The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford

I first heard about TPoL when watching the ‘Romance’ episode ‘The Delicious Miss Dahl’, Sophie Dahl’s cookery programme back in 2010 – She read an extract from the book *(see below) and I knew I had to get my hand on a copy of the book and let’s just say I ended up buying all five of the re-published Mitford books (the power of persuasion of a cookery show on the desire for literary purchases..?)...

So the novel is narrated by a woman called Fanny, cousin of the Radlett family; the novel is essentially about Linda Radlett and the highs and lows of her (love) life.  We follow the girls from their younger years all the way to adulthood; we see marriages, births, deaths, lots of laughs, cries and lessons in life. On reflection I would call this novel a coming of age narrative, as we follow all of the characters on their journies through life.

I was rooting for Linda throughout the whole novel, the girl who had all the dreams and plans of how her life was going to pan out, but as she got older and made various decisions, she had to deal with her life choices, and the consequences – including motherhood which she struggled with terribly. Linda is an old romantic, she’s in love with the idea of love and her life pretty much revolves around her want for love in her life.  Funnily enough, Linda reminds me of Holly Golightly from Breakfast at Tiffany’s, this whole ‘mission’ of finding the things in life which please oneself and that carefree attitude is what they both have in common... There are traces of Scarlett O’Hara present too, she too was a hopeless romantic... I have to say I really do admire the three women mentioned above and Linda’s younger sister Jassy because they really do follow through with what drives them in life (including travelling to America to marry an actor), going across the world find love may seem trivial and also maybe a privilege of the middles classes but all in all the bravery and the fearlessness shown are wonderful attributes to have in any character.

A female in the 1930’s and 1940’s was all about being ‘the angel in the house’, not to disgrace and to stick to the rules of the society you came from.  Linda, as well as the other Radletts (except Louisa – who did everything the ‘right way’), are all radical and creative with their lives in their own ways. 

So, Linda very willingly marries Tony (a Tory...urgh) against her parent’s wishes because she is so passionate about following her heart (and not so much her head). To show for this marriage, she has a little girl (who she abandons because she feels no connection) and the marriage ends in divorce.  A little while later she falls in love again, this time with Christian. He is completely selfish, but I think that is what the attraction is. He was so engrossed in his views on life and his writing and took every day at a time; he's the kind of distraction one wants from the reality of life. This is a short lived love and Linda soon realises she's made a mistake with Christian.  The man she realises she loves and who reciprocates her love and passion for love and life is Fabrice. She meets him in France and is torn from him on several occasions because of WW2. They end up having a child together, but Linda dies in childbirth and Fabrice doesn’t die too long after in the War... With each love she thought he was, what we would call, ‘the one’...

Mitford has created a gem here, beautifully written and she strikes so many chords – you can’t help but want Linda to triumph in love and when she finally does, it’s the end of the road for her. Fanny’s mother, who similarly to Linda wasn’t a great parent (she was only concerned with her own happiness prevailing in her life), makes a visit at the end of the novel and she sums up Linda’s (love) life perfectly...

‘But I think she would have been happy with Fabrice’, I said. ‘He was the great love of her life, you know.’

‘Oh dulling,’ said my mother, sadly. ‘One always thinks that. Every, every time.’

...Perfect...

* Sophie Dahl bringing Ms Mitford into my life -

‘She was filled with a strange, wild, unfamiliar happiness and knew that this was love. Twice in her life she had mistaken something else for it; it was like seeing somebody in the street you think is a friend, you whistle and wave and run after him, and it is not only not the friend, but not even very like him. A few minutes later the real friend appears in view, and then you can’t imagine how you ever mistook that other person for him.’ 

This quote speaks such a truth that can’t be worded any better in my opinion...

 

p.s Happy St Dwynwen's day for last Friday :)

Mitford.N ‘The Pursuit of Love’ (2010) [1945]. Penguin: London