Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford is a sequel to The Pursuit of Love (see my review of that book here) but it could easily be read as a standalone novel. It was written around 1930 and contains pen portraits of many of the author’s friends and relations which are not particularly relevant to or identifiable by the modern reader. This doesn’t matter as most of those reading the novel when it was first published wouldn’t have recognised the real people in the story – it was an in joke between her and her society friends.
This book is also narrated by Fanny, the abandoned child of a wayward mother, who spends a lot of her time with her aristocratic cousins and their parents. Fanny is more sensible than most of her relations and is married to Alfred, with whom she lives a comfortable middle-class life.
Another, distant cousin is Polly who is very beautiful and from a very rich family. In this novel Polly is the central character but the author tells her story through Fanny’s eyes and, therefore, contrasts the lives of the two family members. Where Fanny’s mother doesn’t care about her at all, Polly’s mother is a formidable woman who seeks the best marriage for her irrespective of Polly’s own wishes. Polly is desperately in love with her uncle Guy, a man who has married her paternal aunt, and when he becomes widowed she marries him, with unfortunate results.
The author has a lot to say in this book about society, bad decision making, the predatory nature of some men, the results of poor parenting and what really constitutes love. Her portrayal of the characters is often very funny and she is scathing about the habits of the wealthy and important. There is, however, depth behind the humour and the author also shows us how a mistake or a whim can destroy a life.
I thought that this book was excellent and really enjoyed it. I have been reading my way through this author’s books and think that this and the previous novel are definitely her best – there is one more novel featuring Fanny as narrator and I am looking forward to reading that too.
Anne Is Reading 