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Hons and Rebels
Jessica Mitford, the great muckraking journalist, was part of a legendary English aristocratic family. Her sisters included Nancy, doyenne of the 1920s London smart set and a noted novelist and biographer; Diana, wife to the English fascist chief Sir Oswald Mosley; Unity, who fell head over in heels in love with Hitler; and Deborah, later the Duchess of Devonshire. Jessica swung left and moved to America, where she took part in the civil rights movement and wrote her classic expose of the undertaking business, The American Way of Death.
Hons and Rebels is the hugely entertaining tale of Mitford's upbringing, which was, as she dryly remarks, not exactly conventional. . . Debo spent silent hours in the chicken house learning to do an exact imitation of the look of pained concentration that comes over a hen's face when it is laying an egg. . . . Unity and I made up a complete language called Boudledidge, unintelligible to any but ourselves, in which we translated various dirty songs (for safe singing in front of the grown-ups). But Mitford found her family's world as smothering as it was singular and, determined to escape it, she eloped with Esmond Romilly, Churchill's nephew, to go fight in the Spanish Civil War. The ensuing scandal, in which a British destroyer was dispatched to recover the two truants, inspires some of Mitford's funniest, and most pointed, pages.
A family portrait, a tale of youthful folly and high-spirited adventure, a study in social history, a love story, Hons and Rebels is a delightful contribution to the autobiographer's art.
Hons and Rebels is the hugely entertaining tale of Mitford's upbringing, which was, as she dryly remarks, not exactly conventional. . . Debo spent silent hours in the chicken house learning to do an exact imitation of the look of pained concentration that comes over a hen's face when it is laying an egg. . . . Unity and I made up a complete language called Boudledidge, unintelligible to any but ourselves, in which we translated various dirty songs (for safe singing in front of the grown-ups). But Mitford found her family's world as smothering as it was singular and, determined to escape it, she eloped with Esmond Romilly, Churchill's nephew, to go fight in the Spanish Civil War. The ensuing scandal, in which a British destroyer was dispatched to recover the two truants, inspires some of Mitford's funniest, and most pointed, pages.
A family portrait, a tale of youthful folly and high-spirited adventure, a study in social history, a love story, Hons and Rebels is a delightful contribution to the autobiographer's art.
284 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1960
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About the author
Jessica Mitford
43 books198 followersJessica Lucy Freeman-Mitford was an English author, journalist and political campaigner, who was one of the Mitford sisters. She gained American citizenship in later life.
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June 20, 2023
Real Rating: 4.25* of five
I fastened on this at a liberry sale I went to recently, remembering that someone I follow on LibraryThing was on a Mitford Girls kick. I was inspired to buy it by its ten cent price and also its ghastly, 60s-Penguin "artwork" cover. I like that it says "3/6" for a price, so exotic and incomprehensible. And also, The American Way of Death made a **huge** impression on me as a boy, so I wanted to know more about Miss Mitford.
Oh, the joys of being in a master's hands. Mitford dashes off, apparently effortlessly, sketches of her bizarre family, never straying into hatefulness even where antipathy exists. Her completely unconventional upbringing wuth a mother who refused to vaccinate her (a decision with a horrible, tragic cost later: Mitford contracted measles and gave them to her newborn daughter, who died as a result), contending that "the Good Body" knew its stuff, and a father whose major occupations appear to have been shouting and stomping and campaigning for Conservative politicians. Her wildly disparate sisters, novelist Nancy as the eldest and the most remote from Jessica; Diana, the great beauty and future Fascist; and Unity, the tragic figure of the family, a giant Valkyrie (ironically enough, this is also her middle name!) with an outsized personality to match, whose horrible fate was to try unsuccessfully to kill herself when her beloved Nazi Germany made war on her homeland. (The other sisters, Pam and Deborah, pretty much don't figure into Jessica's life, and her brother Tom was so much older he was more of a visiting uncle.)
So Jessica tells us the tale of someone born into privilege, luxury, and uselessness, who finds all of these qualities completely intolerable and who cannot, cannot, cannot endure the idea of the life that is laid out before her. She doesn't know what she believes, but she's sure it's not what her family believes.
I fell in love with her right then and there. I felt the same way. Jesus, racism, and conservative politics made me nauseated, as they did my eldest sister.
So Jessica Mitford, Girl Rebel, looks for a way out: Her cousin Esmond, a professional rebel with a published book and a troublemaking newspaper founded and run before he was 16, fit the bill. She spends a year finagling an introduction to him, suprisingly difficult because she's so sheltered and he's so disreputable; but once it happens, it was the proverbial match to gas!
I adored Esmond as much as Jessica did, and I adored Jessica as much as Esmond did. I cried when they lost their first daughter so unnecessarily; I cheered when they got to own that bar in Miami; I sat numbed by the enormity of Jessica's loss when Esmond died when he was 23, fighting against the Fascists he'd hated all his life, whether Spanish, English, or German.
I am so glad that I finally read this book that's as old as I am, being published in 1960. (My copy isn't that old, it dates from 1962.) It's very instructive to be reminded that youth isn't necessarily wasted on the young.
If you take my advice, you'll read it to experience the joys and sorrows of youth one more time, from a safe distance; but the stakes remain high, because the storyteller is so talented.
I fastened on this at a liberry sale I went to recently, remembering that someone I follow on LibraryThing was on a Mitford Girls kick. I was inspired to buy it by its ten cent price and also its ghastly, 60s-Penguin "artwork" cover. I like that it says "3/6" for a price, so exotic and incomprehensible. And also, The American Way of Death made a **huge** impression on me as a boy, so I wanted to know more about Miss Mitford.
Oh, the joys of being in a master's hands. Mitford dashes off, apparently effortlessly, sketches of her bizarre family, never straying into hatefulness even where antipathy exists. Her completely unconventional upbringing wuth a mother who refused to vaccinate her (a decision with a horrible, tragic cost later: Mitford contracted measles and gave them to her newborn daughter, who died as a result), contending that "the Good Body" knew its stuff, and a father whose major occupations appear to have been shouting and stomping and campaigning for Conservative politicians. Her wildly disparate sisters, novelist Nancy as the eldest and the most remote from Jessica; Diana, the great beauty and future Fascist; and Unity, the tragic figure of the family, a giant Valkyrie (ironically enough, this is also her middle name!) with an outsized personality to match, whose horrible fate was to try unsuccessfully to kill herself when her beloved Nazi Germany made war on her homeland. (The other sisters, Pam and Deborah, pretty much don't figure into Jessica's life, and her brother Tom was so much older he was more of a visiting uncle.)
So Jessica tells us the tale of someone born into privilege, luxury, and uselessness, who finds all of these qualities completely intolerable and who cannot, cannot, cannot endure the idea of the life that is laid out before her. She doesn't know what she believes, but she's sure it's not what her family believes.
I fell in love with her right then and there. I felt the same way. Jesus, racism, and conservative politics made me nauseated, as they did my eldest sister.
So Jessica Mitford, Girl Rebel, looks for a way out: Her cousin Esmond, a professional rebel with a published book and a troublemaking newspaper founded and run before he was 16, fit the bill. She spends a year finagling an introduction to him, suprisingly difficult because she's so sheltered and he's so disreputable; but once it happens, it was the proverbial match to gas!
I adored Esmond as much as Jessica did, and I adored Jessica as much as Esmond did. I cried when they lost their first daughter so unnecessarily; I cheered when they got to own that bar in Miami; I sat numbed by the enormity of Jessica's loss when Esmond died when he was 23, fighting against the Fascists he'd hated all his life, whether Spanish, English, or German.
I am so glad that I finally read this book that's as old as I am, being published in 1960. (My copy isn't that old, it dates from 1962.) It's very instructive to be reminded that youth isn't necessarily wasted on the young.
If you take my advice, you'll read it to experience the joys and sorrows of youth one more time, from a safe distance; but the stakes remain high, because the storyteller is so talented.
January 1, 2024
“Those who tangled with Ms. Mitford always knew they had been in a fight.” -Christopher Hitchens
Had I not known this was a memoir I might have thought it an imaginative adventure novel. Born into upper crust English society in 1917 Jessica Mitford came of age within a family where fascism was in vogue and Hitler was, at least to her older sister Unity, a personal acquaintance. In a family of prewar brown-shirt sympathizers, rebellious Jessica was the ‘red sheep.’
What exactly is a Hon?
The American that I am always proves to be something of a handicap when reading English authors. Hon here in Oklahoma is verbal shorthand for “Honey” and is used as a term of endearment. Apparently in England (correct me in the comments if I’m wrong) it is an abbreviation for ‘Honorable’ and annotates a person’s title or social status. The Hons of Hons and Rebels is neither honey nor particularly honorable, but rather a nod to the secret childhood society Jessica and her sister Deborah formed, which was itself a nod to her mother’s chickens.
