The Blessing

That even includes Love in a Cold Climate, actually! I thought this book was very funny and quite brilliant.It follows the marriage of a sweet English belle to a handsome, wealthy frenchman from a very well connected family. The marriage is rocky, as the two come from very different backgrounds, but they have their son, "the blessing," to tie them together.As Nancy lived in Paris and grew up in England, she obviously knows a lot of the details about living in both places. The details are perfect. If you are interested in what Paris high society was like in the 1950's, you should definately read this book: Nancy obviously knows all of the gossip.If you've read "What Maisie Knew" you MUST read this book. I saw this book as quite a brilliant parody of that one. If I said more, it would give too much away, so just take my word for it.

I've been on a Mitford roll this summer since I read Mary Lovell's book about the Mitford sisters. Have read all of Nancy's novels, this being the last.I loved it for the way she poked fun at the French and English, too. A reviewer on 1/3/2000, I believe it was, missed the whole point. The characters in this book aren't vapid. They are upper class English and French who quietly carry on affairs. Everyone knows, but no one talks. Well, they do among themselves, but we peasants aren't to know.I did not have trouble with the few French phases here and there as I read French. They were not as numerous or long as in some of her other books.Grace may not have been the smartest person in the world, but it was a good story. I felt sorry for her at the dinners where she was unaware of the undercurrents going on around her. Her father was also an interesting character."The Blessing" otherwise known as Sigismund was an awful child, but with a name like that what could you expect? When you think about it the title is a joke as he certainly didn't seem to be a blessing. I wonder what other terrible things he did as he got older?

Oh dear oh dear...in these therapeutic days I suppose the characters in "The Blessing" would be obliged to confront their addictions, and natter on about their dyfunctions to solemn counselors -- and in the process bore us, the readers, to shrieks!Nancy Mitford has a keen yet tolerant eye for the foibles and follies of humanity, to say nothing of a positively wicked ear for dialogue that reveals a character in a sentence or two. A delight and a grand giggle, from start to finish!

-- as Nancy Mitford herself would have said. The Blessing, along with Love in a Cold Climate, represents the best of her always hilarious fiction. Evelyn Waugh gets all the credit for being the satirist of their generation (if you really want to be amused, read their correspondence, expertly edited by Charlotte Mosley, Mitford's niece-in-law), but there was no one funnier than Mitford then nor, alas, is there anyone as funny now, a fact which says much -- none of it good -- about our current society and how (groan) seriously we all take ourselves. I mean, think about it: the woman lived through the Blitz, a sister's attempted suicide, another sister's imprisonment (tho' Nancy herself was partially responsible for that one), her brother's death in WW II, and several miscarriages. If she could still poke such brilliant fun at herself and others, then why must we all act like self-absorbed guests at one giant pity party? What I wouldn't give for a good shrieker these days.

A very funny, as well as affectionate, portrayal of Paris culture, and a charming love story as well.