One Hundred Good Things About Growing Old Number 31

# 31. 

As you age, you realise that not all the authors you were taught to revere are actually worthy of reverence.
Two good examples of this now follow:

(i)  The Mitford Sisters

This is a Fun Biography which makes the Mitfords seem like a great laugh, and worth all the media attention they've enjoyed over the hundred years since the youngest one was born (Deborah, late Duchess of Devonshire, 1920 - 2014).  

This is a very different work, edited by the daughter-in-law of Diana Mosley (née Mitford).

It's hard to get past the copious and serious notes explaining who all the characters are. Many, if not most of them are labelled with ridiculous nicknames, like Bobo, Boud, (Unity, daughter #4), Nardy, Honks,  (Diana, daughter#3), and Dawly (Deborah, #6, known even to the public as Debo).

The sisters, beside their silly nicknames and childish secret languages, communicated in wildly over-elite phraseology, calling each other "darling" at all times, and sprinkling superlatives, italics and capitals liberally.

What's more disturbing is the political allegiances of the two fascist daughters, Unity and Diana.  Now that we are seeing the resurgance of political movements we had considered consigned to the dustbin of history after the defeat of Germany in 1945, it is particularly distasteful to read of these privileged girls using their positions and connections to influence public opinion in favour of Hitler.

It ended badly for poor, impressionable, silly Unity, who shot herself in Munich on 3rd September 1939, the day that Britain and France declared war on Germany.  She was brought home by her mother and Deborah. With the mental age of a 12-year-old, brain-damaged and unpredictable, she became a severe burden on her mother who cared for her for the rest of her life.

Diana, who left her first husband to live with the British Fascist leader Oswald Mosley, was imprisoned for 3 years as an "exremely dangerous and sinister young woman", (in the words of the Home Office official who signed her detention order).  Mosley had already been imprisoned as a threat to the country.  Both were released in November 1943, and kept under house arrest for the rest of the war.

The biography somehow manages to make it all seem rather a jolly jape, the letters give a true indication of the nature of the personalities.

(ii)
Simone de Beauvoir

I never particularly liked this woman, but felt that, as she was a famous feminist and the author of the renowned "The Second Sex", I should read her.  I never got far with "The Second Sex", finding it, exactly as with Germaine Greer's "The Female Eunuch" terminally depressing, to the point where, I felt, anyone who truly believed these things would probably commit suicide.

So no copy of it exists on my bookshelf.  However, I have a comprehensive biography.

Biography of Simone de Beauvoir, published 1990

I also have a book about Simone and her sister, and ten assorted works including stories, memoirs, and novels.  I've read all the fiction works and memoirs, but can't say they added to the sum of my happiness in life.

All display in varying degrees the self-obsession, stridency, selfishness, and manipulative characteristics of this famous feminist.

Volume 1 of Simone de Beauvoir's autobiography

This first volume is followed by two more tomes all about herself and her feelings about everything and her thoughts.  Unfortunately, the "novels" are all cast in much the same mould, intensely self-absorbed, and almost devoid of interest in anyone outside the narrator/heroine and her immediate circle.

This is a sinister-looking woman.  The picture credit states that it is "Yvonne in Green Dress", by Guy Pene Dubois, held in The New Britain Museum, Connecticut.  The high cheekbones and cropped dark hair give the depiction a striking similarity to  young woman called Olga Kosakievicz.  She was a White Russian emigré, nine years younger than de Beauvoir, and, as an emigré, was lacking in confidence and vulnerable.  She was de Beauvoir's student at the lycée in Rouen.  The simplicity with which the biography (published 1990) tells the story is hardly credible today. In our era, seduction of, and sexual relationships with, any student by a teacher, confer prison sentences.    De Beauvoir groomed the girl and introduced her to Sartre, her own lover, who began a sexual relationship with her.  The "novel" is a thinly disguised account of this three-way relationship.

It was not just Olga.  The biography states that "this was the first of a succession of intense friendships Simone de Beauvoir formed with her students, all of whom subsequently acquiesced to sexual liaisons with Sartre".  'Acquiesced!'  A subtle, nuanced word, indicating that the author, Deirdre Barr, was well aware that the relationships had a coercive element.  The force of Sartre's personality, and that of his mistress, would have provided an irresistible current of force.

Another student, Bianca Bienenfeld, also vulnerable because she was Jewish, wrote a memoir years later in which she fully acknowledged modern sensibilities of the criminal dimension of these teachers and their relationships with students.  It all looks very different when you strip away the hero-worship of the feminist icon.

Now that I am older, I realise that my initial distaste, which I could not fully analyse, was well-justified.  My existentialist collection, consisting of ten fiction works, two biographical, and three works by or about Sartre, is no longer of interest to me.  I have earmarked it for a clear-out.  The Mitford books will also be part of a clear-out.  No more time for these flawed heroines!