“Contrary to a recent historian’s account of the origin of the Hons the name derived, not from the fact that Debo and I were Honorables, but from the Hens which played so large a part in our lives . . . The H of Hon, of course, is pronounced, as in Hen.” (pg 6)
On the Right Side of History
By the time Jessica Mitford published this memoir (1960) she had already made her mark as “a great muckraking journalist” and an activist in the American Civil Rights movement. It seems that no matter where life took her or who she rubbed elbows with she was never above committing herself to the fray of a just cause. This memoir is a window into a portion of that life—1917 to around 1941. It is written with the clarity of hindsight and with an inordinate amount of humor and grace. Easily 5 stars.
Had I not known this was a memoir I might have thought it an imaginative adventure novel. Born into upper crust English society in 1917 Jessica Mitford came of age within a family where fascism was in vogue and Hitler was, at least to her older sister Unity, a personal acquaintance. In a family of prewar brown-shirt sympathizers, rebellious Jessica was the ‘red sheep.’
What exactly is a Hon?
The American that I am always proves to be something of a handicap when reading English authors. Hon here in Oklahoma is verbal shorthand for “Honey” and is used as a term of endearment. Apparently in England (correct me in the comments if I’m wrong) it is an abbreviation for ‘Honorable’ and annotates a person’s title or social status. The Hons of Hons and Rebels is neither honey nor particularly honorable, but rather a nod to the secret childhood society Jessica and her sister Deborah formed, which was itself a nod to her mother’s chickens.
“Contrary to a recent historian’s account of the origin of the Hons the name derived, not from the fact that Debo and I were Honorables, but from the Hens which played so large a part in our lives . . . The H of Hon, of course, is pronounced, as in Hen.” (pg 6)
On the Right Side of History
By the time Jessica Mitford published this memoir (1960) she had already made her mark as “a great muckraking journalist” and an activist in the American Civil Rights movement. It seems that no matter where life took her or who she rubbed elbows with she was never above committing herself to the fray of a just cause. This memoir is a window into a portion of that life—1917 to around 1941. It is written with the clarity of hindsight and with an inordinate amount of humor and grace. Easily 5 stars.
July 4, 2017
I really enjoyed this book. One gets a different perspective of the Mitfords, a perspective from within. Jessica tells of her life and her family from her point of view. Events are told with immediacy, with a girlish gush of enthusiasm that feels thoroughly honest, genuine, youthful and engaging.
I got a huge kick out of the humor in the book’s lines. Underlying the humor is a seriousness which provides food for thought.
Before reading this book it is helpful to already be acquainted with the basics about the family. For that I recommend The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family by Mary S. Lovell. It was very good, so I gave it four stars too. Having read that and so a solid groundwork to stand on, Jessica’s book gives the reader further insight into Jessica’s own character and her relationships with her sisters.
Unfortunately the book stops too soon. It covers her privileged, aristocratic childhood, elopement with her second cousin Esmond Romilly, both only 19 years old and off to the Spanish Civil War. It concludes with the outbreak of the Second World War when Esmond leaves for Canada and Airforce Training Camp. She is pregnant for the second time. We are summarily told of Esmond’s tragic death which will soon follow in 1941.
What I was given I thoroughly enjoyed, but I really did want more, more about the years to come and more about why the couple chose to go to America and not Russia! To me it seemed that many of their actions were inspired more by adolescent rebellion, naivety and a young lovers’ attraction rather than deep political beliefs.
The audiobook I listened to is narrated by Jenny Agutter. It is based on the book’s 1989 edition which restores that which had been removed from the original 1960 edition. The narration is excellent. I adored the different inflections used for Americans and Brits.
After this I went on to read a novel by Jessica’s authorial sister, Nancy Mitford. I chose The Pursuit of Love. I knew that although fictional it was based on family events. It failed me totally!
I got a huge kick out of the humor in the book’s lines. Underlying the humor is a seriousness which provides food for thought.
Before reading this book it is helpful to already be acquainted with the basics about the family. For that I recommend The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family by Mary S. Lovell. It was very good, so I gave it four stars too. Having read that and so a solid groundwork to stand on, Jessica’s book gives the reader further insight into Jessica’s own character and her relationships with her sisters.
Unfortunately the book stops too soon. It covers her privileged, aristocratic childhood, elopement with her second cousin Esmond Romilly, both only 19 years old and off to the Spanish Civil War. It concludes with the outbreak of the Second World War when Esmond leaves for Canada and Airforce Training Camp. She is pregnant for the second time. We are summarily told of Esmond’s tragic death which will soon follow in 1941.
What I was given I thoroughly enjoyed, but I really did want more, more about the years to come and more about why the couple chose to go to America and not Russia! To me it seemed that many of their actions were inspired more by adolescent rebellion, naivety and a young lovers’ attraction rather than deep political beliefs.
The audiobook I listened to is narrated by Jenny Agutter. It is based on the book’s 1989 edition which restores that which had been removed from the original 1960 edition. The narration is excellent. I adored the different inflections used for Americans and Brits.
After this I went on to read a novel by Jessica’s authorial sister, Nancy Mitford. I chose The Pursuit of Love. I knew that although fictional it was based on family events. It failed me totally!
April 9, 2025
“Los acontecimientos que hacen historia suelen parecer interminables cuando uno los está viviendo. Solo al cabo de los años se tiene la perspectiva suficiente para ver lo esencial, reducido ya a expresiones telescópicas y simplistas para los libros de historia […] En la vida real, el desarrollo de una crisis que conduce a un cambio de gobierno, el curso de negociaciones y conferencias internacionales que conforman el destino de una generación o el flujo y reflujo de las batallas que deciden el resultado de una guerra se desarrollan con exasperante parsimonia, como a cámara lenta, y el significado decisivo de cada etapa a menudo termi na enterrado bajo ríos de tinta y montañas de especulaciones, rumores, interpretaciones, relatos «inspirados», comentarios a favor y en contra.”
Lo admito, me ha sorprendido muy gratamente esta lectura en todos los sentidos. Me esperaba algo mil veces peor escrito y muy insípido, y me he encontrado con todo lo contrario. Es un libro que está muy bien escrito, de una forma muy ágil y que se lee muy bien. De hecho, realmente me lo he leído en dos días en que le he dedicado un poco de tiempo.
Publicado en 1960, “Nobles y Rebeldes” , es la biografía de Jessica Mitford, quinta de las seis hijas de una familia de la aristocracia inglesa, las cuales han pasado a la historia por sus complejas y escandalosas vidas sentimentales y políticas. Los nombres de las mayorías de ellas se relacionan con el fascismo, siendo Jessica la excepción, pues ella militó en el Partido Comunista y no dudo en escaparse de su casa para acudir a la Guerra Civil Española con quien poco después sería su esposo, Esmond Romilly, sobrino del mismísimo Winston Churchill. La biografía puede dividirse en tres partes: en la primera Jessica nos habla de cómo era su vida familiar y de sus relaciones con sus padres y sus hermanos, hablando también sobre que pasaba en las existencias de la mayoría de sus hermanas. En esta primera parte conocemos como empezaron las inquietudes políticas y sociales de Jessica, como su vida de niña bien en la campiña inglesa termino por resultarle tediosa y aburrida, sintiendo la necesidad de hacer algo más con su vida. En la segunda parte, el foco se centrará más en la Guerra Civil española y lo que Jessica y Esmond vivieron en el frente vasco, además del escándalo que supuso su fuga y los intentos del gobierno inglés y sus familias por hacerles regresar a su patria. La última parte se centrará en la vida de la pareja como casados, hablando de sus problemas económicos en Inglaterra y de su posterior periplo por los Estados Unidos. La biografía terminará con la partida de Esmond al frente para luchar en la Segunda Guerra Mundial.
Si tengo que ser totalmente sincera, más que por interés real por lo que cuenta, escogí este libro para poder comparar la forma de escribir de Jessica Mitord con la de su hermana Nancy, una autora que me encanta cómo escribe y cuyas novelas disfruto totalmente. Y, para que mentir, por la curiosidad de leer sobre las estrafalarias hermanas Mitford y sus polémicas vidas. Pero al final eso no ha sido lo decisivo para que esta lectura me haya agradado tanto. La historia de Jessica es realmente apasionante y adictiva. Fue una mujer increíblemente valiente; ejemplo claro de lo que es hacerse a uno mismo con todas sus consecuencias, sean buenas o malas.
Pese a que por sí misma la obra me ha parecido muy interesante, ha sido inevitable no poder compararla con las novelas y el estilo de Nancy. Son muy parecidos, pero a la vez muy diferentes. La forma de escribir de Nancy es como si pegases un mordisquito a alguna fruta que ya estuviera madura y prácticamente, pero no del todo, su sabor sigue siendo bastante ácido, y eso es lo que perdura en tu recuerdo, más que la dulzura que pueda tener el fruto en su mayor parte. En cambio con Jessica es como si pegases un mordisco gigantesco a un limón directamente. Pero la sátira acida en ambos casos es una parte esencial de sus trabajos. Aprovecho para animaros a que si no conocéis la biografía de estas seis hermanas, por favor la busquéis. Merece la pena mucho leer sobre ellas.
