309. Love in a Cold Climate – Nancy Mitford

History: This book was first published in 1949. Love in a Cold Climate is a companion volume to The Pursuit of Love. The time frame of Love in a Cold Climate is the same as The Pursuit of Love, but the focus is on a different set of characters. Fanny remains the fictional narrator. Don't Tell Alfred (1960) is a sequel to the novel giving further insight into the married life of Fanny and Alfred.
Plot: In Love in a Cold Climate, Fanny narrates the story of Polly, to whom Fanny is distantly related through her father's family. Lady Leopoldina [Polly] Montdore, is the only child of the supremely aristocratic and very rich Earl of Montdore and his wife, Sonia. She is depicted by Fanny, as an avaricious, greedy snob, but not without charm. Her thrusting personality, allied to her husband's impeccable social standing, riches and political influence makes her a formidable woman. Lady Montdore, unbeknown to Lord Montdore, takes advantage of her husband's reputation to forward her own career as a hostess and manipulator of her social circle. After 20 years of marriage and no children, the result is Polly. So beautiful and so perfect, the narrator, Fanny, adores Polly, as do her parents. Fanny receives an invitation to visit the Mondores at Hampton, their country house upon the family's return from India. Fanny is torn between her affection for Polly and her anxiety about the complex social issues involved in such a visit. Her reunion with Polly is successful in that the two young women rekindle their childhood affection and establish a mature friendship. Unlike Fanny's Radlett cousins who "Told everything", Polly reveals little of herself. Slightly older than Fanny, Polly has "come out" in India and as such a beautiful and socially important debutante, is expected to have a very successful Season in London. Polly however, is not very interested in society and the London Season. She tells Fanny that when she "came out " in India, she found the whole thing very boring. Love affairs, so common in India, do not interest Polly. Lady Montdore, hoping that Polly will make an important marriage, is exasperated by her daughter's apparent indifference to love and marriage. "Important" potential suitors acknowledge that Polly is very beautiful, but find her cold and aloof. The self contained Polly reveals to no-one that she has been in love with her uncle, "Boy" Dougdale [the husband of her paternal aunt, Lady Patricia] since she was 14. Fanny and her Radlett cousins have long suspected that the sexually ambiguous "Boy" has pedophile tendencies and he is a joke amongst Fanny's cousins for his inappropriate touches and furtive, "lecherous" behaviour towards young girls. Polly marries her widowed uncle, shortly after her aunt's death, causing a scandal in her social circle and distressing her parents deeply. It is also known in these circles that Boy has been Lady Montdore's lover for many years, unbeknown to Polly. Polly is excluded from her father's will upon her marriage and she and Boy ostracised from society. They move to Sicily and away from Fanny for several years.
Polly's place in the family is filled by the heir to Lord Mountdore's entailed fortune and title, Cedric Hampton. Born in Nova Scotia to a minor member of the Montdore family, Cedric has cast off his colonial origins and has used his exceptional good looks and personal charm to establish a place within the homosexual mieu of the European aristocracy. Cedric has lived a life of luxury as the lover of rich and aristocratic men. Currently out of favour in that quarter, Cedric accepts an invitation to visit the Montdores. His natural love of beauty, innate good taste and his careful use of flattery, enables Cedric to win the affections of Lord and Lady Montdore and many others. Cedric focuses his attentions upon Lady Montdore in particular and encourages her to update her wardrobe and general appearance and revive her interest in social matters, which has diminished since the "loss" of her lover and her daughter. Lady Montdore uses Cedric's popularity and charm to reestablish herself as a leading society hostess, to Cedric's advantage.
Fanny, as a regular visitor of the Montdore's, shares with her readers all of the activities of the Montdore household and Cedric soon becomes a close friend of Fanny. Polly, heavily pregnant, returns from Sicilly with Boy. The marriage has turned sour and Fanny notes that neither Polly nor Boy is in love any more. Polly is regularly visited by the elderly Duke of Paddington while pregnant, who gifts her her with luxurious flowers. Polly reconciles with her mother after bearing a child who dies shortly after its birth. Cedric and Boy meet and fall in love. While Polly recovers from the difficult birth, Cedric whisks Boy and Lady Montdore to France, leaving Polly free to be carried off by the elderly Duke. While this outcome shocks the conservative social circles in which they mix, Fanny takes a broader minded view, pleased to see people she loves each finding happiness in their own way.
Review: This book follows the tradition of humorously depicting upper-class life and times, though with far more racy scandals. The characters are funny. The main character, Fanny, is first known among society as the daughter of the 'Bolter', because her mother continually bounced from lover to lover. Cedric Montdore is the Brüno of 1940s England. Boy Dougdale, who has a keen taste for young girls, is also a keen embroiderer.
British names of the early 1900s are so good, always: Boy Dougdale, Mrs Chaddesley Corbett, Leopoldina Montdore.. But, as much as I was loving the book, the end was so disappointing. In contrast to the rest of the book, the end is rather abrupt, neat and coy, probably owing to the fact that homosexuality was not the most acceptable topic in mid-1900s England.
Opening Line: “I am obliged to begin this story with a brief account of the Hampton family, because it is necessary to emphasize the fact once and for all that the Hamptons were very grand as well as very rich.”
Closing Line: “The Boreleys think it simply terrible,” I said.”
Quotes: “I supposed, in my simplicity that when people liked me I ought to like them back as much, and that whatever they expected of me, especially if they were older people, I was morally bound to perform.”
Rating: Good.

