| Title | : | Christmas Pudding |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0786705760 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780786705764 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 178 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1932 |
Christmas Pudding Reviews
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This is one of the early books of Nancy Mitford and reflects her own upbringing rather than anything else. Aristocrats are the only people that count, everyone else is a lower form of human life. Including the main character, an author who although not aristocratic at least went to the 'right' school. He has written a book that was high tragedy but everyone thinks is the last word in humour. He is humiliated and determined to write a biography of a titled woman who achieved nothing much in life at all except writing bad poetry.
The whole point of the book to me is to show that the mores of the day amongst these 'upper' class people are that it is all right to be a con artist, ok to screw around, lying isn't a problem and that no one works for a living. The book ends having made the point that love is a stupid reason to get married, but if you must, screwing around is fun. The real reason for marriage is to gain status from a title and money. As with love, don't worry about being faithful... just produce an heir and you're set for life.
Has anything actually changed? The lovely Princess Diana was 19, an aristocrat and a virgin, so she was married off to the Prince of Wales, her for love and him for the heir. The night before his wedding he gave the despicable Mrs Parker-Bowles a bracelet with their names engraved in it. Despite each of them being married to someone else they never stopped their affair. Diana, for some reason, had not absorbed the lessons of aristocrat marriage and thought she was married to a man who loved her and would be faithful. However, she did learn and commenced her own adventures.
As a farce, a la Oscar Wilde (whose plays I dislike) it would succeed, being silly. As a book, it just makes you think that these people who got their titles by providing means, men or money to kings in history and often made money from piracy and slavery, and who have no discernible moral sit and rule over us in the House of Lords.
2.5 stars -
3,5/5
Nancy Mitford es lo mío.
Me he divertido mucho con este librito sobre un grupo de variopintos personajes que van a pasar la Navidad a la mansión de Lady Bobbin, una aristócrata más bien insoportable.
Aunque al principio me costó un poquito concentrarme en la historia y personajes, de la mitad al final no podía parar. Me encanta la reflexión constante que hace del matrimonio, ¿Casarse por amor? La peor de las ideas, ¿Por dinero? Solo si el tipo es un millonario. -
Less about a Christmas. More about the virtues of not marrying for love. One of her earlier books; I feel like here Mitford started to understand character well but was still a bit missing on plot. But the, so often pretty savage, humour is already there. Recommend reading during a dreary winter day when you’re being disappointed by relationships and starting to accept you should probably just marry for money
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So much fun, a true guilty pleasure. I particularly recommend this if you are home in bed with a cold wearing a bed jacket and sipping tea from a Limoges cup.
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I have recently bought all of
Nancy Mitford's novels, and intend to read all eight.
Christmas Pudding (1932) follows on from
Nancy Mitford's first novel
Highland Fling (1931). Some of the same characters appear in both books. I enjoyed the continuation, however
Christmas Pudding works perfectly well as a stand-alone novel.
In
Christmas Pudding, which, despite the title, contains only a limited amount of Christmassy content, the usual array of colourful aristocratic characters converge in various settings. The younger Bright Young Things displaying their usual mix of homespun philosophy, bored affectation, and commenting on each other's love lives, and other gossip, whilst the older generation do much the same whilst also despairing about the younger generation, declining standards and the dangers of Bolsheviks.
When it's good it's wonderful. At the outset there's a character called Paul Fotheringay who is dismayed by the acclaim for his book. What he thinks is a serious work has been acclaimed as a comic masterpiece. There are other very amusing moments in the book too, and all told it is a light, easy, short and amusing book. As in
Highland Fling, the book is best at bringing her various privileged characters vividly to life. At times this feels like reportage.
What I think the book lacks is any commentary or contrast. This is a hermetically sealed world where everyone is immune to the consequences of their actions, and the faceless domestic staff are there to smooth the way ahead. At least with
P.G. Wodehouse the servants are given a voice, and also frequently used to highlight the idiosyncrasies (and occasionally the stupidity) of those above stairs. The story is very much told from the centre of
Nancy Mitford's world. I am reliably informed that this changes as
Nancy Mitford develops as an author, and there is a discernible change between her first four novels, and her second four novels. I am looking forward to moving through her work and observing her development first hand.