Se nota mucho que la autora es periodista. Es una escritora increíblemente económica en cuanto a medios de expresarse, su estilo es claro, directo y conciso, no se permite nunca divagar o irse por las ramas. Al igual que con su hermana mayor encontramos una lectura sazonada de comentarios irónicos sobre el mundo en el que vivió y las personas que la rodeaban. Pero en el caso de Jessica la sátira es mucho más directa y concisa, menos elegante, no se anda con por las ramas a la hora de decir lo que piensa ni se esconde tras situaciones tan frívolas que pueden resultar absurdas o con personajes a los que es imposible tomar en serio, pero que esconden una carga histórica y social mucho más profunda de lo que puede parecer a simple vista. Como buena periodista hace una crónica nítida, detallada e inteligente de un mundo que está desapareciendo, de una sociedad cambiante por el contexto histórico y político, una acertada comparativa de dos sociedades; la estadounidense y la inglesa. Es sincera cuando la mayor parte del tiempo, y parcial el resto, en muchas ocasiones uno tiene la impresión de que lo que cuenta está ligeramente retocado para que parezca más interesante o lustroso. Pero incluso cuando camufla la verdad, está sigue visualizándose en el fondo de todo. Como puede verse en que muchos de sus comentarios y apreciaciones tienen un tinte frívolo y elitista, que demuestra que Jessica no pudo escapar del todo del tipo de vida y educación que había recibido en su casa. He incluso da la impresión de que ha llegado a un punto en su vida en que tampoco lo intenta.
Sus retratos sobre la época en que vivió, la sociedad que conoció, las cuestiones y problemas políticos y sociales del periodo de entreguerras, y los primeros momentos de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, son incisiva y detalladamente nítidos. Nada ni nadie se escapa a su escrutinio, y en caso de ser necesario, de su burla. Ni su propia familia, con sus complejas personalidades y sus no menos espinosas relaciones; ni la incompetencia de los políticos del momento; ni la rancia y polvorienta aristocracia inglesa, en contraste con la colorida, vibrante e, incluso, chabacana sociedad americana; ni las luces y las sombras de la personalidad de Esmond; ni la falta de solidaridad y perspectiva de los gobiernos europeos. Todo es consignado en este libro, lo pequeño y lo grande. Y por ello el lector acaba totalmente envuelto por la atmósfera de ese momento histórico.
Si hay algo que me ha resultado conmovedor es su manera de pasar de puntillas sobre los momentos más dolorosos para ella. Y es en esa falta de detalles y de explicaciones donde el lector puede percibir hasta qué punto sufrió la autora a lo largo de su vida, como las ausencias que tuvo que soportar a lo largo de su vida dejaron en ella una huella profunda. Puede explayarse en tratar como le afecto la separación de su hermana favorita, Unity Valkirie (nombre profético donde los haya, pero conocida familiarmente como Gorgo) cuando esta abrazó sin ambages la doctrina del nazismo y se convirtió en miembro del circulo más intimo de Hitler, Intentando suicidarse cuando Alemania en Inglaterra se declararon la guerra. Pero, en cambio, pasa rápidamente por el episodio de la muerte de su primera hija. Y trata de forma abrupta y rápida las últimas páginas de su biografía, donde habla de la despedida a con su esposo cuando este se marcha a luchar al frente, centrándose más en una suerte de estudio antropológico social para explicar la naturaleza de las acciones de ambos a lo largo de su relación. Tampoco lo dice abiertamente, pero nunca deja dudas al lector sobre lo profundo que fue el vínculo con Esmond y lo mucho que se querían. Hay en todo esto un practismo moral increíblemente fuerte que tiene algo de supervivencia mental. El desenlace del libro es áridamente abrupto, pero que de alguna manera encaja porque tiene sentido. En las últimas páginas hay una sensación de fatalidad que lo envuelve todo totalmente, aunque hay que reconocer que eso en eso tiene mucho que ver el hecho de que se esté contando ya una situación que se conoce de antemano, que ya se sabe cómo va acabar. Y el párrafo final, aunque al igual que el resto de la obra es simple y conciso, tiene una gran carga emotiva que es imposible que pase desapercibida para nadie, y que hace que sea impactante por ese mismo motivo. De esa forma brillante y simple la autora expresa mucho más que lo que dice en sus palabras.
Obra de costumbrismo social de la época de entreguerras; biografía sobre una familia que rompió con todos los moldes de su época; ensayo sobre una guerra; crónica sobre un mundo convulso y en pleno cambio; historia iniciativa sobre una joven a la que vemos madurar a través de las páginas que ella misma narra… “Nobles y Rebeldes” es todo eso y más. Pero como señala la acertada introducción que podemos encontrar al principio del libro, lo que subyace en el fondo es una historia de amor breve pero intensa, con una pareja apasionadamente enamorada de ellos y de la vida, ejemplo de una juventud idealista que se enfrenta al odio, la guerra y la oposición social; dispuesta a luchar por sus convicciones políticas y vitales. Además la edición publicada por Libros del Asteroide viene con unas fotografías de los protagonistas de la obra y sus familiares en las páginas finales. Después de leer el libro es imposible no contemplarlas con un pequeño nudo en el estómago, siendo plenamente conscientes de las existencias azorosas y brillantes que todos ellos llevaron. Si hay algo que no se puede decir de Jessica, Esmond y el resto de las hermanas Mitford es que no se contentaron con lo que tenían, fueron estrellas que refulgieron hasta su extinción.
Para acabar, solo puedo decir que “Nobles y Rebeldes” ha sido un libro que me ha sorprendido gratamente, que no esperaba que me gustase tanto. Es una lectura que me ha hecho reflexionar mucho, no os imagináis cuanto, y que recomiendo a todo el mundo.
Lo admito, me ha sorprendido muy gratamente esta lectura en todos los sentidos. Me esperaba algo mil veces peor escrito y muy insípido, y me he encontrado con todo lo contrario. Es un libro que está muy bien escrito, de una forma muy ágil y que se lee muy bien. De hecho, realmente me lo he leído en dos días en que le he dedicado un poco de tiempo.
Publicado en 1960, “Nobles y Rebeldes” , es la biografía de Jessica Mitford, quinta de las seis hijas de una familia de la aristocracia inglesa, las cuales han pasado a la historia por sus complejas y escandalosas vidas sentimentales y políticas. Los nombres de las mayorías de ellas se relacionan con el fascismo, siendo Jessica la excepción, pues ella militó en el Partido Comunista y no dudo en escaparse de su casa para acudir a la Guerra Civil Española con quien poco después sería su esposo, Esmond Romilly, sobrino del mismísimo Winston Churchill. La biografía puede dividirse en tres partes: en la primera Jessica nos habla de cómo era su vida familiar y de sus relaciones con sus padres y sus hermanos, hablando también sobre que pasaba en las existencias de la mayoría de sus hermanas. En esta primera parte conocemos como empezaron las inquietudes políticas y sociales de Jessica, como su vida de niña bien en la campiña inglesa termino por resultarle tediosa y aburrida, sintiendo la necesidad de hacer algo más con su vida. En la segunda parte, el foco se centrará más en la Guerra Civil española y lo que Jessica y Esmond vivieron en el frente vasco, además del escándalo que supuso su fuga y los intentos del gobierno inglés y sus familias por hacerles regresar a su patria. La última parte se centrará en la vida de la pareja como casados, hablando de sus problemas económicos en Inglaterra y de su posterior periplo por los Estados Unidos. La biografía terminará con la partida de Esmond al frente para luchar en la Segunda Guerra Mundial.
Si tengo que ser totalmente sincera, más que por interés real por lo que cuenta, escogí este libro para poder comparar la forma de escribir de Jessica Mitord con la de su hermana Nancy, una autora que me encanta cómo escribe y cuyas novelas disfruto totalmente. Y, para que mentir, por la curiosidad de leer sobre las estrafalarias hermanas Mitford y sus polémicas vidas. Pero al final eso no ha sido lo decisivo para que esta lectura me haya agradado tanto. La historia de Jessica es realmente apasionante y adictiva. Fue una mujer increíblemente valiente; ejemplo claro de lo que es hacerse a uno mismo con todas sus consecuencias, sean buenas o malas.
Pese a que por sí misma la obra me ha parecido muy interesante, ha sido inevitable no poder compararla con las novelas y el estilo de Nancy. Son muy parecidos, pero a la vez muy diferentes. La forma de escribir de Nancy es como si pegases un mordisquito a alguna fruta que ya estuviera madura y prácticamente, pero no del todo, su sabor sigue siendo bastante ácido, y eso es lo que perdura en tu recuerdo, más que la dulzura que pueda tener el fruto en su mayor parte. En cambio con Jessica es como si pegases un mordisco gigantesco a un limón directamente. Pero la sátira acida en ambos casos es una parte esencial de sus trabajos. Aprovecho para animaros a que si no conocéis la biografía de estas seis hermanas, por favor la busquéis. Merece la pena mucho leer sobre ellas.
