| Title | : | The Blessing |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0786705213 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780786705214 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 221 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1951 |
The Blessing Reviews
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With its twirling humour and irony, it is a joy to read this typically English novel! The context of the post-war period unfolded with a master's hand; the characters, rather casual and very aristocratic, are perfectly camped and the dear angel a real little imp.
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I'm on Team Sigi.
& that's really all I want to say about this wonderful novel. If this is Mitford's weakest work of fiction, her other titles must be amazing! Enjoy this book for it's wit & charm. Don't read any reviews (other than this one!) & don't read the blurbs. My copy did have very minor spoilers & I would have preferred to approach without any preconceptions! -
There is nothing like a Nancy Mitford novel for a combination of wit, charm and elegant writing. The Blessing was new to me, and although it doesn't surpassThe Pursuit of Love in my affections, it is a comedy of manners with some truly memorable characters - the cunning Sigi and the redoubtable Nanny being my favourites. Set mostly in post-war France - Paris and Provence - the contrast between French manners and mores and English ones provides much of the humour (and plot) in the book. Mitford spent much of her adult life living in France, so even with certain allowances made for satire and creative license, I suspect most of her observations are pretty spot-on. As Charles-Edouard explains to his English, countryside-loving wife Grace: "whereas in England the countryside is for pleasure and the town for business, here it is the exact opposite." The trouble all begins when Charles-Edouard and Grace - who married hastily at the beginning of the war, produced a son called Sigismond, and then barely saw each other for many years - take up life together in Paris. Lacking the wardrobe, cunning and wits of her French counterparts, Grace soon realises that she is hugely unprepared for a sophisticated life in Paris. Intellectual aunts, inquisitorial dinner partners and Charles-Edouard's various loves and flirtations are just a few of the challenges in her new life. Grace, who is convinced that she is impervious to jealousy, discovers that is not the case after all. Meanwhile, the roguish little Sigi discovers that he gets far more attention when sowing the seeds of discord between his parents than when they are engaged in "daft kissing stuff." There's nothing terribly deep about it, but Mitford's sharp eye for detail and funny dialogue make it an entertaining light read.
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4,5*
- Ai, ai, como toda a gente parece ser tão pobre em Inglaterra – disse Grace. – É tão terrível quando até mesmo os noveaux riches são pobres!
Em Nancy Mitford tudo é afiado: a língua, a mente, o humor... E eu fustigo-me por ter demorado tantos anos a chegar a ela, apesar das inúmeras recomendações que me fizeram e que, agora, me cabe a mim transmitir.
Grace, uma jovem inglesa, casa-se com um francês pomposo prestes a ir para a guerra, engravida e reencontra-o sete anos depois, quando Sigi, a bênção propriamente dita, já é um belo e inteligente rapazinho, cheio de manhas e caprichos. Já em França, Grace, que é uma paz de alma, sofre um choque cultural ao conviver com a alta sociedade francesa.
São poucos os ingleses que não detestam viver em França. Sempre achei que tem muito a ver com as pratas francesas. Não percebem que se trata de outra liga, pensam que têm aquele ar escuro por não serem bem limpas e é isso que faz com que odeiem os franceses. Tu sabes como são os ingleses em relação às pratas, é um fetiche.
Não se pense, porém, que Nancy Mitford fez deste livro uma crítica aos franceses, povo que ela tão bem conhecia, porque, na verdade, ela não poupa ninguém. Sejam franceses, ingleses, americanos ou russos, nenhum povo escapa ao olhar mordaz desta autora, que explora de forma hilariante os seus tiques e idiossincrasias culturais.
O sexo não desempenharia grande papel em todo aquele cenário. O marido francês, como seria de esperar, tê-la-ia satisfeito para sempre e, afinal de contas, as pessoas podiam viver juntas e felizes para sempre sem sexo. Ele próprio conhecia muitos casos.
Há uma galeria de personagens excepcionais, com amas lamurientas, ingleses insípidos e hipócritas, velhas gaiteiras, francesas frívolas e americanos limitados, que se interrelacionam através dos diálogos mais estaladiços que já vi em literatura. E no meio disto tudo, está a pobre Grace, que é a pessoa mais pacata e normal deste elenco, mas que, na sua tentativa de agradar a todos, não me deu o final marcante que eu antecipava.