308. Tender is the Night – F. Scott Fitzgerald

History: It was first published in Scribner's Magazine between January-April, 1934 in four issues. In 1932, Fitzgerald's wife Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald was hospitalized for schizophrenia in Baltimore, Maryland. The author rented the "la Paix" estate in the suburb of Towson to work on this book, the story of the rise and fall of Dick Diver, a promising young psychoanalyst and his wife, Nicole, who is also one of his patients. It would be Fitzgerald's first novel in nine years, and the last that he would complete. While working on the book he several times ran out of cash and had to borrow from his editor and agent, and write short stories for commercial magazines. The early 1930s, when Fitzgerald was conceiving and working on the book, were certainly the darkest years of his life, and accordingly, the novel has its bleak elements.
Plot: Dick and Nicole Diver are a very glamorous couple who take a villa in the South of France and surround themselves with a circle of friends, mainly Americans. Also staying at the resort is Rosemary Hoyt, a young actress, with her mother. Rosemary gets sucked into the circle of the Divers, and falls in love with Dick and also becomes adopted as a close friend by Nicole. Dick first toys with the idea of an affair with Rosemary at this point, which he finally acts upon years later.
However, Rosemary senses something is wrong with the couple, which is brought to light when one of the guests at a party reports having seen something strange in the bathroom. Tommy Barban, another guest, comes loyally to the defense of the Divers. The action involves various other friends, including the Norths, where a frequent occurrence is the drunken behavior of Abe North. The story becomes complicated when an unnamed man is murdered and ends up in Rosemary's bed, in a situation almost of high farce. This nearly compromises the situation with Rosemary and Dick.
Once into the book, the history of the Divers emerges. Dick Diver was a doctor and psychoanalyst and had taken on a complicated case of neuroses. This was Nicole, whose complicated, incestuous relationship with her father is suggested as the cause of breakdown. As she becomes infatuated with Dick, Dick is almost driven to marry her as part of the cure. But strong objections are raised, as Nicole is an heiress and her sister thinks Dick is marrying her for her money. However they do marry, and Nicole’s money pays for Dick's partnership in a Swiss clinic and for their extravagant lifestyle. They have a good marriage, living in France until Dick falls in love with Rosemary. They have rendevous until Dick tells her he cannot be with her because of Nicole’s fragile mental condition, and her suspicion and jealousy could cause her to have another breakdown. Dick gradually develops a drinking problem. He gets into fights and trouble with the police in various incidents and is bought out of the clinic by his partner. The opening episode almost marks the cross over point whereby Dick becomes the weaker partner, progressively failing in what he attempts while Nicole becomes stronger. The book is now told in Nicole’s point of view. Dick's behaviour becomes embarrassing as he mishandles situations with the children and friends. Eventually Nicole has an affair with Tommy Barban, and divorces Dick to marry him. Nicole survives, while Dick drifts into ever diminishing circumstances. The underlying theme is then how one person has become strong by destroying another—a point emphasized cynically by Nicole's sister, who having seen Dick originally as the parasite, finally remarks that "That was what he was educated for".
Review: We're tempted to look at Tender as the Night as a thinly-veiled gloss on the autobiographical dirt of the Fitzgerald marriage. But, Tender is the Night tries to be more than just the simple story of the characters: much is made here about class and its pretensions (Mary North and Nicole Diver's sister both defer outrageously to titles and ceremony, and in one fairly good sequence Dick Diver intimidates a policeman by asserting that the woman he's just arrested is related to America's "Lord Henry Ford"), and much is equally made about the World War and its aftermath, particularly about Dick Diver's non-role in the fighting.
Additionally, it's probably the case that Fitzgerald wants to make some point about the relationship of America to the Old World: virtually the entire book takes place overseas, from Nice to Zurich to Rome, and the most charged scenes all involve clashes between the befuddled, braggart Americans and the codified restraint (or lack thereof) of the Europeans.
Opening Line: “On the pleasant shore of the French Riviera, about half-way between Marseilles and the Italian border, stands a large, proud, rose-coloured hotel.”
Closing Line: “Perhaps, so she like to think, his career was biding its time, again like Grant’s in Galena: his latest note was post-marked from Hornell, New York, which is some distance from Geneva and a very small town; in any case he is almost certainly in that section of the country, in one town or another.”
Quotes: "she only cherishes her illness as an instrument of power."
"So delicately balanced was she between an old foothold that had always guaranteed her security, and the imminence of a leap from which she might alight changed in the very chemistry of blood and muscle, that she did not dare bring the matter into the true forefront of consciousness."
Rating: Good

307. Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day – Winifred Watson

History: This book was written in 1935.
Plot: Poor timid Miss Pettigrew who has spent a blameless and latterly miserable 40 years being respectable and doing her duty as befits the position of a gentlewoman. Forced to earn her living as a rather under qualified governess and facing unemployment at the beginning of the story her situation.. Miss Pettigrew is hungry, homeless and entirely alone in the world. By mistake, she is sent to the home of Miss LaFosse, in order to be a governess. Upon entering the house, she immediately becomes friends with Miss LaFosse, and helps her with some man troubles. Then they have some drinks, and a friend comes over, and Miss Pettigrew helps her with her man troubles. Then they get dressed up and go out to a club, and Miss Pettigrew meets a man named Joe who is attracted to her. In the end, Miss Pettigrew helps Miss La Fosse become engaged to the man that will be the best to her, and also becomes her housekeeper, since she has no children.
Review: I wish I could solve my friends' problems as easily or that on the few occasions when I have succeeded, I would have reaped such glorious rewards. It was entertaining in a Seinfeld episode sort of way to watch Miss Pettigrew having her wicked fun while rescuing the flighty and indecisive Miss LaFosse from disastrous men.
Winifred Watson could be the grandmother of chick lit. Once in a while even this grandmother can be entertained reading about a woman who is having a harder time than I ever did and coming out of it better than I ever have.
Opening Line: “Miss Pettigrew pushed open the door of the employment agency and went in as the clock struck a quarter past nine.”
Closing Line: “I think,” said Miss Pettigrew. “I have a beau at last.”
Quotes: 'It's no use, we women just can't help ourselves. When it comes to love we're born adventurers.'
Rating: Okay.