Christmas Pudding is a better book that
Highland Fling, and both are very enjoyable. I laughed more during
Christmas Pudding. So, in summary, its another enjoyable and humorous early novel from
Nancy Mitford.
3/5
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Creo que ya lo he comentado por aquí alguna vez, pero las Navidades no son precisamente santo de mi devoción, más bien al contrario. No obstante, siempre he reconocido que hay una nada despreciable buena cantidad de libros ambientados en estas fechas, y que me gusta leer alguno en los días de Nochebuena y navidad. Teóricamente, “Pudín de Navidad “ iba a ser mi lectura navideña de este año. Y digo lo de teóricamente porque este libro de navideño tiene poco, con la excepción de un par de escenas ambientadas en estas fiestas . ¿Me ha decepcionado esto? Pues siendo sincera, absolutamente para nada. Me lo he pasado muy bien leyendo esta novela, pero que muy bien. Y eso es con lo que mayoritariamente, me quedo. Siento mucho cariño por Nancy Mitford, pero he leído cuatro libros de ella y los dos últimos no acabaron de convencerme del todo. Quizás porque los dos primeros (“A la Caza del Amor” y “Amor en Clima Frío”) dejaron el listón muy alto. Así que, supongo que el que me haya gustado, esta obra tanto ha sido recibido, por este motivo, con tanta alegría. Además, que ella iba sobre aviso de que “Pudín de Navidad” no era realmente una obra navideña, así que advertida de antemano estaba.
En la rica mansión de Compton Bobbin y sus alrededores, en las fechas navideñas, se reúnen una serie de personajes que no solo están relacionados entre ellos, también acabaran por estarlo con la propia familia Bobbin. Dicha reunión se convertirá en una fuente y no contable de enredos amorosos , absurdos y despropósito varios. Protagonizados por “dieciséis personajes en busca de un autor”, que es como nos lo presenta su autora en el prólogo.
Me hace mucha gracia que la propia Nancy Mitford estuviera convencida de que esta obra, la segunda que publicó en su carrera, no era buena para nada. Ella misma la describió como “mal escrita, patética, insustancial y malísima”, seguramente exagerando un poco. Y a ver, quizás en lo de insustancial algo de razón tuviera. Porque, honestamente, no creo que sea una historia que le vaya a cambiar la vida a nadie, que llegue a emocionarle o a hacerle pensar sobre ideas profundas o acerca de la vida y todo lo demás. pero en todo lo demás, no estoy de acuerdo. Es cierto que quizás no sea una obra tan pulida como lo son escritos posteriores de la autora.Pero eso no le quita mérito como una pieza que divierte y entretiene muchísimo al lector, y que no pocas veces le hace soltar una carcajada (uno de los principales motivos por los que siento tanto cariño por Nancy, es porque es una de esas autoras que coja lo que coja de ella sé que me voy a reír). La ácida, crítica social y humana, que es más nítida en sus siguientes novelas, también está presente en este caso, solo que quizás no sea aquí tan pronunciada. Y esto deja más espacio para que “Pudín de Navidad” se convierta en una pura pieza satírica de entretenimiento. Lo cual es a tener muy en cuenta, porque para mi supone lo que es la literatura en uno de sus puntos más álgidos: entretener al lector y hacerle desconectar de la realidad. Que es algo que conmigo esta novela ha conseguido plenamente.