- Lembras-te da Carolyn, aquela minha amiga?
- A bela da lésbica?
- Não, não, a Carolyn Dexter.
- Tu disseste que era lésbica na escola.
- O que eu disse foi que estávamos todas apaixonadas por ela, o que é muito diferente. Além disso, na idade em que se anda na escola as pessoas são todo o tipo de coisas... A Carolyn era comunista naquela altura... Quando havia visitas na escola, nós apresentávamo-la sempre como a comunista da escola... e olha só para ela agora! Aquilo é o Plano Marshall até à ponta dos cabelos. -
The Marquis de Valhubert "cannot see a pretty woman without immediately wanting to sleep with her." This polished dilettante has a pleasing English wife who sees the French through rose-colored glasses; their snobbishness seems like a tremendous joke. When mischievous son, little Sigi, contrives to keep his parents apart, Mitford erupts with her funniest observations about sex and other social distractions among the French, Brits and Americans.
Gossip among the Paris set : "They left the luncheon together. They must have been in bed together the whole afternoon."
--"I don't think so. She had a fitting at Dior."
As for Americans in Paris : "I wish I understood them. So good, and yet so dull."
--"What makes you think they are so good?"
--"You can see it, shining in their eyes."
--"That's not goodness, that's contact lenses."
When the heroine learns her husby has a mistress, she's advised : "Why not look upon these...others...as his hobby? Like hunting or racing, a pursuit that takes him from you of an afternoon sometimes and does you no harm."
Getting Mitzed is a lot of fun.
-
She is, as usual, superb at clever description; at drawing the idiosyncrasies of culture, the worst of us: the pompous, loud and usually wrong American, the hedonistic, unfaithful, and xenophobic French, the uptight, fearful, staid, but, ahem, respectable Brit.
The American explaining how the US is preparing the population for atom bombs:
“... the subject is treated frankly...to rob it of all unpleasantness. At these gatherings the speakers stress that certain rules of atomic hygiene ought to be a matter of everyday routine. Keep a white sheet handy, for example, since white offers the best protection against gamma rays. Then the folks are told what to do after the explosion. The importance of rest can hardly be over-estimated….no harm in a glass of milk as soon as the bomb has gone off…”
The French traipsing from dinner to ball to liaison, always in haute couture. A great deal of Marshall Plan money was spent on mistresses, Grand Cru, and foie gras, apparently.
Only when a ball was conceived (to please a child who was being manipulated as part of a grander affair) that would require having either one’s own offspring or a niece or nephew in tow for admittance were, suddenly, children of value in Parisian high society. A great flurry of adoptions, chartered planes from South America and South Africa carrying never-before-met nephews and nieces, and the like, ensued.
At the ball, two mothers, having just given birth, deposited their infants among the coats to scream themselves to sleep. Afterwards, it was impossible to identify the infants for certain:
“The mothers were sent for, but the pleasures of society rediscovered having greatly befogged their maternal instincts, they were obliged to admit that they had no idea which was which. With a tremendous amount of guilty giggling they spun a coin for the prettier of the two babies and left it at that.”
The British, certain as they were that class defined character. A burglar had been caught attempting to steal silver from a country estate. The criminal, it turns out, is actually an acquaintance of one of the house guests. He is given tea and sent on his way.
“‘Really Papa,’ said Grace….’I’m not sure you ought to have turned him loose on the community like that, you know.’
‘Oh, my dear child, he hadn’t done any harm. On the contrary, he spoke very nicely of my article on Turenne in the Cornhill, before you came down.’”
But, as much as I’ve loved other books by Nancy Mitford, this one didn’t work for me. Too sad overall; a collapse into comfortable grief for our protagonista seems like a surrender to misogyny. -
This one was as enjoyable as all of the other books in this loose series. I believe the main character has a child with her French husband. Ah, the trials and tribulations of a continental marriage! Plus, this one takes place during one of the world wars, if I remember correctly.
