Highland Fling – Nancy Mitford

A book which I’ve just this moment finished (1 down, 39 to go). Reprinted by Capuchin Classics at the beginning of July it’s been something of a struggle to get hold of, the only place I’ve actually seen it for sale is in the wonderful Bakewell bookshop, (though if you couldn’t buy a Mitford book that close to Chatsworth it would be a pretty poor show) but by that time I’d finally managed to order it via amazon after it being persistently out of stock for about a month.

Either way my persistence paid off and I couldn’t help but start this book almost the moment I got it. It’s not a long book and for all its faults it’s an absorbing read, all in it probably only took 3 or 4 hours to get through and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Which is another reason for the slight feeling of resentment I’m harbouring over how hard the darn thing was to get hold of, it just shouldn’t be this difficult. ‘Highland Fling’ has been on my book radar for a good 3 years (since I first noticed it on Capuchin’s list). I’m hardly the only Mitford fan out there, and unlikely to be the only one who doesn’t feel her bank balance can take the unexpected withdrawals that pre orders result in. Is it really unreasonable to hope to find books like this in bookshops? Apparently it is in Leicester. (And here ends my complaint for tonight.)

Back to the book, which I’m inclined to see as a bit of a coup for Capuchin, especially after ‘Wigs on the Green’ (summarizing my opinion thus – interesting period piece with a few good jokes and rather more bad ones. Appealing to fans, but not the finest indicator of what Nancy Mitford’s like at her best!) and ‘The Water Beetle’ (very mixed essays) I had quite low expectations. Happily ‘Highland Fling’ totally exceeded said expectations, true the plot is almost nonexistent and the quality of the writing patchy, but there are brilliant pen portraits which must have been taken from life, and a really good sense of a clash of cultures between the county set and the bright young things.

This I think is the key to why ‘Highland Fling’ is more than the curiosity that ‘Wigs on the Green’ is. Fling was the first novel that Mitford had published and was written whilst she was still in her 20’s (it says in the introduction) so the lack of polish is easy to overlook, it feels like, and possibly was an attempt to make some money, but it also has all the authentic Mitford hallmarks – wit, wisdom and some very cutting observations. The central characters are Sally and Walter Monteath, a young couple who sit on the fence between county respectability and the bright young things. As much as Evelyn Waugh’s ‘Vile Bodies’ this gives a feel for that group, though I suspect Mitford was rather more of an insider, especially class wise than Waugh ever was.

She captures the boredom and pointlessness of country house parties dedicated to killing as much game as possible (whilst possibly bagging a suitable husband) along with the frantic but essentially just as pointless round of cocktails and practical jokes of the younger set. More than that though she also explores what separates the generations. The younger set are basically pacifists – genuinely revolted by the waste of the war they missed (though destined to fight in the next one) the ‘Grown ups’ incapable and unwilling to question the values they have always live by. One character (the sympathetic Mr Buggins) sits between, he fought in the trenches and in a nice little speech quietly and convincingly tells how those 4 years robbed him of his ability to be useful or productive. There are other episodes like this which not only stand out but more than stand the test of time. The bright young things seem like children, but it’s clear that they will for the most part outgrow their childishness, it’s also clear that Mitford believes there are more dangerous faults than a penchant for silly pranks and living on credit.

The Water Beetle – Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford fascinates me, (and a whole lot of other people obviously) at her best she (and her sisters) cast a spell of glamour, wit, and scandal which pretty much reduces me to a schoolgirl crush. At her worst she seems a ridiculous snob but I’m not sure that that doesn’t add to the glamour as well. In real life I don’t care for nicknames and find myself struggling to use them, I avoid wherever possible social circles as incestuously involved as Mitford’s clearly was, yet she makes it sound sophisticated and possibly even fun which is quite a gift. All of which is why I’ll pick up any Mitford thing that comes my way and at least give it a once over.

So it was with ‘The Water Beetle’ which I picked up for the princely sum of a £1.50 and which I thought would make a good stop gap whilst I wait for Capuchin’s reissue of ‘Highland Fling’ to appear. Getting ‘Highland Fling’ is proving to be a bit of a trial, amazon are currently sold out and neither local Waterstones has a copy (which is more especially annoying as the larger of the two branches in town is getting back to its bookselling routes by pitching about 15% of its floor space over to Paperchase. I like stationary but I prefer books, my stationary buying needs are well catered for in Leicester, my book buying needs aren’t and I fail to see how less book selling space is going to improve a bookshop. And it occurs to me that this is part the reason I called myself desperate reader. Hmmph.)

