rosielazar1's review against another edition
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
maplessence's review against another edition
3.0
3.5★
I very much enjoyed this book - in parts. There were places that Mitford was at her wittiest & I was charmed by secondary character Northey (which is a great name for a girl!)
But there were a few significant lulls & there were also parts where this book seemed to suffer from a bad case of Agatha Christieitis. Anyone who reads Christie will know that in her later years she often used her novels as a platform to rail against the modern world ([b:At Bertram's Hotel|16333|At Bertram's Hotel|Agatha Christie|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1375949033l/16333._SY75_.jpg|1444048] is one example.) Ms Mitford was fourteen years younger than Christie but there is the same querulous tone in parts - surprising in one who was only in her mid fifties.
For the last twenty pages I was very bored and had to push myself to finish - and the ending was extremely abrupt. I have the sense that Ms Mitford had become bored with the characters too, & I was not surprised to find this was the last novel that she wrote. I definitely wouldn't read this as a standalone & I'm not sure how necessary it is even to complete the series. Really I think this one may be for Mitford completists only.
https://wordpress.com/view/carolshessonovel.wordpress.com
I very much enjoyed this book - in parts. There were places that Mitford was at her wittiest & I was charmed by secondary character Northey (which is a great name for a girl!)
Adorable as she was, Northey was by no means an easy proposition. She was now in love, for the first time (or so she said, but is it not always the first time, and for that matter, the last?) and complained about it with the squeaks and yelps of a thwarted puppy.
But there were a few significant lulls & there were also parts where this book seemed to suffer from a bad case of Agatha Christieitis. Anyone who reads Christie will know that in her later years she often used her novels as a platform to rail against the modern world ([b:At Bertram's Hotel|16333|At Bertram's Hotel|Agatha Christie|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1375949033l/16333._SY75_.jpg|1444048] is one example.) Ms Mitford was fourteen years younger than Christie but there is the same querulous tone in parts - surprising in one who was only in her mid fifties.
We remember the old world as it had been for a thousand years, so beautiful and diverse, and which, in only thirty years, has crumbled away. When we were young every country still had its own architecture and customs and food. Can you ever forget the first sight of Italy? Those ochre houses, all different, each with such character, with their trompe l'oeil paintings on the stucco? Queer and fascinating and strange, even to a Provencal like me? Now the dreariness! The suburbs of every town uniform all over the world, while perhaps in the very centre a few old monuments sadly survive as though in a glass case.
For the last twenty pages I was very bored and had to push myself to finish - and the ending was extremely abrupt. I have the sense that Ms Mitford had become bored with the characters too, & I was not surprised to find this was the last novel that she wrote. I definitely wouldn't read this as a standalone & I'm not sure how necessary it is even to complete the series. Really I think this one may be for Mitford completists only.
https://wordpress.com/view/carolshessonovel.wordpress.com
milliemary's review
funny
lighthearted
relaxing
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
appenthaknows's review
Really love Nancy Mitford’s other novels, but this just felt totally pointless. I guess I just don’t care 🤷🏻♀️
we_are_all_mad_here26's review against another edition
2.0
If you're thinking of reading any Nancy Mitford, do yourself a favor and start with [b:The Pursuit of Love|8041279|The Pursuit of Love|Nancy Mitford|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1320445188l/8041279._SY75_.jpg|821072], which was charming and perfect. This one was less charming and perfect; in fact it was pretty boring. Half the time I didn't know what they were talking about. Or who was talking. When I did know, I didn't really care.
In short, not my favorite, but I love Nancy Mitford all the same.
In short, not my favorite, but I love Nancy Mitford all the same.
cono44's review against another edition
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
3.75
Didn't enjoy it as much as some of her earlier work but still entertaining.
smbla's review against another edition
4.0
I am an admitted "Mitfordophile", perhaps due to having an extremely unique family. I have always loved the aplomb with which her characters navigate through life and Don't Tell Alfred includes some of her most amusing eccentrics. Set in Paris post WWII, Fanny dominates the plot line with Uncle Davey and Uncle Matthew making memorable appearances.(you will remember them from both The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate).
While not the strongest in the trilogy, I have to admit that I loved every minute of it.
