Sunday 10 December 2017

The Blessing - Nancy Mitford

One of those books that has remained on the shelf for years..... and so glad I read it when I was looking for something short and light.  This entertaining tale, set immediately after WW2 is an eye opener if you know nothing of the English and the French class system. (Ooops!  the French have a class system?  What about the Revolution?) You have to take this book at face value remember the year it was published (1951).  If you do that you should find yourself amused by the behaviour of the French aristo's and their circle in Paris.  Poor Grace, who marries Charles-Edouard in haste because in true Parisian fashion he sweeps her off her feet, finds life in Paris very different indeed from a rural gentrified upbringing in England.  How she copes with it is the basis of the book.  The Blessing?  Ah now.  That is Sigismonde (Sigi) their son, and he is less than a blessing due to the influences of Nanny, an absentee father, a perhaps too-loving mother and many others. 


[Nancy Mitford was herself a member of the English upper classes, and was one of six sisters who together form a very interesting and colourful family group.

 Deborah went on to become the Duchess of Devonshire;  Unity was a guest of Hitler at the 1938 Nuremberg Rally and attempted suicide at the outbreak of war in 1939; Pamela never married;  Diana's second husband (the first was heir Bryan Guinness) was fascist Sir Oswald Moseley; Jessica eloped with her second cousin and became a journalist in America.]




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