An openly biased and judgmental work, even if well-researched.
Obviously, Lovell got access to loads of valuable material, courtesy of some o2,5 stars
An openly biased and judgmental work, even if well-researched.
Obviously, Lovell got access to loads of valuable material, courtesy of some of the sisters themselves. Whether this was what affected her attitude towards them (had she been more objective toward Diana and Unity, maybe this source would have been cut off) or whether her stance was warped from the beginning is hard to say (though I tend to think the latter), still this biography is flawed and deficient despite the heaps of info crammed in.
Nancy is hardly there, Pam almost nonexistent & Debo is also an afterthought.
We are all humans, etcetera, but I, as a reader, expect much higher professionalism & a more detached attitude in biographies.
This was an informative read and interesting for a while, but the inaccuracies and cracks were obvious from the beginning and grated more and more as I read on.
IMHO, it's not a biographer's task to judge or to try and find extenuating circumstances for the pronounced moral or political foolishness and wrongdoings of some sisters, while laying the blame on and disapproving for much less of the others. (Unless, of course, a book is tailor-made upon special request of some "customer" or other....) I am trying to be less judgmental & more generous than Lovell herself, but most of the time this piece truly read like bespoke propaganda for Diana & Unity.
Lovell's strong and narrow-minded partiality towards Diana & Unity Mitford with their enthusiastic support for fascism & her trying to whitewash them was very disagreeable to say the least, especially as Jessica received quite a different treatment with her communist leanings. (Unity and Diana being bosom pals with Hitler were totally fine, while Jessica joining the communist party in California was treated like she was personally responsible for all of Stalin's horrible atrocities.)
Despite Lovell's disparaging and obtusely condemnatory characterisation of Jessica, she was still the true Star of the Mitford show for me and the only decent girl of this lot besides Pam (on whom L. doesn't waste precious time, because there was so much apologising to do for Nazi and Hitler-fan Unity and Diana!) and maybe Nancy....more
A DISTASTEFUL BOOK FROM AN OBNOXIOUS WOMAN WHO SHOULD BE OFFICIALLY BANNED FROM ANY KITCHEN INCLUDING HER OWN.
I saw the lovely film before reading theA DISTASTEFUL BOOK FROM AN OBNOXIOUS WOMAN WHO SHOULD BE OFFICIALLY BANNED FROM ANY KITCHEN INCLUDING HER OWN.
I saw the lovely film before reading the book (or trying to read it anyway) & I could not understand why Julia Child did not want to meet Julie Powell... Now I know & agree completely: I would/do not want to meet her either. Her / the book's only merit is her apparent honesty, though the fact that she thinks this kind of honesty is witty and hilarious as opposed to vulgar and cringeworthy rather diminishes it.
This book screamed I-AM-PHONY-AND-SELF-INDULGENT-AS-HELL pretty much from page 1, but I persisted until 50% when I lost patience and the last tiny shrThis book screamed I-AM-PHONY-AND-SELF-INDULGENT-AS-HELL pretty much from page 1, but I persisted until 50% when I lost patience and the last tiny shred of interest and decided that enough is enough.
Well, this book was a total letdown, a biography absolutely unworthy of Agatha Christie. The style was annoying & pretentious and gave me the feeling Well, this book was a total letdown, a biography absolutely unworthy of Agatha Christie. The style was annoying & pretentious and gave me the feeling that this book was a phoney, which I hate!!!!
We are told that the author had unique access to A.C.'s correspondence & other personal family papers. All the worse for her, because clearly she couldn't rise to the occasion and wasted her chances.
The book is jerky, rambles all over the place without agenda & structure, the author goes on about stuff in unnecessary circles and forgets where she wants to go, so we have no clue either.
DUH, enough said, it's not worth wasting more time over this...more
There are fake dramas that work so well, that you don't realise that they are fake, or even if you do, you don't mind.
Then there arAh, well...
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There are fake dramas that work so well, that you don't realise that they are fake, or even if you do, you don't mind.
Then there are those where you see them coming from the beginning (a good example for this is another book I read from this author, The Forgotten Garden) and dislike them at once.
This book was an in-between. It's fairly well written and in the beginning I did not realise anything was amiss. Despite the length, and sometimes being a bit bored, I read on quickly enough, because I wanted to get to the end of it. But when I did ... the fake drama came and slapped me in the face, which of course I did not like in the least and the whole experience got spoiled.
Review summed up in 2 words: OVERBLOWN and UNDERWHELMING A perfect example of FAKE DRAMA and misery porn.
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To be fair, this is actually a beautifReview summed up in 2 words: OVERBLOWN and UNDERWHELMING A perfect example of FAKE DRAMA and misery porn.
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To be fair, this is actually a beautifully written book and its voice is quite seductive, however, the incongruence of voice and story very soon becomes apparent and grating.
I know I was supposed to think that it was the clutches of cruel, inexorable FATE the characters were wriggling in without the hope of escape, instead of their own infinite STUPIDITY, which was so excruciating that I just wanted to bang my head to the wall several times and scream.
This was my second and last book by Kate Morton. We clearly don't hit it off and never will....more
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