I have been reading Love in a Cold Climate in rather warm circumstances. Firstly, in unseasonably steamy St. Petersburg and secondly, in an only slightly cooler London, where I now sit and reflect on what is basically a fun read.Nancy Mitford’s Love in a Cold Climate is the follow on from her classic In Pursuit of Love and is narrated by the familiar Fanny Logan – a thinly fictionalised version of Mitford herself. Fanny is an unmistakably upper class girl, but her status as the abandoned child of the bolter - a notorious society floozy allows her to stand both at the heart of and also slightly outside the society which she describes.
This time, Fanny’s tale is that of Lord and Lady Montdore and their adored daughter and prize possession Polly. Lord and Lady Montdore are immensely wealthy and an oddly matched pair. He is a grand patrician gentleman and ex Viceroy of India and she is a grasping, vain, self regarding social climber who carries a bit too much weight. Their daughter Polly, born in the twilight of her mother’s child bearing years is an acknowledged astounding beauty but a bit of a wet fish socially, which, with a mother like that, is hardly surprising. The matching of Polly to a man of suitable wealth, status and standing is her mother’s life work, tacitly supported by her father. However, the machinations of human nature, the downright contrarines
s of the younger generation and the urge to rebel will all unite to give the Montdore’s something that they are not expecting.I should probably be straight and say that I do not think that Nancy Mitford is really a great writer. I think that her dialogue is fun and characterful but her prose does not match it, and underneath her satire of the upper classes is a rich vain of showing off that she was one of them. The customary groan having been got out of the way however, there are two, really super things about Nancy Mitford’s novels and Love in a Cold Climate is no exception.
Firstly, they are side-splitting, floor-rolling, handbag-dropping funny. I even laughed on the tube, and that is not something that one sees often. For me, the most comic character is the mouth frothing Uncle Matthew who only comes into Love in a Cold Climate a few times, but always to great effect. Mitford had a great talent for laughing at those she knew and making them look ridiculous. Uncle Matthew is a pastiche of her father, Lord Reedsdale, who was, by all accounts (although, admittedly, hers is the main one...) every inch as potty as his literary incarnation.
Secondly, they are fascinating period pieces, which open a window on a world long lost and strangely contorted
by the events of the 1940s. The Montdores and their crew represent a form of old world splendour which even at the time Nancy Mitford put pen to paper, was ebbing away. She was not a writer who tried to write about things she did not know about – this world of country house weekends and bridge parties and debutante balls was her world and it really shows in the way that she wrote.Other opinions that I have enjoyed can be found at Bianca’s Book Blog, Life in a Pink Fibro and Vulpes Libris. The pictures are my own, rather battered copy of the novel, a lovely shot of the lady herself and a picture of Nancy Mitford and her famous sisters.