Slightly distracted from my point now but I’ll get back to it yet... so here I am patiently (ish) awaiting a means of purchasing a long anticipated book and looking for ways to while away the time, both factors which pushed me towards ‘The Water Beetle’ an assortment of Mitford essays which with one or two exceptions have aged remarkably badly. She gives a fascinating account of a visit to Russia in the 50’s and what Mitford fan could fail to be excited by ‘Reading for Pleasure’ an account of Nancy’s reading tastes, but the rest of the collection is Nancy as a woman of a her class and time – a Francophile to boot, I’m not so very pro French - the result of years in the wine trade rendered hideous by customers who don’t know what they’re talking about (no reason why they should) but who refuse to believe that I do. (People I’ve wasted the best years of my life on learning this stuff, I’m not just making it up, and if you persist in doubting me one day I’ll snap and use the ‘Oxford Companion to Wine’ in a way Jancis Robinson could hardly approve.)

Again – where was I? Ah yes, Nancy Mitford reading like a parody of Prince Philip – and this is the thing, I can’t warm to the woman in these pages, she put my back up more often than not, yet still I can’t resist her because even when she’s repellent she manages to be fascinating. I could only recommend ‘The Water Beetle’ to hard core enthusiasts but I would still recommend it. I plan to keep my copy with the various collections of Mitford letters I’ve amassed as a reminder of the other side of the women so carefully edited and presented in these anthologies, I rather think it’ll help me read more between the lines.

Finally has anyone read ‘Highland Fling’ yet – and if so what’s the verdict?

The Knot of Vipers – Francois Mauriac

Very kindly sent to me by Capuchin, I blew hot and cold on this book - until I started reading it from which point onwards I stayed hot (if that doesn’t sound wrong). The thing that first drew me to Mauriac was his Catholicism specifically the idea of him being a catholic writer. The combined forces of Alice Thomas Ellis and Muriel Spark have converted me, if not to the church, at least to the possibilities of its literature, and Mauriac has not let them (or me) down.

The quality they all have in common, and which I find so appealing, is that all of these authors are prepared to make their narrator if not actually downright unpleasant, at least realistically humanly unpleasant. I find it reassuring to read, not about evil, but about weakness, paranoia, less charitable thoughts – all the things we think but don’t always want to give voice to. You normally have to know someone very well to know these kinds of flaws in them, so the effect of meeting it on the page can be very disarming.

Monsieur Louis, the narrator and hero of ‘The Knot of Vipers’ is an unloved, unloving, and nearly unlovable man. He’s cut off from his family by a web of suspicion and antipathy. They are determined to get their inheritance; he is equally intent on disinheriting them. Louis is convinced that he is at the base of it an unpleasant even hateful man, he’s put everything into building a fortune, and into trying to enact emotional retribution from those he feels have hurt him – mostly his wife.

The book takes the form first of a letter and then of a confession, Monsieur Louis goes over his life from disappointment to disappointment never withholding his own misdeeds. There is also no doubt that this is a biased account seen from a single perspective, which I also think is where the story is at its strongest. As a young man Louis finds himself marrying a girl far above his social sphere – as he tells it he becomes engaged by accident and without actually meaning to, but initially it’s a happy union; that is until his wife confesses to a previous affair one night. It brings all Louis’ insecurities to the fore – including the belief that Isa married him only for his money. The marriage falls apart from that moment, and the next forty years are a slow burning war of attrition between the couple. Isa annexes the children, Louis engages in a series of sordid liaisons, and ostentatiously turns his back on Isa’s beloved church, losing no opportunity to expose the religious hypocrisy he sees around him.

The other half of the book deals with the battle for Louis’ soul. Is he redeemable? Can he let go of the hatred and desire for vengeance, of the knot of vipers that has taken the place of his heart. Well I’ll leave you to guess the ending for yourselves, but will say that there’s a heartbreaking moment when he realises that he might have misjudged his wife.

To my modern and atheist eye the spiritual message feels a little clumsy, and something’s feel like a coincidence to far, but there’s a lot to be said for the reminder that we are the sum of what we do and not what we pay lip service too, and everything else about the story telling is terrific. The Bordeaux countryside is bought vividly to life, the slow unravelling of a life is equally moving and gripping, and however imperfect Louis is I could not help but sympathise with him. I can confirm that this is indeed a classic to keep alive!

Do by the way check out Capuchin's website. They're having a launch party for Nancy Mitford's Highland fling at Heywood Hill's bookshop on the 15th of July and it looks like tickets can be applied for...