New book

I think I'm in a book-buying slump--this is the only thing I bought at Baker Street Books last weekend. But I'm excited about it, so that's all right. I've been meaning to read E.F. Benson for ages and ages. I think I first heard of it when I encountered the miniseries (which I haven't really watched), and I've heard it recommended  by various people in blogland. I gather these books are reminiscent both of P.G. Wodehouse and Evelyn Waugh, which is a great recommendation for me. Plus, Nancy Mitford wrote the foreword. The bookstore had a bunch of these books, and two different editions of this one, but of course I had to pick the one involving a Mitford.

Hopefully I'll get to read this soon!

The Marvelous Mitfords

I've had the most splendid day, doing absolutely nothing but sitting in my back yard in the sun and reading, and getting very tan. My book of choice is The Mitford Girls, by Mary S. Lovell, which I talked about vaguely here, back when I bought it in December. I am absolutely loving it. I started it Saturday night or maybe Sunday, the thing is 529 pages, and I expect to finish it tomorrow. It's lovely having time to read, but if I were reading a different book I doubt I'd have gotten through so much of it. I always forget how much I like reading biography.

For the few readers of book blogs who have not yet heard, the Mitfords were (and are, I suppose) a family of British aristocrats made famous mostly by Nancy Mitford's semi-autobiographical novels The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate. They were at the height of their notoriety (I think I can pretty safely call it that) in the 1930s and '40s. Lord and Lady Redesdale, David and Sydney Mitford had six daughters and a son, born between 1902 and 1920. Each of them is a fascinating and often strikingly different person in their own right, and on top of this they lived in one of the most interesting times in history. Not only that but they were also a notable part of this history. The book suggests, for example, that it is possible that Diana Mitford (third eldest daughter) was the only person to be personally well-acquainted with both Churchill and Hitler.

I enjoyed the stories of their childhood and their early adulthood, especially the various eccentricities of the family, and also the various associations they had--suddenly reading a name of some close acquaintance or other and realizing that it was some famous person. Evelyn Waugh, for example, based his novel Vile Bodies off Diana Mitford and her first husband and their friends. Nancy Mitford especially knew numerous famous members of England's literary world.

What I've found most fascinating about this book, though, is the politics, and the family's place within political history. Diana and Unity Mitford were both devoted Fascists, while Decca Mitford was a Communist, and David and Sydney Mitford's inability to agree on Hitler, Fascism, and the war fractured their marriage. The family was related to Winston Churchill. Diana's second husband, Oswald Mosley, was leader of the British Fascist party. Unity spent most of the 1930s living in Germany, and for quite a long time sat in restaurants she knew Hitler frequented, waiting to see him. Eventually, he noticed her. They got to know each other very well; he gave her presents, found her apartments, paid medical bills, got her tickets to the opera. She was so torn between Britain and Germany that she decided she would have to commit suicide if they went to war with each other.

The story of Unity Mitford's relationship with Hitler and Germany is, I think, the most interesting part of this book for me. I've never read anything about Germany in the years before World War II, and it's especially interesting to do so now, having innocently read The Pursuit of Love a year ago, and now being able to connect its author to such a subject.

I definitely recommend this book, whether you already know anything about the Mitfords or not. The writing is very fluid, and I think does a good job of capturing the world these people lived in, and their extremely unique and forceful personalities.

Automatic autobiography

I've been thinking much more often lately about the authors of the books I read, and not just the books themselves. I suppose this started consciously with The Kite Runner, because I spent most of the book preoccupied with wondering how much of it was autobiographical. Khaled Hosseini is an excellent storyteller but not really, I think, a very good writer, so you aren't completely swept up in the story--you have time to wonder if it's true. Then, in Senior Lit, we were talking about how some people wondered all the way through Bastard Out of Carolina which bits were autobiographical, and having trouble differentiating Bone from Dorothy Allison. But I didn't think of that at all. It never occurred to me to wonder what was autobiographical, and I think it's because Dorothy Allison is a better writer. She's a good writer not just in making even the most unpleasant descriptions sound poetic, but also in simple shape--she's good at putting things together.

The Pursuit of Love also comes to mind--everyone knows it's pretty heavily based on the Mitford family. I'm looking forward to reading The Mitford Girls, to see how much they relate to each other.

And anyway, all fiction has hints of autobiography. There are people I won't show my writing to, not because the story is particularly autobiographical but because I feel like the story will say who I am--and if it didn't say something about me, it wouldn't be any good.

Mitfords

For the first time in months I have a weekend entirely free--no homework except studying for a math final, nowhere to go. I am rejoicing in it. Accordingly, I finally got around to the long necessary pants shopping trip. As it currently stands, all my jeans have holes in very unfortunate places. So to Value Village I went.

There is a reason I've been avoiding pants shopping. I found no jeans, but two pairs of other pants which was exactly what I was not looking for. I also found an utterly fabulous black velvet extremely Audrey Hepburn-ish hat, lovely shoes, a very nice blue wool coat, a teapot of utmost bizarrity, and a book. You know me. I can't not look in the book section.