Se nota mucho que la autora es periodista. Es una escritora increíblemente económica en cuanto a medios de expresarse, su estilo es claro, directo y conciso, no se permite nunca divagar o irse por las ramas. Al igual que con su hermana mayor encontramos una lectura sazonada de comentarios irónicos sobre el mundo en el que vivió y las personas que la rodeaban. Pero en el caso de Jessica la sátira es mucho más directa y concisa, menos elegante, no se anda con por las ramas a la hora de decir lo que piensa ni se esconde tras situaciones tan frívolas que pueden resultar absurdas o con personajes a los que es imposible tomar en serio, pero que esconden una carga histórica y social mucho más profunda de lo que puede parecer a simple vista. Como buena periodista hace una crónica nítida, detallada e inteligente de un mundo que está desapareciendo, de una sociedad cambiante por el contexto histórico y político, una acertada comparativa de dos sociedades; la estadounidense y la inglesa. Es sincera cuando la mayor parte del tiempo, y parcial el resto, en muchas ocasiones uno tiene la impresión de que lo que cuenta está ligeramente retocado para que parezca más interesante o lustroso. Pero incluso cuando camufla la verdad, está sigue visualizándose en el fondo de todo. Como puede verse en que muchos de sus comentarios y apreciaciones tienen un tinte frívolo y elitista, que demuestra que Jessica no pudo escapar del todo del tipo de vida y educación que había recibido en su casa. He incluso da la impresión de que ha llegado a un punto en su vida en que tampoco lo intenta.
Sus retratos sobre la época en que vivió, la sociedad que conoció, las cuestiones y problemas políticos y sociales del periodo de entreguerras, y los primeros momentos de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, son incisiva y detalladamente nítidos. Nada ni nadie se escapa a su escrutinio, y en caso de ser necesario, de su burla. Ni su propia familia, con sus complejas personalidades y sus no menos espinosas relaciones; ni la incompetencia de los políticos del momento; ni la rancia y polvorienta aristocracia inglesa, en contraste con la colorida, vibrante e, incluso, chabacana sociedad americana; ni las luces y las sombras de la personalidad de Esmond; ni la falta de solidaridad y perspectiva de los gobiernos europeos. Todo es consignado en este libro, lo pequeño y lo grande. Y por ello el lector acaba totalmente envuelto por la atmósfera de ese momento histórico.
Si hay algo que me ha resultado conmovedor es su manera de pasar de puntillas sobre los momentos más dolorosos para ella. Y es en esa falta de detalles y de explicaciones donde el lector puede percibir hasta qué punto sufrió la autora a lo largo de su vida, como las ausencias que tuvo que soportar a lo largo de su vida dejaron en ella una huella profunda. Puede explayarse en tratar como le afecto la separación de su hermana favorita, Unity Valkirie (nombre profético donde los haya, pero conocida familiarmente como Gorgo) cuando esta abrazó sin ambages la doctrina del nazismo y se convirtió en miembro del circulo más intimo de Hitler, Intentando suicidarse cuando Alemania en Inglaterra se declararon la guerra. Pero, en cambio, pasa rápidamente por el episodio de la muerte de su primera hija. Y trata de forma abrupta y rápida las últimas páginas de su biografía, donde habla de la despedida a con su esposo cuando este se marcha a luchar al frente, centrándose más en una suerte de estudio antropológico social para explicar la naturaleza de las acciones de ambos a lo largo de su relación. Tampoco lo dice abiertamente, pero nunca deja dudas al lector sobre lo profundo que fue el vínculo con Esmond y lo mucho que se querían. Hay en todo esto un practismo moral increíblemente fuerte que tiene algo de supervivencia mental. El desenlace del libro es áridamente abrupto, pero que de alguna manera encaja porque tiene sentido. En las últimas páginas hay una sensación de fatalidad que lo envuelve todo totalmente, aunque hay que reconocer que eso en eso tiene mucho que ver el hecho de que se esté contando ya una situación que se conoce de antemano, que ya se sabe cómo va acabar. Y el párrafo final, aunque al igual que el resto de la obra es simple y conciso, tiene una gran carga emotiva que es imposible que pase desapercibida para nadie, y que hace que sea impactante por ese mismo motivo. De esa forma brillante y simple la autora expresa mucho más que lo que dice en sus palabras.
Obra de costumbrismo social de la época de entreguerras; biografía sobre una familia que rompió con todos los moldes de su época; ensayo sobre una guerra; crónica sobre un mundo convulso y en pleno cambio; historia iniciativa sobre una joven a la que vemos madurar a través de las páginas que ella misma narra… “Nobles y Rebeldes” es todo eso y más. Pero como señala la acertada introducción que podemos encontrar al principio del libro, lo que subyace en el fondo es una historia de amor breve pero intensa, con una pareja apasionadamente enamorada de ellos y de la vida, ejemplo de una juventud idealista que se enfrenta al odio, la guerra y la oposición social; dispuesta a luchar por sus convicciones políticas y vitales. Además la edición publicada por Libros del Asteroide viene con unas fotografías de los protagonistas de la obra y sus familiares en las páginas finales. Después de leer el libro es imposible no contemplarlas con un pequeño nudo en el estómago, siendo plenamente conscientes de las existencias azorosas y brillantes que todos ellos llevaron. Si hay algo que no se puede decir de Jessica, Esmond y el resto de las hermanas Mitford es que no se contentaron con lo que tenían, fueron estrellas que refulgieron hasta su extinción.
Para acabar, solo puedo decir que “Nobles y Rebeldes” ha sido un libro que me ha sorprendido gratamente, que no esperaba que me gustase tanto. Es una lectura que me ha hecho reflexionar mucho, no os imagináis cuanto, y que recomiendo a todo el mundo.
July 19, 2023
The photos were 5 stars.
This is Jessica's autobiography to 1941. Short reaction tomorrow.
No comparison to Nancy's fiction novels in any sense of literary style or value. But does hold some terrific insight. Jessica is accurate at her estimation of the family being champion haters which concludes this book. All, except Tom. Yup!
Oh, this is NO Pursuit of Love. Nor not even a parcel of Love in a Cold Climate. This sister had none of the subtlety nor heart which Nancy Mitford's writing demonstrates. Arrogance beyond arrogance. Yes.
Very, very cold. No heart. And selfishness reigns beyond 100 examples of specificity. Ballroom Communist doesn't even begin to touch it. And some of the readers seemed to have used Jessica as rather a map for the family's disfunction reaction idol or something? Hardly that either. Everything Jessica failed to understand or to even approach in interest she scorned. Very pathetic user individual.
The first half of the book has some composites that might intrigue. But the second half? The way she physically describes her most beloved age mate companion sister Unity? The very one who has her photo on the cover with her? OMG. And these readers believe her parents were the ogres without love. Egads!
And her boy child mate? Not even being able to figure out opening a suitcase or how a house latch works? And thinking that a con on gambling circuits or unsuspecting working people was part of some political role? It's almost beyond 2023's definition of ignorance. Or evil. But not entirely, the more I think about it. Takers, takers, takers.
Hons is for the Honorable title that all the daughters inherited. Poor Muv and Farve is all I can say. Her mother was all for changing back the title of this book to the original in manuscript which was "Red Sheep". I fully understand.
This is Jessica's autobiography to 1941. Short reaction tomorrow.
No comparison to Nancy's fiction novels in any sense of literary style or value. But does hold some terrific insight. Jessica is accurate at her estimation of the family being champion haters which concludes this book. All, except Tom. Yup!
Oh, this is NO Pursuit of Love. Nor not even a parcel of Love in a Cold Climate. This sister had none of the subtlety nor heart which Nancy Mitford's writing demonstrates. Arrogance beyond arrogance. Yes.
Very, very cold. No heart. And selfishness reigns beyond 100 examples of specificity. Ballroom Communist doesn't even begin to touch it. And some of the readers seemed to have used Jessica as rather a map for the family's disfunction reaction idol or something? Hardly that either. Everything Jessica failed to understand or to even approach in interest she scorned. Very pathetic user individual.
The first half of the book has some composites that might intrigue. But the second half? The way she physically describes her most beloved age mate companion sister Unity? The very one who has her photo on the cover with her? OMG. And these readers believe her parents were the ogres without love. Egads!
And her boy child mate? Not even being able to figure out opening a suitcase or how a house latch works? And thinking that a con on gambling circuits or unsuspecting working people was part of some political role? It's almost beyond 2023's definition of ignorance. Or evil. But not entirely, the more I think about it. Takers, takers, takers.
Hons is for the Honorable title that all the daughters inherited. Poor Muv and Farve is all I can say. Her mother was all for changing back the title of this book to the original in manuscript which was "Red Sheep". I fully understand.
