Christmas Pudding by Nancy Mitford is not really a Christmas novel. It’s a story about the gathering of a large number of unlikely but interconnected characters who eventually gather at the Christmas houseparty of Lady Bobbin – a couple of the characters are also found in Highland Fling which I review here. The book, which was written in the early 1930s is a satire on the class system and some of its more useless members. It is likely that the author copied some of the characters from people she knew but I couldn’t identify any of them and it didn’t matter to me if they were.
The guests of the formidable fox-hunter Lady Bobbin include her rebellious daughter Philadelphia, a pompous suitor, a couple of children fascinated by newspaper death notices, and a dejected writer whose first serious novel has been declared the funniest book of the year to his dismay. Also involved in the story are a beautiful ex-courtesan Amabelle and her guests who are staying in a neighbouring cottage. The characters create a story of love, attraction and lies. There are amusing incidents revealing suspect morality and people who seek to survive, often at the expense of others.
This is a short book and I don’t think that it always worked for me as a modern reader because the characters are very alien to my way of life. It is also not as funny as I think that it aimed to be. Nevertheless I enjoyed it well enough.
Anne Is Reading 