Thursday 12 March 2009

Those wonderful Mitford gels

Right now I'm reading Mary Lovell's The Mitford Girls and not enjoying it much. I've an interest in the Mitfords - Jessica (Decca) is a hero of mine, and the rest of the brood are an object lesson in the iniquities of the aristocracy. Unfortunately, Lovell's book is essentially a long paean of praise to poor misunderstood Diana (unrepentant Fascist, friend of Goebbels, wife of Mosley etc), an elegy for Unity (personal friend of Hitler etc. etc.) and an attempt to paint Decca as a liar and fantasist because she was a Communist (who lived most of her life in rough Oakland, California, fighting for the poor and black population). Lovell, it seems, divides the world between those who hunt (good) and those who don't (rotters).

2 comments:

Meredith Whitford said...

I quite agree about the Lovell book. It is dreadfully biased against Jessica and pro-Diana. It seems to be part of the "Mitford Industry" whose business it is to paint Jessica as blackly as possible, because she a) quit the whole privileged-aristocrat world and b) found her family funny. I'm writing a book about Jessica's life with Esmond Romilly, her first husband, and am sick of the slurs against Esmond; even Diana's obituary took a side-swipe at him. As for Lovell's belief that Diana was unable to lie...

Feather-footedly yours,
Meredith Whitford

The Plashing Vole said...

Meredith, thanks for your comment - I look forward to the book. I wish I could afford copies of Out of Bounds and Boadilla!
Vole