September 4, 2007
Like J.K. Rowling, I worship Jessica "Decca" Mitford. If I had a daughter, I'd name her after Jessica, who was born into an aristocratic family, ran away with her hunky Communist cousin to fight in the Spanish Civil War, emigrated to the United States without a penny, and became a muckraking journalist with no formal schooling. My mouth was agape the entire time I read HONS AND REBELS...it seemed incredible that Mitford's story wasn't fiction. She devoted her life to fighting fascism, even while 2 of her sisters became close associates of Adolf Hitler. Don't get me wrong, though. I don't love Jessica for her political convinctions -- I love her for her writing talent. Funny, sarcastic, and playful, she is a forerunner to Michael Moore.
This edition of HONS AND REBELS includes a preface by Christopher Hitchens, whom I also love, even though he's a complete lunatic on the subject of the Iraq War. I have a sneaking suspicion that Jessica's ghost frequently haunts him for this stance, causing him frequent meltdowns by hiding his cigarettes and whiskey. Keep fighting the good fight, Decca.
This edition of HONS AND REBELS includes a preface by Christopher Hitchens, whom I also love, even though he's a complete lunatic on the subject of the Iraq War. I have a sneaking suspicion that Jessica's ghost frequently haunts him for this stance, causing him frequent meltdowns by hiding his cigarettes and whiskey. Keep fighting the good fight, Decca.
June 8, 2011
Witty and smart -- but maybe a little lacking in heart.
It's hard not to like Jessica Mitford. She was born into a world of aristocratic privilege in England, became a Communist, moved to America, and spent her whole life fighting against racism, sexism, and religious hypocrisy. She was as fearless standing up to Klansmen in Mississippi as she was standing up to Brownshirts and Blackshirts in Europe.
So it should be very exciting to read the story of her growing up. Jessica had a very large family, and her sisters were all just as notorious and exciting as she was in different ways. But not all of them were as smart about the world. Diana fell in love with Oswald Moseley, the English fascist, and was ostracized from polite society as a traitor for most of her life. Unity's fate was even more horrific, she fell in love with Adolph Hitler, became a fanatical "Jew-hater" (in her own words) and then tried to kill herself when England declared war on Nazi Germany. In a ghastly accident, the bullet lodged in her head and she became permanently brain-damaged, only to die several years later.
Now with all this tragedy and suffering, you would expect Jessica Mitford to have something to say about what was missing from her childhood. But there's a weird disconnect in the way she condemns her sisters' politics but entirely avoids the question of what made them so angry that they would literally need to stomp on strangers just to feel good about themselves. The real answer begins at home -- but Jessica, while ridiculing her parents' snobbery, is strangely silent about the underlying coldness and lack of love in her childhood home. At times you get the impression that Jessica herself really doesn't get that there's anything "strange" about a girl falling in love with Adolph Hitler, or talking openly about suicide as her only alternative if things go bad. This book has plenty of wit, plenty of eccentric characters, but very little insight and no heart at all.
It's hard not to like Jessica Mitford. She was born into a world of aristocratic privilege in England, became a Communist, moved to America, and spent her whole life fighting against racism, sexism, and religious hypocrisy. She was as fearless standing up to Klansmen in Mississippi as she was standing up to Brownshirts and Blackshirts in Europe.
So it should be very exciting to read the story of her growing up. Jessica had a very large family, and her sisters were all just as notorious and exciting as she was in different ways. But not all of them were as smart about the world. Diana fell in love with Oswald Moseley, the English fascist, and was ostracized from polite society as a traitor for most of her life. Unity's fate was even more horrific, she fell in love with Adolph Hitler, became a fanatical "Jew-hater" (in her own words) and then tried to kill herself when England declared war on Nazi Germany. In a ghastly accident, the bullet lodged in her head and she became permanently brain-damaged, only to die several years later.
Now with all this tragedy and suffering, you would expect Jessica Mitford to have something to say about what was missing from her childhood. But there's a weird disconnect in the way she condemns her sisters' politics but entirely avoids the question of what made them so angry that they would literally need to stomp on strangers just to feel good about themselves. The real answer begins at home -- but Jessica, while ridiculing her parents' snobbery, is strangely silent about the underlying coldness and lack of love in her childhood home. At times you get the impression that Jessica herself really doesn't get that there's anything "strange" about a girl falling in love with Adolph Hitler, or talking openly about suicide as her only alternative if things go bad. This book has plenty of wit, plenty of eccentric characters, but very little insight and no heart at all.
October 24, 2016
I first read this sometime back in the 80s. What was my surprise to find it again under a slightly different title, "Daughters and Rebels", which GR does not recognise (or rather it just leads you here.) Have to admit "Hons" catches the eye more.
When I first read this book I knew nothing about the Mitfords, Oswald Moseley, or any of their ilk. "Rebellion" is the active word. Raised in isolation and comfort (servants, etc), all but one of the Mitford girls rebelled in her own way. One turned to writing as a form of payback, another embraced Nazism, while the author of this memoir chose her romanticised, unrealistic version of Communism. At least Unity found out what Fascism was really about (and apparently approved)--she went to Germany and wormed her way into one of Hitler's upper circles, though having the perfect Aryan phenotype (not to mention the name Unity Valkyrie!) as well as blue blood probably helped there.
Being a faux-communist does not inspire Decca to learn to be a contributing member of the worker's society. She doesn't even know how to pick up her own clothes or cook a meal, let alone acquiring any of the usual skills for young women with working ambitions such as typing or shorthand, which even in her class would not have been considered "infra dig", but "rather fun, you know!" Her "artistic" sister returns from London very soon after she achieves permission to go there and study, when she realises she has to clean up her own bedsit and wash her own underwear!
Another reviewer mentions the coldness that underlies this story, and I have to agree. While she does speak of Unity as her favourite sister, she is careful to point up that the nicknames "Muv" and "Farve" do not indicate a cosy relationship. I have no idea at what age she wrote this book, but either she was an excellent writer who could recapture the emotional and intellectual immaturity of herself as a young woman, or she just never grew up. She goes from being a perpetually "bored" and sulky teenager who doesn't even enjoy a round the world trip got up for her especial benefit, to being a perpetually clueless wife.
Decca and her (also upper-class, public schoolboy) husband play about with ballroom Communism, but even he sees no disphase between his "ideology" and their lifestyle. They eat most of their meals out, and given their lack of marketable skills they spend most of their short married life mooching off others, seeing this as cleverness. They ruin a friend's car and leave it parked on a sidestreet, sighing that "journalists never look after their things." Her husband should know, since he can't even work the expensive camera he charged to his father in law's account at the Army and Navy stores (without the man's knowledge or permission, of course) even before they are married!
The Romilly family's solution to all problems seems to be running away. He began by running away from boarding school, setting himself up as a "centre for runaways"--of his own class, of course. The child Decca creates a "running away from home" bank account, and subsequently goes with Romilly to Spain, where they basically sit around; he writes about the people who truly are starving and dying in the streets, while the couple themselves live rent-free in the press hotel and consume "huge greasy" meals of many courses.
Back in England, they flee bill collectors (Imagine! You're expected to pay for electricity!) and Romilly tries to set up a gambling den, having one of those "infallible systems" that consumes all her savings in a weekend. When their child dies, they run away from the family's condolences to live in "unreal" Corsica. Then when WW2 begins to loom, they run away to the US, where the mooching continues (and where the narrative begins to bog down). For all her romantic belief that Romilly takes all problems into account before acting, he certainly flounders from one silly get-rich-quick scheme to another, getting "tooken" again and again. More chancer than rebel, his schemes always involve a good amount of freeloading. We won't even discuss their attitude toward the Americans they merrily take advantage of at every turn.
Througout the narrative, Mitford's innate sense of superiority to everyone around her, whoever they might be, is a constant. Her family, the English Communist party members, her husbands friends--she's smarter and better than all of them. That doesn't save her from stating on p. 277: There was no doubt it was going to be a dull war, and the absence of the Communists, who annouced they were sticking by their characterisation of it as an "imperialist war" would make it even duller. Fighting in such a war would be an irksome task, dogged by boredom every step of the way, but nonetheless essential.
The memoir is chopped short at this point, when her husband leaves for Canada to enlist, having ensconced his pregnant wife in the home of some wealthy Americans (on whom she also looks down) who don't quite realise she is being foisted on them for the duration. One wonders how long the marriage would have lasted if he had returned from the front.
As you can tell, I found none of the characters particularly sympathetic, especially the authoress herself. While I do wonder what happened to this spoiled child, I don't wonder enough to find out if she wrote any more books.