A Perfect Afternoon

Started at the Oxfam shop, where I was due to meet my friend after her Saturday morning volunteer shift ended at 1.00pm.  Any excuse to visit a charity shop is most delightful, and to add to the pleasure there was an Age Concern shop right next door.  I bought "My Dear, I Wanted toTell You" by Louisa Young, in the Age Concern shop.  This is a novel set in the First World War, by the grand-daughter of Robert Falcon Scott's widow, Kathleen, (from her second marriage), and was serialised on Woman's Hour on publication, so I am looking forward to reading it.

Passing next door to the Oxfam shop, I was delighted to find there a set of two cassette tapes of Shirley Williams giving talks to Woman's Hour (didn't realise the common link until this afternoon), in 1996.  She is talking about her childhood, about being the daughter of one of my favourite authors of all time, Vera Brittain, and then moving on to her life in politics.  Great listening- thank goodness we didn't throw out our last ghetto blaster in a recent clear-out, as it is the only machine in the house which I can play the tapes on.

Next I picked up a copy of "The Mitfords, Letters between Six Sisters" (published 2007), edited by Charlotte Mosley, a Mitford daughter-in-law (the surname tells you which one).  This, I nearly said, would add to my collection of Mitford books, but I don't actually have this collection.  I have passed every book on to elder daughter, and she has enjoyed them just as much as I have. Jessica Mitford's famous "Hons and Rebels", two novels by Nancy, a biography of all six sisters by Mary Lovell, and lastly, Debo Devonshire's memoir, "Wait for Me".

The last is very recent, and I purchased it following a visit by elder daughter and me to Chatsworth, which we both enjoyed very much.

I was about to leave with my friend, when I spotted  W Somerset Maugham's "Cakes and Ale", a very old book first published in 1930.  I don't find WSM interesting in himself, but having just read some biographical works about Thomas Hardy, I have come across a reference to this book several times.  Apparently it contains a descriptive parody of TH, which caused great offence to the latter's widow, Florence.

To my surprise, my friend told me her book group  had read this book.  As she is thinking of leaving her book group because they persist in picking boring books, this was not a great advertisement.  However, as I said, I have a particular motive for buying this, and may not read all of it.

My friend and I then went for lunch and spent the next three and a half hours talking non-stop.  This was most enjoyable.

Later, after I returned home. I was still in non-stop talk mode, and this annoyed hubby during "Strictly".  He put up with it for so long, and then could stand it no longer. "Will you PLEASE stop talking!"  He is, as I have said before, a man of few words.

However, nothing could detract from the pure pleasure of an afternoon spent with a very old friend, which included two charity shops, a kitchen shop, and much talk about books, our daughters, our holidays, families and a long shared history.

Nancy wins through

Today is my first-born's birthday.  At about this time, 27 years ago, a midwife dragged her out with forceps and life was never the same again. I sent her a text this morning first thing, and waited all day for a reply.  Couldn't concentrate on my work.  Told the factory manager about it, and we chatted about his two daughters, son and five grandchildren.  One of his daughters has just written off to audition for X-Factor 2012.  That cheered me up.

Eventually, at about six pm, she called.  It seems that the book I sent, Nancy Mitford's classic, "The Pursuit of Love" is her favourite of all the presents I sent.  Hey! Yey!

The Mitford Girls Again

Spent a lovely weekend with elder daughter.  We had such fun.  Went shopping in Guildford on Saturday, had lunch in Jamie's Italian, watched the X-Factor in the evening.  Went for a walk on Reigate Hill Sunday morning.

I took with me "The Mitford Girls" by Mary S Lovell for elder daughter to read.  As posted below, this was on the basis that she enjoys watching "Downton Abbey", and would probably recognize some of Julian Fellowes' themes loosely drawn from life, namely the eccentric aristocrats called the Mitfords.

She was only a few pages in before announcing that she did, indeed, love it, and was enthralled.  Great, because I have lined up "The Pursuit of Love" by Nancy Mitford as a stocking filler for her this year.

Nancy Mitford "The Pursuit of Love"

So after posting about the mysteries of two apparently incompatible people managing to keep a relationship going for over 30 years (hubby and me), I've come across two references to the subject in the last week.

One in a book by a now almost-forgotten author, Charles Morgan, born in 1894, the same year as Phyllis Bentley and J.B. Priestley.  Charles Morgan was interned in Holland during World War 1 (during that war, Holland was a neutral country).  Based on his experience, Morgan wrote his most successful work, "The Fountain" which won the Hawthornden prize.  I wrote a lengthy review of this on my old blog, which is now lost, but I might be able to find the draft in Word and re-post.  This afternoon I am going to London to watch a play called "The River Line", which C Morgan adapted for the Edinburgh Festival of 1952 from his own novel of the same title, which I proudly possess in hardback. 

Another Charles Morgan book I have picked up in hardback is "Sparkenbroke" and this is my train reading of the moment. As I am only half way through this  550 page work, I cannot at the present time categorically conclude what it is actually about.  From evidence so far, I would say it is about love.

Last week I came across the following:

'Once, as they came away from a house where lived together a man and wife seemingly incongruous but deeply in love, she said: " I wonder what it is that holds them to each other," and he began to answer that the woman had been very pretty when she was young and that they had common interests.'  