Por supuesto, uno de los puntos fuertes de la obra son los personajes que la protagonizan. De hecho, creo que el mayor punto fuerte de la misma. Hay que reconocer algo a Nancy: sabía hacer caracteres realmente carismáticos. La mezcla de todos ellos crea un cóctel que el lector se bebe, alegremente, porque se traga todo lo que ellos hacen desde la risa facil y el humor trabajado. Ni ellos mismos se toman en serio, todo es para ellos un juego, y el lector se mete en esa opereta con esa sensación. Todos ellos tienen el sello inconfundible de la autora. No pueden dejar indiferente, Pese a lo absurdas, estrafalarias y vacías, que son sus vidas y su forma de pensar. Son los hijos de la generación de entreguerras, deseosa de vivir a toda prisa y que no miraba hacia atrás, últimos reductos de la época eduardiana. Como económicamente ya lo tienen todo y no necesitan trabajar para vivir, su forma de entretenerse y quitarle horas al día es siendo lo más snob y estrafalario posible, protagonizando todo tipo de aventuras amorosas. Por ello, podrían resultar muy alejados del lector, chocarle. Y en gran parte, así es. Pero el buen hacer de esa autora logra hacerles como personajes que en el fondo tienen algo de patético, ya que sus vidas sean demasiado vacías para no sentir cierta compasión por ellos (muy poca, todo sea dicho). Y además, sus ocurrencias y vaivenes resultan, tantas veces, tan absurdos e irá antes que es muy divertido leer sobre ellos. Por no hablar que todos están muy bien desarrollados, tienen personales personalidades muy nítidas. Y eso ayuda a que rápidamente sepas quién es quién en este puzzle aristocrático y rural, lo cual aporta ligereza a la lectura.
Me parece que hay una diferencia muy interesante con aquellas familias de tientes biográficos que protagonizaban la trilogía de “A la Caza del Amor”: en esos tres libros la atmósfera era de decadencia total, representándose una sociedad en plena descomposición, cuyos estrafalarios y snobs miembros aún se aferraban al estilo de vida que habían conocido siempre. Un estilo de vida que en el caso que nos ocupa, “Pudín de Navidad”, aún sigue a toda marcha, plenamente vigente y con buena salud. Con poco tiempo de vida, eso si. No hay ese aire melancólico, y esa esencia triste que subyacen en todas las movidas e idas y venidas de los personajes de las siguientes obras de Mitford. Porque la Segunda Guerra Mundial y todo lo que conllevó y la produjo aún no han hecho su aparición plenamente, aún eran un eco lejano, por más que tronase cada vez más. De ahí que sean personajes que únicamente se limitan a vivir siguiendo los patrones que siempre han conocido. Falta ese factor que pronostica el fin de un modo de vida tan elitista, de hecho este está vivito y coleando con toda la intensidad.
La buena y querida Nancy Mitford. Aquí nos regala una novela que se basa en el matrimonio y sobre si este debe producirse por amor o por dinero. No nos confundamos, “Pudín de Navidad “no es una novela sobre el amor, sino sobre el matrimonio, que para la escritora no tiene porque ser necesariamente lo mismo. Pivota alrededor de una cuestión mucho más práctica, sobre la importancia del dinero respecto a otras cuestiones. Al fin de al cabo, Nancy, como muchas niñas, bien de su época, creció con la idea de que la única carrera disponible para una mujer de posibles era hacer una buena boda y vivir satisfecha con el bienestar económico y social que la proporcionase. Tenía ejemplos a mansalva a su alrededor, incluyendo a sus padres. De ahí que viera el matrimonio desde una perspectiva cínica y pragmática a más no poder. Para muestra un botón: la única pareja que se dice claramente que se casó por amor y que tienen una relación que puede superar. Cualquier cosa, viven con una mano delante y otra detrás, los problemas económicos son su pan de cada día. Mientras que los matrimonios que se hacen por dinero, presentan una perspectiva muy favorecedora, con el aliciente de que no tienen porque ser el único, sino el primero de una larga lista. Y es que a nuestra estimada autora aún le quedaba mucho que vivir, incluyendo un matrimonio que rápidamente hizo aguas y un amor imposible por un general polaco que nunca correspondió sus sentimientos. Pero aún faltaba mucho para que se permitiera a dejar aflorar ese romanticismo incurable que siempre mantuvo, pese a todo. Incluso sin que ella lo supiera.