When I first read this book I knew nothing about the Mitfords, Oswald Moseley, or any of their ilk. "Rebellion" is the active word. Raised in isolation and comfort (servants, etc), all but one of the Mitford girls rebelled in her own way. One turned to writing as a form of payback, another embraced Nazism, while the author of this memoir chose her romanticised, unrealistic version of Communism. At least Unity found out what Fascism was really about (and apparently approved)--she went to Germany and wormed her way into one of Hitler's upper circles, though having the perfect Aryan phenotype (not to mention the name Unity Valkyrie!) as well as blue blood probably helped there.
Being a faux-communist does not inspire Decca to learn to be a contributing member of the worker's society. She doesn't even know how to pick up her own clothes or cook a meal, let alone acquiring any of the usual skills for young women with working ambitions such as typing or shorthand, which even in her class would not have been considered "infra dig", but "rather fun, you know!" Her "artistic" sister returns from London very soon after she achieves permission to go there and study, when she realises she has to clean up her own bedsit and wash her own underwear!
Another reviewer mentions the coldness that underlies this story, and I have to agree. While she does speak of Unity as her favourite sister, she is careful to point up that the nicknames "Muv" and "Farve" do not indicate a cosy relationship. I have no idea at what age she wrote this book, but either she was an excellent writer who could recapture the emotional and intellectual immaturity of herself as a young woman, or she just never grew up. She goes from being a perpetually "bored" and sulky teenager who doesn't even enjoy a round the world trip got up for her especial benefit, to being a perpetually clueless wife.
Decca and her (also upper-class, public schoolboy) husband play about with ballroom Communism, but even he sees no disphase between his "ideology" and their lifestyle. They eat most of their meals out, and given their lack of marketable skills they spend most of their short married life mooching off others, seeing this as cleverness. They ruin a friend's car and leave it parked on a sidestreet, sighing that "journalists never look after their things." Her husband should know, since he can't even work the expensive camera he charged to his father in law's account at the Army and Navy stores (without the man's knowledge or permission, of course) even before they are married!
The Romilly family's solution to all problems seems to be running away. He began by running away from boarding school, setting himself up as a "centre for runaways"--of his own class, of course. The child Decca creates a "running away from home" bank account, and subsequently goes with Romilly to Spain, where they basically sit around; he writes about the people who truly are starving and dying in the streets, while the couple themselves live rent-free in the press hotel and consume "huge greasy" meals of many courses.
Back in England, they flee bill collectors (Imagine! You're expected to pay for electricity!) and Romilly tries to set up a gambling den, having one of those "infallible systems" that consumes all her savings in a weekend. When their child dies, they run away from the family's condolences to live in "unreal" Corsica. Then when WW2 begins to loom, they run away to the US, where the mooching continues (and where the narrative begins to bog down). For all her romantic belief that Romilly takes all problems into account before acting, he certainly flounders from one silly get-rich-quick scheme to another, getting "tooken" again and again. More chancer than rebel, his schemes always involve a good amount of freeloading. We won't even discuss their attitude toward the Americans they merrily take advantage of at every turn.
Througout the narrative, Mitford's innate sense of superiority to everyone around her, whoever they might be, is a constant. Her family, the English Communist party members, her husbands friends--she's smarter and better than all of them. That doesn't save her from stating on p. 277: There was no doubt it was going to be a dull war, and the absence of the Communists, who annouced they were sticking by their characterisation of it as an "imperialist war" would make it even duller. Fighting in such a war would be an irksome task, dogged by boredom every step of the way, but nonetheless essential.
The memoir is chopped short at this point, when her husband leaves for Canada to enlist, having ensconced his pregnant wife in the home of some wealthy Americans (on whom she also looks down) who don't quite realise she is being foisted on them for the duration. One wonders how long the marriage would have lasted if he had returned from the front.
As you can tell, I found none of the characters particularly sympathetic, especially the authoress herself. While I do wonder what happened to this spoiled child, I don't wonder enough to find out if she wrote any more books.
May 15, 2020
'You may not be able to change the world, but at least you can embarrass the guilty.'
Decca is a seriously underrated Mitford sister, and very sadly not my namesake. Her dashing and, at times, melodramatic life story reads like a soap opera; it’s a story of adolescent rebellion. Having opened a ‘Running Away Account’ as a child, at nineteen she eloped to Spain to fight in the civil war and then successfully emigrated to the States without a penny, later to establish herself as a notoriously muckraking journalist.
Hons and Rebels is playful, hilarious, gushing with enthusiasm and saturated with dry wit, especially as Decca looks back with distaste at what she saw as a stifling childhood with her bizarre aristocratic family. She also provides an interesting insight into a lost way of life, the state of British politics (from a very privileged perspective, of course) and the hypocrisy that existed alongside. Not much has changed there...
It’s strange to consider that Decca neglects to even mention her time in Nazi Munich in her memoir, which is a mystery and a real shame. Besides Munich being one of my favourite cities on Earth, it would have been a very interesting account - not just historically, but coming from a Communist, or as she teasingly dubbed herself, the ‘Red Sheep’ of the family. She’s similarly reticent about the developments in her relationship with Unity, her foaming-at-the-mouth Fascist sister. In fact, the entire memoir is somewhat lacking in emotion or real heart, particularly her relationship with the charismatic Esmond. Similarly, whilst the book is endlessly engaging in her preparations to join the Spanish guerrilla girls, it loses momentum once Decca’s on American soil living hand to mouth. It is, however, startlingly well-written; the economy and acute observation are testimony to her journalistic training.
Great fun. I would however recommend establishing some basic groundwork on the Mitfords before embarking on this specific memoir. Decca assumes that you’ve been keeping up with the social scene and gossip columns of the thirties.
Decca is a seriously underrated Mitford sister, and very sadly not my namesake. Her dashing and, at times, melodramatic life story reads like a soap opera; it’s a story of adolescent rebellion. Having opened a ‘Running Away Account’ as a child, at nineteen she eloped to Spain to fight in the civil war and then successfully emigrated to the States without a penny, later to establish herself as a notoriously muckraking journalist.
Hons and Rebels is playful, hilarious, gushing with enthusiasm and saturated with dry wit, especially as Decca looks back with distaste at what she saw as a stifling childhood with her bizarre aristocratic family. She also provides an interesting insight into a lost way of life, the state of British politics (from a very privileged perspective, of course) and the hypocrisy that existed alongside. Not much has changed there...
It’s strange to consider that Decca neglects to even mention her time in Nazi Munich in her memoir, which is a mystery and a real shame. Besides Munich being one of my favourite cities on Earth, it would have been a very interesting account - not just historically, but coming from a Communist, or as she teasingly dubbed herself, the ‘Red Sheep’ of the family. She’s similarly reticent about the developments in her relationship with Unity, her foaming-at-the-mouth Fascist sister. In fact, the entire memoir is somewhat lacking in emotion or real heart, particularly her relationship with the charismatic Esmond. Similarly, whilst the book is endlessly engaging in her preparations to join the Spanish guerrilla girls, it loses momentum once Decca’s on American soil living hand to mouth. It is, however, startlingly well-written; the economy and acute observation are testimony to her journalistic training.
Great fun. I would however recommend establishing some basic groundwork on the Mitfords before embarking on this specific memoir. Decca assumes that you’ve been keeping up with the social scene and gossip columns of the thirties.
August 18, 2025
I love most of what I have read so far. Unfortunately, I’m only on page 45 or this would be four stars ⭐️. I’m sadly going to DNF for reasons I would rather not go into. I’m also sad because I really love reading about this family and I’m a huge fan of Nancy Mitford’s books and fiction about her and I love the biography I read about the family too. I was really looking forward to reading this because it’s an autobiography however it didn’t seem to work out for me.
June 20, 2017
I read this quite hungrily because I needed a Mitford fix and I couldn't get the Sisters bio on kindle. As others have noted there's something a bit flat here and I was surprisingly a bit disappointed. Unity comes across as grotesque but it's never really explored. And the dashing Esmond little better than a smarmy conman in the US. There's a lot of eccentricity, tragedy and adventure but I didn't FEEL it.
June 11, 2018
Este libro me ha enganchado de principio a fin, y he disfrutado mucho con su lectura.
La autora nos cuenta su niñez y adolescencia dentro de una familia noble inglesa, caracterizada por la excentricidad de todos sus miembros. Y de cómo aún dentro de ese mundo tan cerrado, ella llega a desarrollar su propia personalidad, y a tener sus ideas, totalmente opuestas a las de sus padres y hermanos. Hasta el punto de tener la valentía de huir de ese mundo para ir a la guerra civil española, y más tarde a Estados Unidos. Me ha parecido muy entretenida, y a ratos, divertida
La autora nos cuenta su niñez y adolescencia dentro de una familia noble inglesa, caracterizada por la excentricidad de todos sus miembros. Y de cómo aún dentro de ese mundo tan cerrado, ella llega a desarrollar su propia personalidad, y a tener sus ideas, totalmente opuestas a las de sus padres y hermanos. Hasta el punto de tener la valentía de huir de ese mundo para ir a la guerra civil española, y más tarde a Estados Unidos. Me ha parecido muy entretenida, y a ratos, divertida
March 18, 2010
Jessica Mitford was the "Ballroom Communist" of the engagingly eccentric Mitford Family. The second youngest daughter of the 2nd Baron Redesdalee, she had an unconventional upbringing where education was the bare minimum to make a good wife. Always wishing for an escape from her family, be it through schooling or politics or moving to another continent, she suffered through being a deb and presentation before the queen and watching her family come apart at the seems due to adivergence in beliefs. But at her first chance she ran off with her cousin, Esmond Rommilly , the nephew of Winston Churchill, to fight Franco in Spain. What with all of England trying to force her home, sending really big ships no less, even the courts of Chancery, it's surprising that she actually was able to succeed in her convictions and in marryingEsmond. The madcap and eccentric life that followed from Rotherhithe to the United States with Esmond equals that of her earlier life, but with herself being the master of her fate.