This excellent series of books was adapted by the BBC into an excellent series. Some of the story lines were altered, but for the most part, I did enjoy that series (but the books are really something special, and I will always prefer them.) -
Nancy Mitford was the eldest of the famous Mitford sisters; while her sisters Diana, Unity, and Jessica are famous (or infamous) for their politics (Jessica was a Communist, while the other two were Nazi sympathizers and friends of Hitler), Nancy was celebrated as a leading member of the Bright Young Things and a brilliant writer. She wrote eight novels, several biographies, and various essays, all of which are a joy to read, but The Blessing is perhaps my favorite of her books.
Grace Allingham is an English beauty; when she meets Charles-Edouard de Valhubert, a French marquis, at the outbreak of World War II, they fall in love and are soon married. While Charles-Edouard is at war, their son, Sigismond, is born in England, and when the war is over, Charles-Edouard returns and whisks Grace and Sigi (and Sigi's terrifying Nanny) off to France, where Grace is in for an enormous culture shock when she finds out about Charles-Edouard's many love affairs. Mitford takes a satirical view of English and French society after WWII, with a few pokes at Americans along the way. The plot is cleverly constructed, and as always, the narrative and dialogue are deliciously witty.
If you read The Blessing and like it (and if you long to know what became of Grace, Charles-Edouard, and Sigi), you should also read
The Pursuit of Love,
Love in a Cold Climate, and
Don't Tell Alfred, which are essentially part of the same series as The Blessing and feature many of the same characters throughout. The Pursuit of Love was Mitford's fifth novel and the one that catapulted her to fame as a writer; it tells the story of the Radlett family (a thinly veiled, though exaggerated, portrait of Nancy's own family) and Linda Radlett's search for romantic love and is narrated by Fanny, a cousin of the Radletts, who is also the narrator of Love in a Cold Climate and Don't Tell Alfred. -
** 3,5 estrelas **
"Olhara pela janela para o céu cinzento cor de ferro (…)sentiu-se confortada pelo pensamento de poder voltar a ser uma camponesa inglesa que fazia jardinagem, dava caminhadas …"; esta é a nossa Grace, apelidada pela trupe aristocrática francesa de rústica, de intelectualidade quase nula, pese embora a sua beleza e bem educada. E inocente. Muito inocente.
A seta do cupido atinge-a e ei-la a saltar de uma manta de retalhos do campo para um sociedade muita dada ao pedigree. O desajuste acaba por se manifestar obviamente.
Galgamos entre umas tontarias e frivolidades, em minudências parvas para se vingar e ser aceite na sociedade, onde se cultiva e idolatra a arte de bem vestir e/ou outra qualquer graça estética ou patética e onde se gasta até ao último resquício de energia em prol de se salientar sobre os demais. Que canseira… por favor devolvam o campo e as cabras a esta senhora que isto não se aguenta!
Arre que até a ama manda. Manda e refila e diz e desdiz que é um valha-nos Deus.
Gente pérfida, devotas dos prazeres da vida, sem qualquer sentido de fidelidade ou sensibilidade.
Entre fugas precipitadas e/ou ajuizadas, encontros e desencontros, amarguras e saudades acaba por ceder, novamente, ao fascínio de Charles-Edouard até porque: "A vida que tinha em Paris podia ser difícil e exigente, Grace podia estar sempre toda nervosa na barra das testemunhas, sempre a tentar não denunciar o seu jogo ao advogado implacável que lhe fazia o contra-interrogatório, mas talvez fosse uma existência mais satisfatória do que aquela. Pelo menos sentira-se viva, dera uso à pouca cabeça que tinha e todos os dias pareciam ter um propósito. Nunca fora meramente uma questão de ir gastando as horas que ainda faltavam para se fechar no túmulo."
Quanto à bênção? É mais um abrenúncio. Arre que raio de miúdo, chiça penico! -
Playful and fun.
A memorable line: "In the States we just worship youth, Madame Innouis, it seems to us that human beings were put on this earth to be young; youth seems to use the most desirable of all human attributes." -
This holds an excellent formal Introduction re classical Mitford works in total. And I myself do agree that this was excellent but also her least favorite in sellers.
The Blessing was her autobiographical fiction, the closest to her own life and love interest history. She lived in France for a great portion of her life and this novel will exhibit the whole process.