306. Through the Looking Glass – Lewis Carroll

History: This book was written in 1871 and is a sequel to Alice in Wonderland.
Plot: Alice is playing with her kittens—a black and a white kitten, the offspring of Dinah, Alice's cat in the first book—when she ponders what the world is like on the other side of a mirror (the reflected scene displayed on its surface), and to her surprise, is able to pass through to experience the alternate world. There, she discovers a book with looking-glass poetry, "Jabberwocky", which she can read only by holding it up to a mirror. Upon leaving the house, she enters a garden, where the flowers speak to her and mistake her for a flower. There, Alice also meets the Red Queen, who offers a throne to Alice if she moves to the eighth rank in a chess match. Alice is placed as the White Queen's pawn, and begins the game by taking a train to the fourth rank, acting on the rule that pawns in chess can move two spaces on their first move.
She then meets Tweedledum and Tweedledee, whom she knows from the famous nursery rhyme. After reciting to her the long poem "The Walrus and the Carpenter," the two proceed to act out the events of their own poem. Alice continues on to meet the White Queen, who is very absent-minded and later transforms into a sheep in a shop, then they find themselves on a small boat.
The following chapter details her meeting with Humpty Dumpty, who explains to her the meaning of "Jabberwocky," before his inevitable fall from the wall. This is followed by an encounter with the Lion and the Unicorn, who again proceed to act out a nursery rhyme. She is then rescued from the Red Knight by the White Knight. He repeatedly falls off his horse, and recites a poem of his own composition to her.
At this point, Alice reaches the eighth rank and becomes a queen, and by capturing the Red Queen, puts the Red King (who has remained stationary throughout the book) into checkmate. She then awakes from her dream, holding the black kitten, whom she believes to have been the Red Queen, the White kitten being the White Queen.
Review: Whereas the first book has the deck of cards as a theme, this book is based on a game of chess, played on a giant chessboard with fields for squares. Scholars describe this book as "literary nonsense." That means it doesn't have to make sense, and it's perfectly okay to enjoy the poems and the book as they'd seem to a child - pretentious and silly.
Opening Line: “One thing was certain, that the white kitten had had nothing to do with it – it was the black kitten’s fault entirely.”
Closing Line: “Which do you think it was?”
Quotes: “Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gamble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.”
Rating: Okay.

305. The Red Queen – Margaret Drabble

History: This book was published in 2004.
Plot: In the prologue, Drabble tells of the court memoirs of a Korean princess written over 200 years ago, and this novel is based on those writings. The Princess tells her story for the first half of this novel. Introduced to the court when she is a child, she is selected to be one of three candidates for marriage to the Crown Prince. When she is chosen to be his bride, she is required to abandon her own family for life in the court, marrying the prince at ten and consummating the marriage at fifteen. We hear her voice as she relates the sad changes her husband undergoes after their marriage, as he gradually becomes more and more fearful, and eventually insane, committing atrocities, including murder, and going unpunished, protected by the court itself. She was unable to stop his rampages, she felt were caused by the over bearing father, and lack of his attention. Describing her relationships with the Three Queenly Majesties (her mother-in-law, the Dowager Queen, and even the king's first wife), her training to be queen, the birth of her children and their fates, and her life in the claustrophobic court, she breathes life into her descriptions of her unusual existence.
At this point in the novel, time fast-forwards to Babs Halliwell, a contemporary scholar on a Hanbury Foundation Fellowship in Oxford, about to go to Korea to deliver a paper at a conference on globalization. Drabble creates obvious parallels between the life of the Princess and that of Babs Halliwell from the outset of Part II. Halliwell boards the plane for Korea, she brings with her a copy of the Princess's memoirs and when she reads it in flight, she is consumed by the memoir. At the conference, she becomes involved with the “star” of the conference, world famous Jan von Jost. She lets him read the memoirs, and he too becomes entranced with them. They visit the historic places of Korea together, along with Dr. Oo, who becomes their guide to Korea. Jan is married to a Spanish/Swedish woman who desperately wants to adopt a Chinese baby, and he puts a one thousand dollar deposit down on a Chinese girl, choosing her because she kept eye contact with him.
After their final night together, Dr. Halliwell awakens to find Jan going into respiratory arrest in the bed, and he dies. Heartbroken, she returns back to England, trying to resume her life, still obsessed with the memoirs, and the memory of her time with Jan. She eventually calls his widow, and together they adopt the Chinese baby, and share parenting with her.
At the end of the novel, Dr. Halliwell and her daughter Chen Jianyi meet Margaret Drabble, the novelist who will bring the Red Queen’s memoirs to the public.
Review: The first part, rewriting the memoir of a historical figure known (in the most recent of several translations) as Lady Hyegyong, is a stark and brutal drama set in the court of imperial Korea. The second is a genial contemporary portrait of Dr. Babs Halliwell, a person of swoony compulsions, struggling intellect and half-guilty but reasonably efficient ambition. I liked the comparison between historical and present, and the interweaving of the ghost like Lady Hyegyong within the heroines actions. What I didn’t like was the affair with Jan, because it was a little unbelievable, and was unnecessary, I thought. And I also didn’t like the significance given to the red feminine clothing, too superficial for such a wonderful historic portrayal of court life. And Babs was given such wonderful attributes, I just think Drabble may have been stretching it, taking herself a bit too seriously. But overall it was very entertaining to read.
Opening Line: “When I was a little child, I pined for a red silk skirt.”
Closing Line: “She hides the little red bundle safely in the back of the drawer.”
Quotes: “One of her many astral bodies is travelling restlessly, like a shuttle, apologetic, ashamed, backward and forward along an airport highway, clutching a suitcase and smelling of sweat and dirt and pressurized bodily gases.”
Rating: Very Good.

