The Pursuit of Love & Love in a Cold Climate: Two Novels
by Nancy Mitford

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Book Reviews of The Pursuit of Love & Love in a Cold Climate: Two Novels

Book Review: Wicked Nancy -- long on character, short on plot
Summary: 4 Stars

Miss Mitford was never strong on plot -- some of her lesser work are disastrous in this department -- but the characters are unforgettable: the sulphuric Uncle Matthew, the hypochondriacal Davey Warbeck, the effeminate Cedric remain in the reader's memory long after the inadequacies of the plots have been forgotten.

The Pursuit of Love is the stronger of the two works, not surprisingly as it is for all practical purposes autobiographical. The Alconleigh family, with its excesses of emotion, its spartan lifestyle and its lack of any apparently useful role in a modern society, is Nancy's own family to the life. And behind the bitter-sweet romance between Linda, the heroine, and her French lover lie Nancy's own, sadder relationship and her highly biased preference for France over England.

Love in a Cold Climate is a more uncertain work; there is an unexplored darkness in Polly's emotional waywardness which a better writer would have made more of; the plot seems aimless until the arrival of Cedric, and stops dead in the grand Mitford style at the book's conclusion. Once again, the work is saved by the characters -- the exuberant Alconleigh brood, the deliciously awful "hell-hag" Lady Montdore, and of course the startling and unforgettable Cedric.

Not great books, and occasionally something of a trial to readers who are distressed by Miss Mitford's attachment to the comma, they nevertheless remain deservedly popular among lovers of England who do not take life too seriously.

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