Literature with the big L people believe it may be her very best writing of all. Form and focus, prose nearly perfect.
But I think it lacks the humor and everyman type "eyes" that her family saga works and other historical biographies are loaded with all told.
This has the burn of a life long obsessive love of unrequited not, but also very uneven in reciprocation partner.
Mitford sisters of her generation seemed, to me, to be almost 90% heart and emotion "in love" laden to purposes. Not logic, not even comparatively (concerning the levels of wealth) economic or loyal or any other category of attachment wise savvy. This reveals such a minor case of that "in love" criteria. Some of the other sisters' were worse examples and outcomes.
It didn't get a ton of acclaim and I can totally understand why it didn't. It's entire core surrounds a man who is worshipped and gives the very least base of return on the devotion investment. Not a fun read.
Period era and locales are top notch as always. Many people will not enjoy reading this societal elite and all about posturing and appearances lifestyles. Women's pecking order postures in cred methodology especially. -
What I love about Nancy Mitford is her style of writing just feels like you are reading about friends rather than fictional characters.
The Blessing was witty, clever, stunningly written with sumptuous discriptions of places, people and events!
A wonderful read a sorbet for the mind after reading dramas and thrillers!
A delight! -
Grace Allingham, a young and unassuming Englishwoman from an affluent background, makes the acquaintance of Charles-Edouard de Valhubert, a French Air Force officer, during the early years of the Second World War. Charming, suave, and utterly self-assured, he sweeps Grace off her feet, they quickly marry and have a short honeymoon. Then Charles-Edouard goes back to the war. Grace leaves London and settles in the countryside. She finds herself with child and later gives birth to a boy, who is named Sigismond. Better known as "Sigi", we find him as a boy of seven (upon his father's return) with an angelic face and a puckish charm that leads him to do a little mischief every now and then.
A few years pass before Charles-Edouard receives his discharge and returns to Britain from the Far East. He returns to Grace and son like a force of nature, full of bonhomie. They relocate to France and what a life! Mitford gives the reader some interesting views into French culture and mores and offers some sparkling contrasts with the British mindset and contradictory/ambivalent views of the French.
In turns, "
The Blessing" reads like a zany comedy of errors and a tender love story. I recommend it to any reader who is keen to read an entertaining and engaging novel. -
‘Alas, my dear child, you are in love, and there is no love in this world without jealousy.’
📚
Grace Allingham, that most naive of English beauties, falls hopelessly for the dashing French aristocrat Charles-Edouard de Valhubert in the early years of World War II. They hastily marry, but are separated by the long years of the war. Reunited at last, Grace is optimistic about married life, but relocating to France proves an altogether unexpected challenge. First, she must contend with the minefield that is Parisian high society, rife with scandalous gossip and governed by unnervingly intricate social etiquette. Then comes the alarming realization that her beloved husband has an irrepressible roving eye. And the final straw: the antics of their little son, Sigi, who at the age of seven has all the makings of a young Machiavelli.
💐
Not as satisfying as "The Pursuit of Love", but dependably good nonetheless in that witty, elegant way that is so characteristic of Mitford's writing. Her books are deceptively light, constructed like frothy comedies but often hinting at darker, more complex undertones. This one had moments of real brilliance, in which she makes the most astute and hilarious observations about the Anglo-French cultural clash. However, there were more than a few frivolous bits which, while enjoyable enough, seemed like indulgent padding in an otherwise taut novel. But even when she's not at her best she's still immensely entertaining, and those in search of a good comfort-read will not be disappointed. -
On one level, this is a frivolous, entertaining story about a couple, their marital difficulties, and the little heathen they call their son (the "blessing" of the title). On a deeper level, Mitford skillfully tells of culture clash, love, and family dysfunction, using her own situation (and clear-eyed self awareness) to poignant effect. The humor is more subtle than that of Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate, some has faded due to time, but The Blessing is still laugh out loud funny in parts and giggle-worthy throughout most of the pages. Finally, I hold up Sigi, the little brat, as yet another reason why I am never having children. Thank you, Nancy, for reinforcing that wise decision.
