The Blessing (Vintage)
The Blessing (Vintage)
- ISBN13: 9780307740830
- Condition: New
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The Blessing is one of Nancy Mitford’s most personal books, a wickedly funny story that asks whether love can survive the clash of cultures.
When Grace Allingham, a naïve young Englishwoman, goes to live in France with her dashingly aristocratic husband Charles-Edouard, she finds herself overwhelmed by the bewilderingly foreign cuisine and the shockingly decadent manners and mores of the French. But it is the discovery of her husband’s French notion of marriage—which includes a permanent mistress and a string of casual affairs—that sends Grace packing back to London with their “blessing,” young Sigismond, in tow. While others urge the couple to reconcile, little Sigi—convinced that it will improve his chances of being spoiled—applies all his juvenile cunning to keeping his parents apart. Drawing on her own years in Paris and her long affair with a Frenchman, Mitford elevates cultural and romantic misunderstandings to the heights of comedy.
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(out of 17 reviews)
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Review by A. Woodley for The Blessing (Vintage)
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My only real complaint about “The Blessing” is that it is not told by Fanny (as is The Pursuit of Love, Love in a Cold Climate and Don’t Tell Alfred) – but it is part of the series. Sigi, Grace and Charles Edouard turn up as crucial characters in ‘Don’t tell Alfred’ so it is part of the series of four – and I just love Fanny and her wonderfully eccentric relatives.This is the story of Grace – beautiful, glamorous but slightly unintellectual British girl who has a hurried love match with wildly attractive and irresistible Frenchman, Charles-Edouard. Within 2 weeks they are married but then only see each other once in the next 7 years. A happy consequence of those first impassioned days is The Blessing – a son, Sigismond. Charles-Eduoard returns, sweeping Grace and Sigismond off to France and a new life. She has to come to terms with France, french life, and a very, very French husband who loves women. Unfortunately for Grace and Charles-Eduoard, what they don’t realise is that it is also about Sigismond coming to terms with growing up with two parents and not quite so much attention. The marriage falls apart by degrees weighed down by Grace’s expectations, a cunning, scheming young son and a staunchly English Nanny.Mitford writes characters with such a light touch and such irreverent good fun it is wonderful to watch the whole relationship peeled back like layers of an onion…. Its enjoyable sharp social satire of life just after the war in Britain and France.
Review by darragh o’donoghue for The Blessing (Vintage)
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Nancy Mitford’s comic variant on ‘The American’ is certainly more FUN than Henry James ever was; after a bitty start, it turns into a classic comedy about cultural clashes, loneliness, abandonment, love. Mitford’s eye is strictly realistic in her attitudes, if not her style – in the tacit spaces, one can hear Grace’s howls of despair. The book is full of exquisite characters – Charles-Edouard, dashing, aristocratic, Resistance hero who uses his Frenchness as an excuse for serial adultery; Sigi, the Blessing ot the title, a devious monster who sees his happiness in his parents’ divorce; the variously sophisticated and cynical grandes dames of French society; the spectacularly pompous ‘Heck’ Dexter, millionaire advisor to the US President. But Mitford not only has a gift for portraying eccentricity; she somehow makes dogged dullness palpable as in Grace’s half-hearted suitor Hughie. This is Mitford’s most Waugh-like novel – full of short, pregnant, elliptical scenes, told in terse, comic sentences. The frustrating lack of structure means that scenes don’t accumulate emotionally as they do in Waugh, leaving the book feeling a little thin (unlike her masterpieces, ‘The Pursuit of Love’ and ‘Love in a Cold Climate’), but with this much pleasure, who cares?
Review by Leslie Chang for The Blessing (Vintage)
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– as Nancy Mitford herself would have said. The Blessing, along with Love in a Cold Climate, represents the best of her always hilarious fiction. Evelyn Waugh gets all the credit for being the satirist of their generation (if you really want to be amused, read their correspondence, expertly edited by Charlotte Mosley, Mitford’s niece-in-law), but there was no one funnier than Mitford then nor, alas, is there anyone as funny now, a fact which says much — none of it good — about our current society and how (groan) seriously we all take ourselves. I mean, think about it: the woman lived through the Blitz, a sister’s attempted suicide, another sister’s imprisonment (tho’ Nancy herself was partially responsible for that one), her brother’s death in WW II, and several miscarriages. If she could still poke such brilliant fun at herself and others, then why must we all act like self-absorbed guests at one giant pity party? What I wouldn’t give for a good shrieker these days.
Review by sweetmolly for The Blessing (Vintage)
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Nancy Mitford is so baad. She (and Alice Roosevelt Longworth) have a shared sentiment: “If you have absolutely nothing good to say about anyone, sit right down here next to me.” Her story is a witty frolic. She pokes marvelous fun at the staid British virtues of bad food, bad weather and cold country houses. Usually I am very unamused at some Brit writing in a condescending manner about us colonists other wise known as American citizens. But Ms. Mitford catches an intelligent, but-oh-so-boring American perfectly. You can even hear the corporate cadence.I did not find it dated, it wears well, and now I’ll have to go on a Nancy Mitford hunt.
Review by Megan for The Blessing (Vintage)
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That even includes Love in a Cold Climate, actually! I thought this book was very funny and quite brilliant.It follows the marriage of a sweet English belle to a handsome, wealthy frenchman from a very well connected family. The marriage is rocky, as the two come from very different backgrounds, but they have their son, “the blessing,” to tie them together.As Nancy lived in Paris and grew up in England, she obviously knows a lot of the details about living in both places. The details are perfect. If you are interested in what Paris high society was like in the 1950′s, you should definately read this book: Nancy obviously knows all of the gossip.If you’ve read “What Maisie Knew” you MUST read this book. I saw this book as quite a brilliant parody of that one. If I said more, it would give too much away, so just take my word for it.