The book was Mary S. Lovell's The Mitford Girls. It's an enormous book, 600 some pages, but after all it does chronicle the lives of six women, so that's rather to be expected. I saw the BBC miniseries of Love in a Cold Climate ages ago, and then last summer read The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate, which I liked very much. I didn't go into those books knowing anything about the Mitford Family, and I think the books are probably the best introduction to them, since reading a biography out of the blue without knowing why the people are interesting tends not to work. I can't make any judgments yet about how the biography is, but I'm very much looking forward to reading it

I am rather curious why the book has two different titles. It's also called The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family. My first thought was that mine was the American edition (I hate how they always change titles), but that can't be the case as the price is written on the back in pounds. Oh well.

Polly and Fanny

It's the last day of summer, so I've been enjoying it as best I can. I finished reading Love in a Cold Climate this morning, and found it very interesting. My initial comparison between it and The Pursuit of Love held true--I don't like it as well. I was bothered that I couldn't quite tell whether Polly or Fanny was the main character, and Polly was completely incomprehensible to me. The trouble with characters in books whose chief interest is there beauty is that you can't see that, so her only interest was that she made no sense. I very much liked getting a closer idea of Fanny, though, who despite being the narrator of The Pursuit of Love is really not a big main character. But it was a bit like there wasn't enough plot about Polly to take up the space, so Fanny's life crept in further. I liked hearing more about Alfred and her life in Oxford, and Jassy and Victoria were fun to see more of. Also more of Aunt Emily and Davey.

Fanny kind of reminds me of me. She's got my distinctly romantic sensibilities, and is a bit shy, but overall she's really very sensible and plain. This particular combination makes her very likeable. One doesn't have to be frustrated by her being stupid about things (if she were really the main character that wouldn't be possible--she would be boring), because she never quite is, but she's still got her views on things and she's still silly about things.

I watched the recent miniseries a while ago, but didn't find it terribly memorable, so I'm going to watch it again now I've read the books.

I am back from California. It was very sunny, and frankly I'm glad to get back to the cloudy Seattle weather.

I discovered in the course of the trip, much to my delight, that reading in cars no longer makes me ill. Accordingly, I finished Le Ballon Rouge and The Pursuit of Love. The Pursuit of Love was excellent travel reading, as it didn't require too much work but was invariably fun, wonderfully anecdotal, and besides, rather interesting characterwise. Now I've got to read Love in a Cold Climate, as I have them both compiled in one book. I've started it, and so far I'm not sure I like it quite so well, but it may simply take a while to get into it.

Incredibly, I only bought one book in the course of the trip, and it wasn't even in a used bookstore, and it was on the very last day. The Story of French, by Jean-Benoit Nadeau and Julie Barlow. I started reading it in the car on the last stretch home, and it looks like it'll be really very interesting. I love historical linguistics, and that's a lot of what this is, so I'm sure I'll enjoy it.

Flowers are blooming

It's been a while since I posted, but I have been busy. Doing what, I couldn't exactly say, but there you are.

I finished reading The Enchanted April. It was a rather charming book, though I think it could have used a better editor, and though it has elements of contrivedness it was still really very good. It was tremendously well described, and made picturing everything very easy--except for the gardens, which I can picture but don't feel like I've got quite right. That's probably because I've never been to Italy.

This really was a perfect morning to finish reading this book. It was bright and sunny when I got up, and I got to wear summery clothes, and ride the bus to work in the sun. I kept noticing flowers blooming everywhere.

My next book will have to be Pencillings, since I have that from the library and it's pretty short. After that it'll be either The Pursuit of Love or Villette, since I am determined to do something about that stack of books I bought. I should also reread at some point Jane Eyre, so that I can write a scholarship essay about it.

Apart from the reading, I started editing my novel, just about finished my summer internship at the Seattle Children's Theatre, and have been doing lots of research on college. I'm looking forward to having a couple of days off.

Books purchased

So, a day later than intended, here are my purchases yesterday at Couth Buzzard.

Smith of Wootton Major & Farmer Giles of Ham (J.R.R. Tolkien), The Pursuit of Love & Love in a Cold Climate (Nancy Mitford), The Enchanted April (Elizabeth von Armin), Wives and Daughters (Elizabeth Gaskell), Stories (Katherine Mansfield), Villette (Charlotte Bronte).

The Nancy Mitford one has been on my to read list for a while, as was Katherine Mansfield, and partially The Enchanted April (I was looking for Elizabeth and her German Garden, but I saw the film of this one a while ago and have been vaguely meaning to read it). I already own Farmer Giles, but not Smith, and it's such a neat little copy of it. Wives and Daughters I've read already and just thought I ought to have, and Villette I definitely want to read, since I love Jane Eyre and I think I've heard people say they like this one even better.

I'm almost done with The English Patient (and loving it), so once I'm finished with it I'll head on to this lot.

In other news, I finished my novel today.