-
I'm a big fan of Nancy Mitford, as her books are always so bitingly clever. Here she addresses the difference in cultures between the English and the French, lighting them both on fire with her sarcastic wit. The main conflict takes place in the English heroine's head -- can she overcome the natural jealousy she feels at her French husband's infidelity, or learn to treat his little affairs as no more than minor annoyances, as is the custom in France? "The Blessing" is what she calls her little son, who calculates that his life is more enjoyable when his parents are separated, so he does everything in his power to keep them apart. These three characters keep the book lively and interesting.
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Après un début difficile car les personnages m'agaçaient, j'ai bien apprécié l'humour de Nancy Mitford et son regard acéré sur la haute société.
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Mitford's frothy satirical comedy has some surprisingly contemporary digs at American/French/British culture and the characters that roam the upper echelons of society. Some solid chuckles here and there with the requisite occasional racist/Semitism etc. asides. (Sigh) Thankfully few and far between but reader beware. I mostly enjoyed the ride with the top down until the precocious child character takes centre stage and the action falters. Still worth a perusal though just don't expect too too much.
-
She knew, or thought she knew, that Frenchwomen were hideously ugly, but with an ugliness redeemed by great vivacity and perfect taste in dress... So all in all she was unprepared for the scene that met her eyes on entering...
This is Mitford's unapologetic memoir of her own romance with a charming but decidedly not monogamist Frenchman, and really, with the idea of France itself. What works here is the casual seduction of a really independent Englishwoman by the whole of French culture; maybe something that viewed in macro might also be about the unbreakable quality of French cultivation and polish, remarkably unbowed by the world wars.
The observations of the Narrator are what makes this book fly, always reasonable if not practical, and never too deeply indebted to settling scores or rooting for any specific side. What doesn't work is the daily-diary kind of structure, which relies too heavily on what happened on a given day. If you have a very unpremeditated, free-wheeling narrator telling the tale, it feels as if there must be, at a minimum, some backstage logic to tie things up.
Not to be too focused on this lack though, the book very nearly makes it along the casual lines of this structure-- which does good things for the pacing and drive-- until one of the set-pieces fails along the way. (And then the "oh, do have a look, darling" perspective goes wobbly. In my reading the central Famous Children Ball thrown by Mme. Marel goes flat, and sinks the arc of the book in so doing. Shame, really, since a Mitford-trademark wicked-humourous blowout there would have carried the whole thing).
Uneven, but still well worth the read, as the sacred-cow-puncturing and biting euphemism always manage to cover any soul-baring that might have been imminent; we are English here, after all. Having rushed back to London after one too many infidelities courtesy le husband, our Narrator expects a comforting wave of the home country to wash away all of that Continental nonsense; somehow, though, after France the English seem ridiculous too, not just stodgy but loopy and shallow. We watch as Mitford's vision clears, and the larger picture comes into focus.
In the Vintage edition's introduction to The Blessing, Caryn James mentions that Mitford had originally been commissioned by producer Alexander Korda to write this in screenplay form; as it happened the production never began, and Mitford rescued the material as a Novel. This reinvention may have something to do with the uneven structure and occasional lapses I found; what may have seemed impossible to sacrifice from the screen version, like the Children's Ball, might have been reconsidered one too many times. Other aspects, like the central positioning of Sigismond, (who is in fact the Blessing of the title) are neatly bundled and tied up at the end -- as if ready for the shooting script of the movie. Who knows, this probably could have been done a half a dozen different ways, and this, as we all must agree, is one of them. -
*Special Content only on my blog,
Strange and Random Happenstance during Mitford March Mach Deux (March 2014)
Grace Allingham is engaged to a nice English boy. He didn't push for the marriage to happen before the war and therefore when Charles-Edouard de Valhubert comes into her life and sweeps her off her feet, it's really Hughie's own fault for not locking that down. Charles-Edouard is French and exciting. He loves art and beauty and Grace. Grace, like her father, is taken by all things French and is therefore really taken with her new husband. They have two glorious weeks together till he ships out and she doesn't see him for seven years. In those two weeks she managed to get pregnant, so the seven years away from her husband that she barely knows is spent raising their son Sigi and tending goats.