I rarely read biographies. I have to say, if more biographies were as fun and enjoyable as Jessica Mitford's I would read nothing but. The Mitford family has always been fascinating to me, what with the sisters paths being so divergent. Nancy was one of the "Bright Young Things" and a literary darling, with Love in a Cold Climate, which basically skewered her own family for her amusement. Pamela was horse obsessed and kind of out of the limelight. Diana married the heir to the Guinness fortune then divorced him to have an affair with the head of the British Facist party. When they eventually married, Hitler was at their wedding, which was held at the Goebbels' house. She also spent time in prison. Unity was Hitler's biggest fan and when war broke out between England and Germany she failed at committing suicide only to die of meningitis. AndDebo... well she married the Duke of Devonshire and lives at Chatsworth , writes books about chickens and is the last remaining Mitford daughter. You could not make this stuff up! From her earliest days with family to her later life withEsmond, Jessica captures the love she had for these people while at the same time the exasperation of her situation . From hoarding money so she could run away, to the ultimate subterfuge that resulted in her being victorious, even if she had to chase the SpanishConsulate representative all over England and France. To the years scarping by in the States doing anything and everything to stay there, from selling stockings door to door to being a bouncer at a bar. That's right, Jessica, not her husband, was the bouncer.
Given the extreme fame of her family and the career Jessica later established as a journalist in her own right, if a muckracker at that, it's beyond enjoyable to see where it all began. The fact that a high born Hon would eschew her family and their beliefs to set out on her own crusade for right, for the poor and disadvantaged, is a noble crusade indeed. But what you also see is that with Esmond, this is a love story. From her first hearing mention of him, she was in love. From their similar backgrounds of trying to shed off what was their families hereditary hangups, she envied him for his actual escape and later he aided her escape as well. Whether he felt the same inevitability as her that they were meant to be is hinted at. But what is certain is that they were perfectly matched. It makes sense that the book ends with the outbreak of World War II. It's the event that, more than anything, shaped that generation, but more personally than that, embodied the division of this family. It was also the event that would claim Esmond's life. But at least in this book, we can see the love still remains.
I rarely read biographies. I have to say, if more biographies were as fun and enjoyable as Jessica Mitford's I would read nothing but. The Mitford family has always been fascinating to me, what with the sisters paths being so divergent. Nancy was one of the "Bright Young Things" and a literary darling, with Love in a Cold Climate, which basically skewered her own family for her amusement. Pamela was horse obsessed and kind of out of the limelight. Diana married the heir to the Guinness fortune then divorced him to have an affair with the head of the British Facist party. When they eventually married, Hitler was at their wedding, which was held at the Goebbels' house. She also spent time in prison. Unity was Hitler's biggest fan and when war broke out between England and Germany she failed at committing suicide only to die of meningitis. AndDebo... well she married the Duke of Devonshire and lives at Chatsworth , writes books about chickens and is the last remaining Mitford daughter. You could not make this stuff up! From her earliest days with family to her later life withEsmond, Jessica captures the love she had for these people while at the same time the exasperation of her situation . From hoarding money so she could run away, to the ultimate subterfuge that resulted in her being victorious, even if she had to chase the SpanishConsulate representative all over England and France. To the years scarping by in the States doing anything and everything to stay there, from selling stockings door to door to being a bouncer at a bar. That's right, Jessica, not her husband, was the bouncer.
Given the extreme fame of her family and the career Jessica later established as a journalist in her own right, if a muckracker at that, it's beyond enjoyable to see where it all began. The fact that a high born Hon would eschew her family and their beliefs to set out on her own crusade for right, for the poor and disadvantaged, is a noble crusade indeed. But what you also see is that with Esmond, this is a love story. From her first hearing mention of him, she was in love. From their similar backgrounds of trying to shed off what was their families hereditary hangups, she envied him for his actual escape and later he aided her escape as well. Whether he felt the same inevitability as her that they were meant to be is hinted at. But what is certain is that they were perfectly matched. It makes sense that the book ends with the outbreak of World War II. It's the event that, more than anything, shaped that generation, but more personally than that, embodied the division of this family. It was also the event that would claim Esmond's life. But at least in this book, we can see the love still remains.
September 10, 2021
4.5/5
We [...] were informed to our surprise that even in the middle of a civil war people under the age of [21] could not get married without their parents' consent. Some anarchists we met in a café offered the services of a priest they had taken prisoner ("We could find ways of making him do it," they said), but it would have meant a two-day journey and we weren't sure just how legal such a marriage would prove to be.What a tangled skein a reading trajectory reads. Two years ago, I finally got around to reading a collection of letters authored by all six Mitford sisters, not particularly mind blowing but still offering a great deal of both historical context and general food for thought. Between adding it back in 2012 and committing to the read in 2019, I acquired a couple works each of the more writerly third, Jessica and Nancy, of the sextet of sisters, appealing in terms of them all being of a far more manageable length compared to the 800+ page behemoth of correspondence, as well as in both writers being heavily featured by the NYRB Classics imprint. Waiting till I had finished off the originally acquired compilation before delving into the individual personalities gave me enough insight into the matter to know that it would be very odd if I ended up preferring the elegant eldest to the seize-life-by-the-horns second youngest. Indeed, while the biography penned by Nancy that I read earlier this year largely left me cold, this bold and often brash bildungsroman memoir of Jessica was a breath of fresh air, both in terms of my reading and the general atmosphere of the modern day. For if there's one thing that today's status quo on both sides of the Atlantic are good at, it's holding up the days that Jessica faced full on as being nothing more than a stretch of unquestioned glory and tremendous triumph of Good over Evil. As such, much as I enjoyed Jessica's recountal of her life in its own right, it's her willingness to not hold back in the telling of less "politically incorrect" matters regarding the societies she mixed with and the events that would ultimately wrench her life almost completely askew that raises the level of this work from good to powerful, and even the hypocritic filth of saddling this work with an introduction from the ignominious Hitchens can't significantly dim the luster.
Some of the Canadians had taken it upon themselves to preserve the Anglo-Saxon purity of the steerage class bar from the "foreigners."[...] "This place stinks of polecats." they said loudly when some of the immigrants tried to come in. Esmond, assuming, his most super-English-upper-class-public-school manner, escorted a group of Poles through the Canadian phalanx. "I really must apologize for these ghastly Colonials. They're virtually uncivilized. Too bad we couldn't have sailed on an English ship." For once he was enjoying outsnobbing the snobs.
[T]he Gollancz [(US)] edition carried a quotation from Claud Cockburn's amazingly influential mimeographed sheet The Week, in which Cockburn, writing shortly before World War II, pinpointed US Ambassador Joseph Kennedy as the major conduit between German military circles and Britain's then-dominant Tory appeasement forces. Houghton Mifflin excised this entire passage—evidently fearing repercussions should Ambassador Kennedy's son John F. Kennedy become President of the United States, which indeed did happen shortly thereafter.I recently watched a video where a couple of the US commenters made the claim that World War II was the last war that had clearly defined winners and losers that ultimately fell out for the better, which attests so powerfully to the complete and utter failure of the education system in my homeland that I had to skip over the next segment until the conversation returned to the usual topics of graphics cards and streaming site policies. It was rather fortunately coincidental, then, to read this soon afterward, as while I can't say the reoccurring bouts of frustration in reaction to heretofore unknown fun facts of the more diabolical nature were good for my blood pressure, it was good to get a refresher on just what was happening during the period of 1933-9, when practically the entire British upper class was chummy with Hitler and wealthy US denizens across the waters were already paving the way for McCarthy with blocks of gold and hangman's rope. Jessica admittedly gets by with all the privilege accorded to her and no small amount of luck, but as befits her future career, she has a deft hand with prose and balancing personal recountals with the broader spectrum of world events, political machinations, and the large scale social shifts that are recounted today as so many glossed over fairy tales in many a children's history textbook.
The passage in question: After all, nobody can suspect Mr. Kennedy of being unduly prejudiced against fascist régimes, and it is through Mr. Kennedy that the German Government hopes to maintain "contacts."