Todo esto podría dejar como resultado un trabajo muy frío y demasiado enfocado en el humor, pero Nancy sabe cómo jugar con sus personajes y con un argumento que, a priori, es bastante plano. Se vale del humor, la sátira y la burla para crear algo muy entrañable y que fluye perfectamente, con un estilo fresco y desenfadado, pero no por ello, menos elegante y plagado de sentencias llenas de cinismo, pero certeras como dardos. Nancy conoce muy bien sobre qué escribe, y por ello prácticamente nunca pierde el timón. Y digo lo de prácticamente, porque aquí está el mayor problema que siempre he tenido con esta mujer: sus finales me parecen increíblemente precipitados y muy poco redondos.Deja muchas cosas en el aire y no acaba de cerrar bien todos los arcos argumentales, como si quisiera acabar la historia muy rápido y ponerse a otra cosa. Eso es lo que peor llevo de sus escritos. Además, en sus últimos capítulos, siento que el argumento (ya liviano de por sí) va perdiendo peso hasta desembocar en ese final del que os hablo.
Casi se me olvida. La edición en la que nos viene esta obra, que corre a cargo de la editorial catedral, es una auténtica delicia. Está muy cuidada y tiene un toque muy elegante y engañosamente navideño. Y viene con ilustraciones en el interior, creadas por el artista Jacobo Muñiz. Aunque me han gustado mucho, me parece que son ilustraciones que tienen tanta personalidad que muchas veces se anteponen a lo que está escrito, no lo acompañan. Pero de todas formas, tienen un aire british antiguo muy interesante. Me llama mucho la atención, el detalle de que los personajes aparezcan con una suerte de tuercas en los brazos, como si fueran meras marionetas. Es un detalle muy significativo.
En resumidas cuentas, “Pudín de Navidad” es una de esas obras que no va a cambiar la vida de nadie, pero que entretenerle le va a entretener un rato. Nancy Mitford nos regala una historia de enredos que podía haberse quedado en algo muy tópico y hasta simple, sino fuera por los estrafalarios personajes que la protagonizan y por el cinismo y sátira que imperan en todas sus páginas. Casi, casi dan ganas de casarse por dinero para darle cierto dramatismo vintage a tu vida.
Por cierto, a ver si de una vez me leo un eterno pendiente que tengo en mis estanterías, una biografía de las hermanas Mitford de la editorial Circe. La tengo muchas ganas, y nunca veo el momento para empezarla. -
3.5
I found this very entertaining to begin with, an upper-class farce, but I felt it ran out of steam towards the end. Perhaps I wouldn't have if I'd read it in one sitting, but the second half was very cynical. -
Clever and fun!
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Paul Fotheringay is in despair. He has just written a best-selling novel! The problem? Everyone thinks his novel is so funny when it was meant to be tragic. He is in search of a new book and hits upon the idea of publishing work about a 19th century ancestress of Lady Bobbin, permission for which Lady Bobbin has soundly refused. Her irrepressible son Bobby finds a way to sneak Paul into Crompton Bobbin. His sister, Philadelphia, is stuck in the country bored to death and longing for romance. Sally and Walter Montheath are new parents and poor and need a little break. Luckily, their friend ex-lady of the evening, Amabelle Fortescue, has invited all her friends to a Christmas gathering at her rented country home Mulberrie- right near Crompton Bobbin. The characters lives intersect and they interact with unpredictable and amusing results.
This is a witty story about upper crust English men and women in the vein of Jane Austen. The writing is not so sophisticated or smooth as dear Jane's; nor does the story really speak to me or bear any relevance to my life. I enjoyed it as amusing, mostly mindless fun. The plot moves slowly- it's not an action filled story and there are way too many characters to keep track of. I kept forgetting who was who. None of them were all that appealing. The passages from Lady Maria's diary were a scream! Paul's reaction to them is amusing from the perspective of the reader.
