The Pursuit of Love

1945, 1982 Modern Library edition with Love in a Cold Climate
Nancy Mitford
The Pursuit of Love
Bought newish for $12.95
Good condition hardcover although dustjacket a bit worn
B


Despite an arguably more depressing ending than Cass Timberlane-- the heroine dies in childbirth-- this is a frothier, funnier book than its year-peer.  Set roughly 1925 to '41, it tells of romantic Linda's romances, although you'll want to read it for the Radlett family, a thinly disguised version of the Mitfords.  The Mitford siblings were six (in)famous sisters and a brother who died the year this book was published.  The Radletts are four sisters and three brothers, although the boys are less memorable.  Rather than Nancy born in 1904 down to Deborah (still alive and writing at 92), we have Louisa (1909), Linda (1911), Bob (1913?), Jassy (1917ish), Matt (1918ish), "little Robin" (male, unknown birth year), and Victoria (1923).  Not that Mitford is very consistent about the ages, in this or the 1949 sequel.  The seven siblings are joined by their cousin the narrator, relatively sensible Fanny, who's Linda's age.  Fa and Mother, Uncle Matthew and Aunt Sadie to Fanny, are as eccentric as their children, Mitford taking the real-life oddities of her parents and exaggerating them, apparently to the amusement of Baron Redesdale (Farve, AKA her father).

Linda marries first a stodgy "middle-class" millionaire and then a distracted Communist, then she finds love with a French Resistance nobleman.  None of the romances are particularly interesting, and it's always a relief to get back to things like Jassy running away to marry film star Gary Coon (or was it Cary Goon?), or Uncle Davey fretting about his health, or Uncle Matthew ranting hilariously about foreigners.  Even "good" sister Louisa is wittier and more fun than any of Linda's love interests.  Oh, and there's the Bolter, Fanny's much-married and much-divorced mother.

The humour is outrageous and sometimes deliberately in bad taste, joking about rape and abortion.  But it's all part of the over-the-topness of the Radletts, who can make Linda cry over a matchbox-less match or wage an ongoing battle with the gamekeeper.  There is some snobbishness in the book, but it takes surprising forms, as in the contrast between Society parties and those of "The Party."

As in Cass Timberlane, the war is mostly offstage, although it comes figuratively and literally closer to home in England than the U.S.  Linda's French lover dies, leaving their son to be raised by Fanny.  And yet, this is less depressing than Cleo the cat dying in Cass, even if Cleo's granddaughter shows up at the end.  The Radletts and friends are much more unsinkable than the denizens of Grand Republic.

This edition has a charming foreword by Jessica Mitford, who doesn't even seem to mind that her involvement in the Spanish Civil War is given to a nonexistent brother, while irrepressible Jassy goes to Hollywood.