A year after the war is over Charles-Edouard sweeps back into Grace's life and whisks her away to France and a new life. Only Charles-Edouard is determined to continue living his old life. Sure, he has a wife and son, but that doesn't mean he's not going to reunite with his mistresses and perhaps pick up a few more. When Grace catches him in the act she flees back to England and the familiar. The couple want to reunite, but they both want what the other can't give. Meanwhile Sigi sees an opportunity. It appears to him that keeping his parents apart might benefit him. He would no longer be ignored but would be lavished with presents and attention. Plus, if he could also get bribes off of perspective suitors for his mother's or father's hand in marriage... he might come out very well, as long as his parents don't rumble his con.
The Blessing is an odd novel in that it feels like you are reading about ghosts long gone, a feeling enhanced by the visit to the Père Lachaise Cemetery in the book. Grace Allingham and Charles-Edouard de Valhubert are quite literally Linda Radlett and Fabrice de Sauveterre from The Pursuit of Love brought back from the dead. There are many questions this brings up. Is The Blessing a long "what if" novel wherein Nancy was wondering one day what would have happened if Linda and Fabrice hadn't died? Did she just love these characters so much that though she parted with them she had to bring them back in some way? Or was she using the ghosts of the past to recapture the best seller cache of her previous two novels, The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate? All or none of these things may be true, but as a reader I felt like I was just trudging over terrain I had already gone over and over and was now trapped in a rut. There are only so many phone conversations between louche Frenchman and naive English girls that one can take in a lifetime and I think I have had my fill.
By giving Charles-Edouard/Fabrice and his lackadaisical morals full reign the book, no matter how Nancy tries, isn't a love story but a reflection of an amoral society that you aren't quite sure she's making fun of or even trying to justify in some sick way. The situations in The Pursuit of Love are able to push Fabrice into being a loving antihero for awhile, but without the strictures of the war, you see that Fabrice would have easily reverted to Charles-Edouard and his philandering ways. Charles-Edouard in some ways does love Grace, but the truth is, it isn't a love I would accept on any level. She must abide by his character or else lose him.
How is this fair? And why does everyone expect Grace to just accept this? Charles-Edouard has a long standing mistress, but of course it's "innocent" because the sex doesn't matter as much as the conversation. Then there's the young nubile mistress who Grace catches him with, though he still denies that there wasn't anything wrong with what she saw. Then there's the danger of any pretty woman anywhere that he might just wander off with at a moments notice. Yet Grace is expected to just be ok with this? No. It's not funny, it's not ok, it's sad. Everyone deserves to be loved exclusively without caveats. Sorry Nancy if you think this is acceptable, I don't.
And speaking of Nancy, and her sad Francophile life... the truth is maybe she didn't find this acceptable but she was trying to justify her own life. In 1942 she met a man, Gaston Palewski. He worked closely with Charles de Gaulle and was key in the French government for many years. Nancy fell in love, hard. Gaston was the love of her life, she dedicated a book to him and based both Fabrice and Charles-Edouard on him. Sadly, she wasn't the love of his life and he would never give up his ways as a reckless womanizer. In 1946 she moved to Paris to be closer to Gaston, with her life revolving around whenever he could spare a moment for her. She was willing to drop any plans if she could see or hear him for just a few minutes.
This obsession is oddly similar to Unity's obsession with Hitler and the stalker qualities it brought out in her. Nancy could easily be said to have been Gaston's stalker, seeing as their relationship was mainly one sided. She would have killed herself willingly for Gaston, a situation he found flattering and amusing. In 1969 Gaston married another one of his mistresses who was not much younger then Nancy. Nancy soon after became ill and eventually died of Cancer. He broke her heart. The Blessing might be see as one long justification of the life Nancy lived, a way to con herself into believing that just being a part of his life, just being one of his women was enough. I, on the other hand, find it heartbreaking. That such a smart, witty, bright woman could think that this was enough for her, that this was the life she deserved, it breaks my heart. -
Ora mais um livro divertidíssimo da Nancy Mitford!A minha pena é que não tenha ainda umas dezenas de livros dela guardados e por ler...Como sempre as personagens são sempre algo de especial,quase "caricaturas", e as proprias descrições dos espaços e das situações sempre muito bem feitas!E o pequeno Sigi...um Bórgia,como diz o pai...se não fosse ele a história não tinha tanta história! Vale a pena!