The main character, if there is one, is Paul Fotheringay, a depressed writer in search of inspiration. He doesn't have much drive and is very passive. He let a teenager plan his life for him. I didn't care for his lack of backbone in dealing with a tricky situation. The next most prominently featured character is Bobby Bobbin, Lady Bobbin's son home from Eton for the holidays. He's crazy, irresponsible, selfish and massively irritating. Every scene he's in he is trying to thwart his mother, as all teens try to. Life is one big game to him. He doesn't experience any character growth. His sister Philadelphia is as dutiful and morose as Bobby is full of joie de vivre. I don't blame her. I think I would be depressed too if I had her life. She's not very bright and has high expectations placed on her. I liked how she thought she knew her own mind but didn't like how her story ended up.
Lady Bobbin is a disagreeable, eccentric tyrant. She's awful to her children and not really interested in her neighbors except when they come to hunt. With an outbreak of Hoof and Mouth disease, the hunting season is postponed. There is also the recent troubles (Great Depression) which put a damper on how things should be done. She's a terrible mother and completely out of touch with the world.
Amabelle is the matchmaker of the group. Married three times already, she isn't interested in marriage herself but likes to see others happy. She thinks she knows what's best for everyone. She has some good insights into the characters' personalities and marriage which I found interesting. I don't know if I would agree with her.
Some of the views expressed in this book are outdated but not excessive. The story is not as amusing as a P.G. Wodehouse romp and the only thing Christmas about it is the time of year it takes place. Fans of the English country house novel will enjoy this one. -
A bit rich.
A gallery of silly, posh grotesques gather at Lady Bobbin’s Gloucestershire pile for the festive season while just down the lane, ex-courtesan Amabelle Fortescue has taken a country house for Christmas. A borderline farce-cum-satire ensues but the whole thing is rather like an over-rich pudding – dreadfully dated. -
This is the first book I think, that I've been exactly in sync with time-wise. So I read the chapter about Christmas day on that day, and the day after...well, you get the picture. It was sort of 3D reading, if there is such a thing. It was a little game I had all by myself. Silly me.
Anyway, funny book. It reminded me slightly of P.G. Wodehouse - slightly. What was nice was that there were some really sharp comments thrown in every once in a while, for spice.
A sampling:
"The trouble is,...that people expect happiness in life. I can't imagine why; but they do. They are unhappy before they marry, and they imagine to themselves that the reason of their unhappiness will be removed when they are married. When it isn't they blame the other person, which is clearly absurd. I believe that is what generally starts the trouble."
"It's a funny thing, that people are always quite willing to admit it if they've no talent for drawing or music, whereas everyone imagines that they themselves are capable of true love, which is a talent like any other, only far more rare."
I respect a person who can throw statements like that into the mix. There's always an edge, and I like to see it acknowledged. -
You can’t blame the publishers - a famous name, a great title: pretty it up with a lovely cover and endpapers by Emily Sutton and hey presto! - you have a seasonal seller.
Without the author’s name & seasonal relevance this definitely would be mouldering away in the out-of-print heap.
Mitford’s second novel, it shows the young writer still struggling to find her voice. The undigested influence of Evelyn Waugh, PG Wodehouse and EF Benson’s Lucia novels is heavily apparent, minus these writers’ elegant styles, sharp plotting, and skewering satire. I also detected some random elements of Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw rattling away in the mix.
There are some excellent raw ingredients in the novel - but Mitford doesn’t follow through on the set-up and her characterisation, even for this kind of social comedy where stock types are virtually obligatory, lacks definition. Despite her personally impeccable aristocratic provenance I felt her observations of country house life seemed rehashed and derivative, not original. The book sometimes raises a smile but more often is merely tedious. -
If you've ever wanted a country-house mystery without the mystery part, this is a good book to read. I was just in the mood for this sort of fluff. Rather like Wodehouse without the constant self-conscious attempts to be witty and amusing, this is the story of the course of true love--or at least the quest for material and emotional security, which in upper class 1930s England, apparently amounted to the same thing. Faint heart never won fair lady, and neither did indolent lounge lizard. Unhappy Philadelphia Bobbin reminded me strongly of Jessica Mitford's description of her sister, unhappy Unity Valkyrie; unfortunately Unity fell in love with a concept, not a person. Her brother Bobby talks a bit too much like a gushing girl to pull off the smart aleck OE boy he is meant to be. I enjoyed this much more than I did Mitford's first novel. Very atmospheric and rather truer to life than other satires of its day.
