Life and love among the upper classes

The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford is reputed to be based on her famously eccentric childhood and the characters based on members of her own family. This is a satire about the aristocracy, their way of life, and their attempts to find happiness in life and love but it’s also a story with real heart that I found very touching.

Fanny is the cousin of the large and eccentric Radlett family. Her mother doesn’t really want to care for her so she is brought up in the stately home, sometimes as part of the family but often as an outsider who can step back and consider them objectively. The novel begins by examining the childhood of the family and here it is very funny and, as far as I can tell, very true to the Mitford family’s upbringing. The cousin who is closest in age to Fanny is Linda and eventually the story begins to concentrate on what happens to her.

Fanny tells us briefly about her life but with little feeling. She becomes grounded in her aunt’s love and that of her aunt’s husband so that she has a much firmer foundation for her life than her cousins do. Linda is searching for love but she doesn’t recognise it when she sees it and is easily fooled by men who fake affection and so she enters a series of disastrous relationships which eventually destroy her love of life.

Under the satire and amusing incidents the author is telling us something serious about life and what is important. Fanny’s life may appear to be boring but she is satisfied and she thrives whereas Linda is adrift and at the mercy of those who are unscrupulous. This is actually quite a sad book and the ending is much gloomier that you would expect from the early pages. I have read most of Nancy Mitford’s novels now and would say that this is easily the best of them and an excellent story in its own right.