The male character goes on to follow this up with quotations from Stendhal and Goethe, which would put off the average girl, though not this one.  Finally he sums it up thus: "...though love may have a thousand originating impulses, thrown out almost haphazard like a handful of seed, it doesn't take root or grow into a consuming love unless the two people have the same intuitive direction of their subconscious minds."

I think that pretty well sums up what I have found to be the answer to one of life's perplexing questions.  However, almost no-one now reads this long-forgotten work, so it is not as well known as Nancy Mitford's "The Pursuit of Love".  A book on this theme, accurately forecast in the title,  but far better-known, a success from the moment of publication, which sold 200,000 copies in its first year and has hardly been out of print since. 

Nancy Mitford's work is lightly ironical, terribly witty in an understated sort of way, and much shorter at only 205 pages in the current Penguin paperback edition.  Not surprising that it is more popular.  Chapter Seven begins with the words "What could possibly have induced Linda to marry Anthony Kroesig?  During the nine years of their life together people asked this question with irritating regularity, almost every time their names were mentioned." 

Like many an avid reader who over-identifies with characters in books, I thought, "Yes, people have said that about me!"  Further analysis, however, seemed necessary.

Only two people have intimated over the last 27 years that they did not know why I married my husband.  One of them actually said it out loud.  On the iceberg theory that for every one showing there is nine-tenths more below the water-line, I wonder if about twenty people have asked themselves this about me and hubby.  Not that great a total, after all.

Later in the book, Linda explains what went wrong with the marriage.

"The really important thing, if a marriage is to go well, without much love, is very very great niceness - gentillesse - and wonderful good manners.  I was never gentille with Tony, and often I was hardly polite to him, and very soon after our honeymoon, I became exceedingly disagreeable.  I'm ashamed now to think what I was like.... It was my fault from begnning to end."

This was food for thought.  However, the overwheming thought that went through my mind on reading this advice was, that it didn't apply to us.  When we married, there was enormous love, which lasted really for well over twenty years, much longer than the honeymoon period.  We really did love each other, as far as anyone knows what love is (to misquote the Prince of Wales).  Passion outflanked gentility, but passion leads to stormy arguments and reconciliations.  Gentility took a back seat until much more recently.

Nowadays, being calm and quiet seems to be a strategy for successfully sharing a home together.  Whether this can carry on without passion remains to be seen.  One thing is certain, "It ain't over yet!"

The Mitford Girls

Today I visited Chatsworth House.  Of course, the house tour ends with the shop.  I bought some biscuits for my next-door neighbour, and, naturally,  a book. I bought a new paperback copy of "The Pursuit of Love" by Nancy Mitford.

It is hardly credible that Nancy, who was born in  1904 and died in 1973, the year I was twenty, still has a sibling surviving.  This is Debo, otherwise known as Deborah, the Dowager Duchess of Devonshire. She is 91, and lives somewhere nearby on the Chatsworth estate, since her husband's death in  2004.

Debo is largely credited with the enormous success of the Chatsworth brand, and with saving the house and estate from the tax-man.  It has been turned over to a Trust to keep it safe in perpetuity and the present Duke and Duchess (Debo's son and his wife) pay rent to live there, so the notices are careful to inform us.

Debo has written several books, some of which were on offer in the bookshop.  I sneaked a quick glance, and was impressed by her lively style, and sharp wit.  However, sticking to the classics, I bought Nancy's book, not her first, but the first to gain widespread acclaim.  It was published in 1945, a different era. 

What we love about the Mitfords is their eccentricity, and their effortless class.  I explained to my elder daughter, that a Dowager Duchess was the "Maggie Smith character in Downton Abbey".  This was immediately understood.

I also told her that she would love to read anything about or by the Mitford girls, on the basis that she enjoys Downton Abbey, and found my last-year's Christmas present, a book on etiquette, "hilarious".  I am half-way through the second-youngest sister's memoir "Hons and Rebels", and debated whether to buy my daughter a new copy for Christmas, or lend her my second-hand hardback edition picked up in a charity shop for £5.00.

This sister, Jessica, known to the family as "Decca" was as eccentric as the rest, and an equally good writer.  Her sardonic, tongue-in-cheek comments on her family and early life are laugh-out-loud funny.  You do have to have an appreciation of  the family as a whole to understand the truly shocking behaviour which saw her run away to Spain with her cousin, Esmond Romilly (a nephew of Winston Churchill, although some gossips said he was the illegitimate son) in the 1930's. 

The pre-war life of hunting, shooting and fishing, house-parties, home education for girls, news stories about napkin rings, is the background against which this honourable deb rebelled.  You have to love it.

I started my new book whilst sitting in the restaurant with my husband eating lunch at Chatsworth. I know it's rude to read at the table, but somehow, the whole Mitford family's grand reputation for eccentricity, rudeness, but overall charm, seemed to prevail, and hubby didn't mind a bit!