Nothing changes at certain levels, even as everything else does. -
Algo inconexo y con un final, tal vez, precipitado para mí, tiene escenas divertidisimas y personajes caricaturescos, que en el fondo son un pelín horribles pero encantadores. Me gustó, muy Mitford
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Què us diré?
Una superficialitat extrema de la classe benestant anglesa amb unes històries personals i unes expectatives de futur tan pobres com desencisadores.
A partir de la meitat del llibre m'he començat a avorrir i a plantejar-me seriosament la possibilitat de tancar la novel·la per sempre més. Només m'ha mantingut ferma l'esperança d'un final inesperat o intel·ligent, o els dos alhora. Fracàs absolut. -
Nothing spectacular, but quite amusing. I'd say this is for people who like Wodehouse and Thirkell. I wanted something light and it was just the thing.
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Дотепний стиль авторки після першого розділу налаштував багатообіцяючи. Але розділ за розділом я очікувала якоїсь захоплюючої зав'язки, яка все не наставала, бо, мабуть, її персонажі занадто легковажні аристократи і очікувати ві�� них серйозних вчинків чи глибоких почуттів було марно.
По стилю і сюжету, твір нагадав мені п'єси Оскара Вайльда, але на відміну від них, тут не знайшлося персонажа, за перепитії якого хотілося переживати.
Мабуть, я очікувала чогось іншого від книжки, але навіть її назва мене підвела, бо історія виявилася не надто різдвяна.
Вцілому, 2.5. Але якщо обирати між 2 і 3, то я схиляюсь до першого, бо не думаю, що комусь б її радила. -
Et bien en voila une jolie decouverte!!!
Direction 'je vais lire tous ces bouquins'land. Des bisouilles à toi. -
Very droll. An amusing writing style with a few memorable sentences, but in the end I got bored. I felt it was liking watching a good comedy sketch that went on too long. It concerns the adventures and love lives of some rich, mostly rich young things, some time in the 1920s or 30s I assume.
There are some truly funny moments, and some great phrases, but the story line was not strong enough. But if you want some nice light fluff you may enjoy, especially if you like stories of pre WW2 English aristocracy.
The front of my edition carries some warnings about prejudices - I think you would have to be especially sensitive to be that bothered by them. -
Christmas Pudding was quick and easy to read, and the satire is amusing without being spiteful. It satirises The Country House Novel with a gathering of disparate souls in Gloucestershire, where Lady Bobbin is in high dudgeon because The Hunt has been called off owing to an outbreak of foot and mouth disease, and Amabelle Fortescue has taken a large mock Tudor house called Mulberrie Farm to amuse herself and her smart city friends.
Amabelle has ‘a past’ which is tactfully not named:
Amabelle Fortescue, unlike so many members of her late profession, was an intelligent, a cultured and a thoroughly nice woman. The profession itself had, in fact, been more a result of circumstances than the outcome of natural inclination. Cast alone and penniless upon the world by the death of her father, who had been a respectable and well-known don at Oxford, she had immediately decided, with characteristic grasp of a situation, that one of her many talents which amounted almost to genius should be that employed to earn her bread, board and lodging. Very soon after this decision was put into practice, the bread was, as it were, lost to sight beneath a substantial layer of Russian caviar; the board, changing with the fashions of years, first took to itself a lace tablecloth, then exposed a gleaming surface of polished mahogany, and finally became transformed into a piece of scrubbed and rotting oak; while the lodging, which had originally been one indeed, and on the wrong side of Campden Hill, was now a large and beautiful house in Portman Square. (p. 19)
City and country are brought together by Paul Fotheringay, in deep despair because his first book, penned as a poignant tragedy, has been hailed a great comic success. To console himself, he decides to write a biography of Lady Bobbin’s ancestor, a Victorian poet by name of Lady Maria Almanack, but is brushed off by Lady Bobbin when he requests permission to research the poet’s journals. To gain access he poses as a tutor to Lady Bobbin’s son, setting up the situation where Bobby, in his final year at Eton, can amuse himself at nearby Amabelle’s, and Paul can read the journals undisturbed.