While not the strongest in the trilogy, I have to admit that I loved every minute of it.
louisebels's review against another edition
1.0
There is something about this comic style that I thought I always enjoyed, but am now starting to realise I have wanted to enjoy it but I just don't. It doesn't make me laugh, nothing all that interesting happens and it's really rather dull. Mitford's writing is quite nice though and if I understood half the middle-class lingo she used I might get some of the jokes.
eak1013's review against another edition
3.0
This is Nancy Mitford cranked up to eleven. It's a little grating when everything is that much more ridiculous, that much more staged, and every character's eccentricity is cranked to eleven. However, it works in everyone's favor when Mitford is exquisitely on point with some of her ruminations about France, about parenthood, about changing times, about Paris itself. There are these tiny moments of loveliness slid in amongst the ridiculousness that will have you idly researching plane tickets to France before you quite know what's happened.
And, okay, real talk - I find Northey ever so much more intolerable than Linda, her mother-in-spirit, because unlike Linda, Northey ostensibly has a job. And she is awful at it. I can, in fact, find delight in reading about someone who exists solely in a realm of frivolity and social acquaintance and social machinations, but apparently my too, too bourgeois soul rebels when that person is also supposed to be doing a job and instead foists off all responsibility on anyone who finds her charming enough. This is Northey's book as much as it is Fanny's, and it turns out that I prefer things when Fanny is a bit apart from the action and the subject of her musings doesn't even make a pretense to working for anything other than her own amusement.
And, okay, real talk - I find Northey ever so much more intolerable than Linda, her mother-in-spirit, because unlike Linda, Northey ostensibly has a job. And she is awful at it. I can, in fact, find delight in reading about someone who exists solely in a realm of frivolity and social acquaintance and social machinations, but apparently my too, too bourgeois soul rebels when that person is also supposed to be doing a job and instead foists off all responsibility on anyone who finds her charming enough. This is Northey's book as much as it is Fanny's, and it turns out that I prefer things when Fanny is a bit apart from the action and the subject of her musings doesn't even make a pretense to working for anything other than her own amusement.
checkie's review against another edition
3.5
I didn't know what to expect from this, the third book in Nancy Mitford's Pursuit of Love trilogy as it is widely accepted as the weakest novel in the series. Whilst I agree that it doesn't live up to the previous two books, I still relished the return of familiar, hilarious characters such as the health-obsessed Davey, who has recently received a third, spare kidney and the outrageous Uncle Matthew who has discovered a taste for cocktail parties, providing he doesn't have to interact with any of the other guests.
A lot has changed between the previous two books, set 20 years earlier, and this book which sees the Montdore family in the 1950s. No longer the rebellious youth herself, the novel sees Fanny and her husband Alfred deal with the antics of their four sons who all seem to exhibit the symptoms of the youth movements of the swinging sixties to come. In particular 'Bearded David' and his wife Dawn seem to anticipate John and Yoko with their 'Zen' attitude and tendency to lie in bed in the comfort of the English Embassy in Paris.
It felt almost anachronistic to read Nancy Mitford satirise the fifties when I so strongly associate her with the twenties and thirties and the Bright Young Things, but her satire was no less effective for being of a different period, with a particularly amusing episode being the mania caused by a pop sensation Yanky Fonzy arriving in Paris and giving a concert from a balcony.
Whilst I can't pretend this novel surpasses the hilarity of The Pursuit of Love or Love in a Cold Climate, it is still worth the read for any who cannot get enough of Nancy Mitford's humour.
A lot has changed between the previous two books, set 20 years earlier, and this book which sees the Montdore family in the 1950s. No longer the rebellious youth herself, the novel sees Fanny and her husband Alfred deal with the antics of their four sons who all seem to exhibit the symptoms of the youth movements of the swinging sixties to come. In particular 'Bearded David' and his wife Dawn seem to anticipate John and Yoko with their 'Zen' attitude and tendency to lie in bed in the comfort of the English Embassy in Paris.
It felt almost anachronistic to read Nancy Mitford satirise the fifties when I so strongly associate her with the twenties and thirties and the Bright Young Things, but her satire was no less effective for being of a different period, with a particularly amusing episode being the mania caused by a pop sensation Yanky Fonzy arriving in Paris and giving a concert from a balcony.
Whilst I can't pretend this novel surpasses the hilarity of The Pursuit of Love or Love in a Cold Climate, it is still worth the read for any who cannot get enough of Nancy Mitford's humour.