304. The Garden Party – Katherine Mansfield

History: It was first published in the Saturday Westminster Gazette on 4 February 1922, then in the Weekly Westminster Gazette on 18 February 1922. It later appeared in The Garden Party and Other Stories. Katherine Mansfield was a short story writer, mainly writing about New Zealand, where she was born. The names Meg, Jose and Laurie may be related to Louisa May Alcott's 1868 Little Women.
Plot: The Sheridans are getting ready for a garden party. Laura is supposed to be in charge, but the workers appear to know better, and Mrs Sheridan has ordered lilies to be delivered for the party without her approval. Miss Jose tests the piano, and then sings a song in case she is asked to do so again later, the furniture is moved round, and then they learn that a poor neighbor, Mr Scott, who lives in a cottage near their main street has died. While Laura believes the party should be called off, neither Jose nor her mother agree. The party is a success, and later Mrs Sheridan decides it would be good of them to bring a basket full of leftovers to the Scotts' house. She summons Laura to do so. The latter is let into the poor neighbors' house by Mrs Scott's sister, then sees the matron herself and her late husband's corpse. The sight of his dead body brings her to tears, and she runs off back to her own house, where she sobs into Laurie's arms.
Review: Mansfield’s central concern here is with how we as human beings cope with and steel ourselves against the prospect of death and loss, and the ever present reality that everything that we care about, that we attach ourselves to in order to give life meaning, must ultimately vanish and die.
Opening Line: “And after all the weather was ideal.
Closing Line: "Isn't it, darling?" said Laurie.”
Quotes: “As for the roses, you could not help feeling they understood that roses are the only flowers that impress people at garden-parties; the only flowers that everybody is certain of knowing."
Rating: Okay