-
Hmm...
As WW2 is beginning, Grace receives a visit from Charles-Edouard, an aristocratic French friend of her fiancé, Hugh. Within a month, poor Hugh has been dumped, Charles-Edouard and Grace have married and C-E has gone off to war. Finding herself pregnant, Grace goes off to live in her father’s country house, and waits seven long years for C-E to return. When he does, he promptly whisks Grace and the child, Sigi, off to France, where he divides his time between his wife and his mistresses. Eventually Grace leaves him, and the big question is will they get back together? Sigi is enjoying having two parents vying to spoil him most, so he sets out to do everything he can to keep them apart…
Pretending to be a satire, it’s actually a nice little fluffy romance of the type where the man is a worthless, faithless leftover from a dying breed, and the woman is a bucolic, intellectually-challenged leftover from another dying breed. Hmm… I’m struggling to think of anything to say about it, really. Not my kind of thing, as it turns out. The “insights” into French society feel about as realistic as Wodehouse’s England, but unfortunately the book lacks either the humour or good-natured charm of his work. I think it’s supposed to be funny though…
I skipped the last 40 pages because, you know, who cares if they get back together?
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com -
I like Nancy Mitford. She writes well. I wanted something light, and this was that, definitely. For whatever reason, I have hardly any sense of humour when it comes to marital infidelity, and since a lot of this book was people trying to convince Grace that she was just being uptight about it, well, it didn't have me laughing. The way Sigismund, the "blessing" manipulates his parents was funny, though. I probably should have just re-read Cold Comfort Farm, since that was the vibe I was going for anyway.
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Witty and wicked and just a tad dated (in the sense of some extreme political incorrectness), The Blessing is Mitford's take on the cultural chasm between France and England after WWII. English flower Grace marries Charles-Edouard, French aristocrat, and raises their son Sigi alone in the English countryside until he comes home after the war in seven years. They move to France, along with Sigi's unhappy Nanny, whose first experience with French cuisine leaves her horrified - "Funny-looking bread, here, too, all crust and holes. I don't know how you'd make a nice bit of damp toast with that" - and yearning for "a nice floury potato."
Once in Paris, Charles-Edouard's old passions flower, including his relationship with long-time lover Albertine, whose gift of spinning aromatic, sensual tales while telling fortunes has kept their once-torrid, now "sentimental" relationship (with the occasional afternoon tryst) alive. Charles-Edouard's affairs, which Grace's French friends encourage her to accept as entertainments no more important than his material collections, prove more than she can endure when she walks into a room on a mansion tour and finds her husband in bed with one of his pretty, young collectibles.
Before that, however, she meets dozens of unforgettable characters, from the French man who thinks English country life is personified in Wuthering Heights, to the insufferable, hectoring American, Hector Dexter, whose marriage to Grace's school friend Caroline forces her to tolerate his take on the British (who have become "frivolous" about homosexuals whom, he believes are all Communists), and American men, none of whom are "pederasts," since they are all full of "strong and lustful, but clean desire."
(Charles-Edouard is chastised by Albertine when he says that he sees "goodness" shining in the eyes of Americans. "That's not goodness," she says, "that's contact lenses.")
Grace takes Sigi and Nanny back to England and meets up with her ex-fiance Hughie, whose affair with Albertine has been thwarted, and who is ready to settle down and marry Grace. She also meets and flirts with the idea of marrying a charismatic, mad director, whose ghoulish, blonde retinue takes a dislike to Grace and vanishes when he decides to stage a version of a political play that features a snarling dog, an old man who sleeps with a pot of gold under his bed, and his son who is married to a Fascist. She fantasizes a marriage to him being like Charles and Mary Lamb, or Jane and Thomas Carlyle "without the liver attacks."
Certain characters maintain their sense and sensibility with humor and pragmatism. Grace's father, Sir Conrad, muses that the English think that French silver is dirty because it does not shine like English silver, not realizing that English and French silver are totally different alloys. Albertine is charmed when Sigi loves her gift of a kaleidoscope so much he wants to sleep with it: "But this child is his father over again... The moment he sees something pretty he wants to take it to bed with him." Tante Regine charms her English hosts by praising Woolworth's and Yardley perfumes.
