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A review by jesssalexander
Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford
4.0
Not nearly as good as The Pursuit of Love, because there isn't much Linda. Her youngest sisters flitter in and out of the second book for comedy's sake but it's not the same, of course. Linda is just such a sparklingly tragic character and I think it will take me a while to get over her. In this story, Fanny remains as shadowy a wallflower as ever, narrating other's love stories and barely making mention of her own private life, as if it were too boring to really comment on. The heroine this time is Polly Hampton, who is vapid but beautiful, a puny foil to Linda's complexity and lust for life. Her delightfully abrasive and controlling mother is far more interesting and gets a lot more attention on the page. But my favorite new character HAS to be Cedric Hampton, the Canadian heir to the Hampton estate who doesn't even make an appearance until the last quarter of the novel. I love his shameless self-centeredness and his way of overusing *one* as an impersonal pronoun. He's so cooky and the love-spell he casts on Lady Montdore is just priceless.
This novel takes place in parallel with the first, and enhances the first with new depth and nuance. For instance Fanny constantly reassures the reader that she loves her husband and is happy with her normal domestic life in the first book but in the second her descriptions of him are constantly jabbing and negative in little subtle ways, painting him to be an unfulfilling, condescending and emotionally vacant life-partner. This of course changes how you feel about her commentary during the first book. Was she just trying to convince herself that she was happy? I loved seeing more of Davey and Uncle Matthew and delving further into the disfunctional mother-daughter relationships of the characters. (But I will say, my love of Davey got a little problematic with his "boys will be boys" attitude about the repeat offensives of Boy Dougdale).
But as a whole, this companion novel doesn't really have enough narrative corpulence to stand alone. The ending felt rushed and absurd-- though it feels extremely forward-thinking to A) have an openly gay character and B) allow him a romantic happy ending. And when you strip away the dazzling satire, the basic plot that drives the novel is really depressing. Basically, Polly gets molested by her uncle at a young age, falls in love with him from a distance, and marries him years later when her aunt dies. She's disinherited and quickly disenchanted by her old and pervy husband, delivers his baby who immediately dies, and runs away with a different old man. What is it about the females in these books not caring about their infants!! Lady Montdore's comment about how the stillbirth was for the best because children are an awful expense. I mean. Yikes. Yikes. Triple yikes. That was a truly horrid scene. Overall though, this book is like an encore to the first and it was lovely to spend some extra time with the characters and know them a little deeper.
This novel takes place in parallel with the first, and enhances the first with new depth and nuance. For instance Fanny constantly reassures the reader that she loves her husband and is happy with her normal domestic life in the first book but in the second her descriptions of him are constantly jabbing and negative in little subtle ways, painting him to be an unfulfilling, condescending and emotionally vacant life-partner. This of course changes how you feel about her commentary during the first book. Was she just trying to convince herself that she was happy? I loved seeing more of Davey and Uncle Matthew and delving further into the disfunctional mother-daughter relationships of the characters. (But I will say, my love of Davey got a little problematic with his "boys will be boys" attitude about the repeat offensives of Boy Dougdale).
But as a whole, this companion novel doesn't really have enough narrative corpulence to stand alone. The ending felt rushed and absurd-- though it feels extremely forward-thinking to A) have an openly gay character and B) allow him a romantic happy ending. And when you strip away the dazzling satire, the basic plot that drives the novel is really depressing. Basically, Polly gets molested by her uncle at a young age, falls in love with him from a distance, and marries him years later when her aunt dies. She's disinherited and quickly disenchanted by her old and pervy husband, delivers his baby who immediately dies, and runs away with a different old man. What is it about the females in these books not caring about their infants!! Lady Montdore's comment about how the stillbirth was for the best because children are an awful expense. I mean. Yikes. Yikes. Triple yikes. That was a truly horrid scene. Overall though, this book is like an encore to the first and it was lovely to spend some extra time with the characters and know them a little deeper.