303. Them – Joyce Carol Oates

History: Published in 1969, this book won the National Book Award in 1970.
Plot: Them explores the complex struggles of American life through three down-on-their-luck characters—Loretta, Maureen and Jules—who are attempting to reach normality and the American dream through marriage and money.
The story begins with Loretta Botsford and her brother Brock as teenagers, living in a "fair-sized city on a midwestern canal", Detroit, in the 1930s. Loretta falls in love with Bernie Malin, and sleeps with him. Later in the night, Brock shoots Bernie in the head, and Bernie dies suddenly. Loretta runs away, to her friend Rita's place. Rita lends her some clothes and she wanders off. She meets Howard Wendall, an older cop to whom she confesses the death of Bernie Malin. They later marry, and she bears her son Jules (who was hinted to be Bernie Malin's son). Loretta and Howard live close to Mama and Papa Wendall's house, on the south side of town. Soon after the birth of Jules, Howard is busted for taking money from prostitutes. The Wendalls move into the country house of Howard's Uncle Fritz, the house keeper, and Connie Wendall, Loretta's sister-in-law. Loretta bore her daughters Maureen, and Betty in that country house.
When World War II breaks out, Howard leaves his family to fight in Europe. Meanwhile, Jules grows up to be a fast, energetic child who hangs around older children, and is never still. (Maureen gets her way by being the quiet, shy, delicate girl, while Betty is always annoying) There were two scenes where Jules as a child was fascinated by fire; when he burns down a deserted barn and when a plane crashes in Detroit.
Jules, Maureen and Betty are all sent to a Catholic school in Detroit, after Loretta decided to move there to be near her friend Rita. Jules takes on the role of the "bad boy" who hangs out with kids who steal from stores and smoke at school. Howard is no longer in the picture, and Loretta is struggling with poverty, and failing as a parent. Jules leaves home, Loretta has a boyfriend Furlong, and becomes pregnant. Betty is developing into a criminal and sociopath.
The book then focuses on Maureen, a teenager now. She is quiet, and well behaved. She cooks and cleans for the family while Loretta apparently is doing nothing. She does her homework, she cares about her future, she wants to leave. To do this she needs money, so she begins to sleep with men to get money. She does this for a couple of years, until she is caught by Furlong, who beats her up. Maureen then goes into a psychotic state, and spends the next year in bed. Loretta takes care of her, and later Maureen says she has very little recollection of that year.
Jules meanwhile, meets and falls in love with Nadine, a rich girl. They leave Detroit and travel to Texas. Jules gets sick, and Nadine leaves him. He eventually comes back to Detroit. Maureen is getting herself back together, attending college. It is here when she meets the author, and tells her history. She is desperate to get married, and has her sights set on one of her teachers at school, a happily married man with three kids. It isn’t clear if they do end up together.
Nadine and Jules happen to meet at a restaurant, and take up with each other again. They spend a romantic and passionate afternoon together, take a walk, and Nadine pulls out a gun and shoots Jules in the chest, then shoots herself. Jules doesn’t die, however, but after this he seems to have cracked, more violent towards women, his life without purpose.
The book ends with the riots in Detroit, and Jules becomes involved with a group with Communistic insinuations, moves to California. Maureen has left the family, married and pregnant, probably to the teacher, it doesn’t say. Loretta is displaced by the riots, staying in a shelter, and sees Jules on TV, and cries because she thinks he’s turned into a murderer.
Review: I think Oates is a wonderful prolific writer, but this book was depressing. It was repetitive and hammered in certain scenes, but yet skipped over years and introduced characters that had no substance. The behavior is never understood. The reality of the situation creeps up on its members little by little, until years later one descendent seems to know every secret, and exhibits the same tendencies as previous generations, without their mistakes ever being discussed in the open. Families are a very complex affair, and Oates understands that implicitly. Jules character is the most complex. He is both good and bad, evil and sensitive, knowing and absolutely clueless. Oates makes the point that he is not just a product of his times, but of his family, of all the things that have happened before him that he knows or doesn't know. From the beginning of the story, the characters never resolve their actions, Brock comes back after 30 years, after killing Loretta’s boyfriend, no clue to why he did it. It becomes confusing for the reader.
Opening Line: “One warm evening in August 1937 a girl in love stood before a mirror.”
Closing Line: “He took his sister’s hand and kissed it and said good-by, making an ironic, affectionate bow over her with his head: it was the Jules she had always loved, and now she loved him for going away, saying good-by, leaving her forever.”
Quotes: “Sometimes when she was alone, walking along the street, she was taken by surprise seeing her reflection in a store window, a remote, ghostly reflection she never quite expected or recognized; it did not really seem herself.”
“Literature gives form to life.”
Rating: Good but depressing.