And Sigi? One of the great comedic monsters, whose preternatural cunning and powers of observation are thwarted ... just ... by the common sense of a nameless French official, precisely the sort of character keeps civilization humming behind the cultural circuses.
Some critics have said this is not A-list Mitford. Maybe not, but it delighted me. Highly, highly recommended!
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A comical novel about a naive English woman who marries a charming French man only to find that her new husband is an insatiable flirt whose liaisons with other women are as essential for his livelihood as breathing. According to the French man the two were never validly married, as he is nominally Catholic and they were married in a registry. He intends to wait and see whether they should be married in a Church. Grace, a nominal Protestant, eventually leaves him after finding him in bed with another woman, but even afterwards she longs for him to come and repent and take her home.
Their son discovers that life with separated parents is more to his liking because he is spoiled as each tries to win his favour over the other. Their new love interests also that the child is the key to their lover's heart and do all they can to impress him.
The son manages to deceive both parents to keep them apart, and is only discovered at the end. His clever deceptions are the most enjoyable part of the story.
Ultimately Grace must eventually accept her husband's weaknesses as part of his character and culture, in the hope that he'll grow out of it with time. The two come back together even after they have had a civil divorce and before they are 'validly' married in a Church, and it seems that she has been won over by his charming, immoral ways.
Intelligently written and at times entertaining, there is not much to be learned from the content other than the immorality of French high society and that the only danger is in getting caught. Reviewed for
www.GoodReadingGuide.com -
Well I hoped I wouldn't be disappointed and I certainly wasn't. In places I was laughing out loud. I love these books that give an insight into the frivolous world of the upper class in the first half of the 20th century. I also love that Nancy Mitford can happily take the mick out of that lifestyle but also take it a step further for a laugh, for example when describing the two mothers of newborn babies who had their children laid out to sleep on a bed full of coats at a party, only to find that they couldn't tell them apart later - "With a tremendous amount of guilty giggling they spun a coin for the prettier of the two babies and left it at that."
Sigismond is a fantastic character, naughty and scheming. He fits in well with the story as philandering Charles-Edouard's son. After he asks if he can take a new toy to bed with him it is commented "But this child is his father over again. The moment he sees something pretty he wants to take it to bed with him." I could quote all day from this book! -
Marvelous for Mitford's exquisite devotion to France and French society, but the characters begin to grate, ever so slightly. Whereas her frivolous society girls in
The Pursuit of Love and
Love in a Cold Climate come across as charming despite their ridiculousness, I spent most of this novel wanting to shake everyone, but especially Grace and Charles-Edouard. Let us not even speak of their offspring, the precocious plot moppet extraordinaire Sigi, though it is fair to say that Mitford gave him an excellent set-up and explanation for why he is as selfish and manipulative as he is. Still doesn't repress the urge to shake.
Oddly enough, I think this is the closest Mitford ever really gets to a happily ever after. That's exactly as funny and depressing as it should be. -
Amusing , Entertaining and thoroughly engaging despite the very, very silly characters. Mitford's characters flow in and out of her various novels and a minor character in a book I just completed (Don't Tell Alfred) is the principal character in this book. I enjoy that aspect of her writing---the feeling that you have arrived in a strange place and just happened upon someone you know --- so her books have an automatic appeal to me.
This story centers on the cultural clashes resulting from the marriage of a very worldly French man and a decidedly less sophisticated British beauty. Mitford's sense of humor seems to lead her to create less than totally sympathetic characters, but this was still a book I thoroughly enjoyed. -
The Blessing is not as tart as most of Evelyn Waugh's work, or as light as P.G. Wodehouse's, but it has the flavor of both. It's witty and worldly without being coarse. Nancy Mitford plays on many of the familiar themes of the time (1951), including Communism, the HUAC, pre-EU stereotypes about England and France and the USA. Apparently it was a Book of the Month Club choice in 1951 (aside: it's startling to think that American popular taste ran then to a novel liberally sprinkled with references to 18th century French literature and 17th century French drama). It still is enjoyable 60 years later.
