounds -- in Paris. Her oldest son has become a zen buddhist and plans to walk to China with his very pregnant wife and their adopted Asian son; the next one down is working in London were he ends up helping out the two youngest and their close friend who have scarpered, with a friend, from Eton and found jobs packing razors. Meanwhile, the predecessor ambassador's wife has taken residence in an embassy apartment and refuses to leave. She entertains friends and has food brought in. As Fanny desperately tries to find her place in embassy life, the family is the constant target of a British newspaper. This slapstick novel works best when it focuses on the fact it takes place in the very late 1950s. Some of the humor still made me smile. But largely, I'm mostly glad I read the third book in the trilogy.