To read the rest of my review please visit
http://anzlitlovers.com/2016/01/08/ch... -
Christmas Pudding marque ma découverte de l'oeuvre de Nancy Mitford. Ce court roman offre un beau moment de détente auprès de ces personnages tous plus drôles les uns que les autres. Le ton est mordant et c'est un vrai plaisir de lecture !
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Neither that good nor that seasonal tbh
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Divertit i amè. Amb uns personatges als qui plantaries una plantofada amb la mà ben oberta de tan esnobs i simples com arriben a ser. Però passes una bona estona.
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For the most part this made for light and humorous holiday reading, though the upperclass stuffiness and dysfunction are stretched to the uppermost limit. The whole bit with sadsack author Paul's heavy literary novel being praised as "the funniest book of the year", sending him into a depression, made me laugh pretty hard. Paul, a bitter and mostly penniless intellectual who can't seem to find anything to do with his Oxford degree, is our unlikely romantic hero. He pretends to be a baronet's tutor over the Christmas holidays (long story), and ends up hopelessly, improbably besotted with Philadelphia Bobbin, the under-stimulated daughter of landed gentry. It's all obviously headed for catastrophe that may rival Paul's literary attempts--none of the relationships in this book seem healthy, and by the end Ms. Mitford tips her hand, seeming to agree.
Some of the best funny bits involve horses, especially Paul's terrifying trot aboard Boudicea, who apparently dislikes being compared to a cow. -
This one was such a delightful romp of a book! I was incredibly entertained from beginning to end. I read my first Wodehouse this year, and this one really reminded me of his writing style - particularly in the way it pokes enormous fun at the British upper class - though I'll admit I actually enjoyed Mitford more.
I was slightly disappointed about the fact that, despite its very Christmassy title, the story itself wasn't Christmassy at all. I usually pick up a Christmas-themed book in the December to get properly into the festive spirit, but with the lack of Christmas vibes in this one, it didn't quite help me achieve that goal.
That doesn't change the fact that I enjoyed the book a lot, and I might very well pick up more Mitford in the future!
/NK -
Lo único que tiene este libro de “navideño” es la declaración de que la historia empieza un poco antes de Nochebuena, antes de una fiesta en la que todos los personajes concurrirán.
Aun así, el humor no fue mucho de mi agrado. Las situaciones absurdas, aunque a ratos entretenidas, me fastidiaron después de un rato.
La crítica que hace Nancy Mitford de la sociedad inglesa de aquella época es de lo rescatable, en mi opinión, pero no la historia ni el humor me entretuvieron realmente.
Por otro lado, las ilustraciones si que me gustaron y lograron endulzar un poquito mi rato con este libro :) -
A jolly festive romp!
An easy read that kept me entertained throughout. Country Houses, silly love affairs, incredible characters this book has it all and has a sprinkling of the festive season too.
Loved it.
Not quite a 4 star book but deserves more that 3 stars. -
C’est délicieusement acerbe, dans les propos de la narration que ceux des personnages.
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3 / 3,5 estrellas
Aunque no es el libro que me ha gustado de la autora, para mí las novelas de Nancy Mitford siempre son garantía de pasar un buen rato.
En este caso estamos ante una comedia de enredo, frívola, rápida y plagada de personajes excéntricos (muy en la línea de la autora).
Tal vez en esta ocasión la trama es algo más dispersa, por la cantidad de personajes, a cual más "especialito" que van haciendo entrada y salida a lo largo de la historia, pero no deja de ser una caricaturización de esa alta sociedad británica (y de la nobleza rural venida a menos) del periodo de entreguerras, lo cual a mí ya me hace disfrutar, entre tanto "salseo" y frivolidad.