Muv was genuinely stung.In other words, this is not the kind of text that is going to enamor itself to those who view 'Merry Olde England' through the kind of Jane Eyre or Cranford glasses that a wealthy denizen of the Southern US uses as cultural touchstone while conversing with Jessica. As for me, I was deeply appreciative that Jessica's clear-sighted honesty, which didn't shy away from portraying the outright sleight-of-hand maneuvers by which both she and her husband were able to continue their intrepid and ridiculously long lived do-gooder routine of scampering out of the UK and hobnobbing with the reasonably rich and famous of the US. The fact that this section, which hints at the death of Jessica's Romeo and her future in the Black, Jewish, and Communist communities, is so short likely makes it easy for certain kinds of readers who break out of their "apolitical" mode only for the most surface level of Nazi bashing to flutter over it in their overall estimation, but I on the other hand am rather keen to stumble over a copy of A Fine Old Conflict, this memoir's far less popular sequel. There's a good chance that Jessica won't come off nearly as heroic then as she admittedly does in these pages, but for some time now, a good chunk of my reading has been devoted to scraping through the whitewashing of the past and dragging through the truth so that it might revitalize the present and plant seeds of hope for the future. Out of all those I've read who have participated in this good work, Jessica is certainly one of the most accessible, and thus, in a vital way, is one of the most valuable.
"I'm not an enemy of the working class! I think some of them are perfectly sweet!" she retorted angrily. I could almost see the visions of perfectly sweet nannies, grooms, gamekeepers, that the phrase must have conjured up in her mind.
Politically [my Scotch relatives] agreed in general with my parents, or could perhaps be more accurately described as slightly to the left of them as they didn't think much of "that feller Hitler."
You're behaving like a typical English tourist. That's why English people are so hated abroad. Don't you know how the English people of your class treat PEOPLE, in India and Africa and all over the world? And you have the bloody nerve to come here — to THEIR country, mind you, and start bossing these French people round and telling them how to treat their dogs. [...] If you're going to make such an unholy fuss about dogs you should have stayed in England, where they feed the dogs steak and let people in the slums die of starvation... (Esmond Romilly)I can't think of a historical figure whom I haven't been disappointed by in one way or another, so to get into Jessica Mitford at my age is in some ways setting myself up for a future axe to fall. Nevertheless, while it's too late for me to encounter her in the full fire of the unhindered enthusiasms that once almost entirely convinced me that my reading and my talking about my reading would go some ways towards saving the world, I also have sturdier reserves when it comes to appreciating what I can and critically approaching what I can't without throwing out the baby with the bathwater. It might be some time before I acquire this memoir's sequel and can continue my trajectory of amassing as much of Euro/Neo-Euro's dirty laundry of an actual history in my peripheral awareness as is possible, but I do have Jessica's Poison Penmanship on hand for when the urge (or the convenient publication date) strikes. Speaking of publication dates, it's hard to ignore how nicely her The American Way of Death Revisited would fit into my 2022 reading women plans, and considering how much sludge I've put up with in the past for the sake of completing a decade/century, it would be nice to look out for an author whom, for a change, I have justifiably high hopes for. I can't say how long this will last for, but I'm willing to put myself, and my reading time, out there and ride it for as long as my ever evolving tastes allow me to.
You wait and see; in no time there'll be a wave of Stiff Upper Lipism, followed by a nauseating epidemic of Gray-Haired Motherism (bravely choking back the tears, you understand), and the small matter of who we go to war with, and why, will be entirely lost sight of. (Esmond Romilly, 1938)
Churchill's rise in prestige can be exactly traced to the growth of the issue of British Imperialism versus German and Italian expansion. This issue has, of course, nothing whatever to do with the thing called "Collective Security" or the issue of "Democracy" versus "Fascism."...Today, with Churchill's star in the ascendant again, let no one imagine he will lead a popular front government. He may get the support of Labor, to be sure — what else can Labor do but support the man who is going to fight Hitler? — but it will be on his terms and his alone. (Esmond Romilly, 1939)
September 22, 2022
This memoir by mid-century journalist Jessica Mitford is the kind of story you wouldn't believe if it wasn't true.
Mitford and her siblings were raised by an eccentric English peer who didn't care much for conventional schooling. While the Mitford children may have been poor in education, they were rich in history and connections, and Mitford mines all of it as she relates her story of rebelling against the landed gentry she came from, running away with a nephew of Churchill to fight the facists in the Spanish Civil War before moving to America and becoming a journalist.
As fascinating as her own story is, that it occurs in parallel with the very different choices of her siblings, one of whom moved to Munich in the (successful) hope of befrending her idol, Hitler, while another flitted from Bright Young Thing to the wife of the head of the British Fascist Party, makes Mitford's tale all the more remarkable.
Truth is indeed stranger than fiction, and Mitford is a delightful guide to her unconventional family and their strategic placement across the headlines of 20th century history.
Mitford and her siblings were raised by an eccentric English peer who didn't care much for conventional schooling. While the Mitford children may have been poor in education, they were rich in history and connections, and Mitford mines all of it as she relates her story of rebelling against the landed gentry she came from, running away with a nephew of Churchill to fight the facists in the Spanish Civil War before moving to America and becoming a journalist.
As fascinating as her own story is, that it occurs in parallel with the very different choices of her siblings, one of whom moved to Munich in the (successful) hope of befrending her idol, Hitler, while another flitted from Bright Young Thing to the wife of the head of the British Fascist Party, makes Mitford's tale all the more remarkable.
Truth is indeed stranger than fiction, and Mitford is a delightful guide to her unconventional family and their strategic placement across the headlines of 20th century history.
February 10, 2011
A spotty memoir that glides over much of the author's early life while providing details on some seemingly random episodes. The picture of her wacky childhood is charmingly told albeit somewhat terrifying to contemplate - I could have used more about each Mitford sister and more insight into how this teeming brood of aristos wound up careening off in wildly different directions. After a gripping tale of Decca's escape to Civil War Spain with her cousin, the teenaged antifascist Esmond Romilly, the book runs out of gas as the young couple goes to America and stumbles from one survival scheme to the next. When World War II breaks out in earnest, Esmond drives off to join the Royal Canadian Air Force, and the book abruptly ends. We're told in an author footnote(!) that he was killed in action at age 23. In all a disappointment with flashes of insight and humor.
April 29, 2018
The first part is hilarious, containing a first-hand description of the goings on at the well known dysfunctional aristocratic family in England between 1920 - 1930's. There were 6 'Mitford sisters', (and one brother) all of them to become famous and/or eccentric. The second, less hilarious but rather interesting, part is about the author, a communist, who manages to elope with Esmond Romilly. They unsuccessfully try to join the fight against the fascists in Spain and eventually end up in the US.
I was amazed on how much sympathy for the Nazis there seems to have been among the English aristocracy. Esmond was seriously worried that Britain would join Hitler to attack the Soviet Union.
I was amazed on how much sympathy for the Nazis there seems to have been among the English aristocracy. Esmond was seriously worried that Britain would join Hitler to attack the Soviet Union.
Read
February 14, 2023I always enjoy the Mitford sisters. Another reviewer described this as "witty and smart" and I agree. I did feel that it was a bit lightweight from time to time, but that didn't detract from my enjoyment.
January 10, 2018
I love reading about the Mitfords. My favourite has always been Nancy, because I love her biographies of French political figures. I've never paid much attention to Jessica 'Decca' Mitford, and this book doesn't really make me want to. It comes across as quite flat. The first half was pretty good, though parts did come across as quite childish. The second half, detailing after she met Esmond, who didn't come across well at all, mainly being a semi con-man or a man trying to achieve 'the American Dream' and failing quite miserably, was incredibly boring. I admire Decca's tenacity and determination in this half, but it jumped from "we met up with blah blah and talked and played cards all night" to "we had no money and could barely afford a glass of water in a cafe". It felt quite disjointed. Her sisters, too, were quite enigmatic in the book, and I wonder if Decca really understood them when she was writing.
December 31, 2010
It's quite surprising that I hadn't read this book before - as I have become a little addicted to reading about the mad bad Mitfords. This is a really well written, funny memoir from one of those infamous sisters. If anyone asked me who my favourite Mitford was it would be Nancy every time, the most fascinating was Diana, but the one I would have most likely liked in real life - would have been Jessica. Her warmth and likability come across strongly in this book, and she was able to poke gentle fun at herself, at the same time.
The early part of the book which recounts the so often told story of the Mitfords growing up at Swinbrook was my favourite part of the book. The stories are a little different however, because of course Jessica was quite a bit younger than Nancy, Pam, Tom and Diana, and so the stories involving her, Unity and Debo are not quite the ones we know and which were told so well by Nancy. In other books I have read about the Mitfords, I had never really got a feeling for Esmond Romilly, Decca's first husband, but here he is portrayed faithfully and of course with real affection. An excellent memoir, which I am immediately adding to mypermanent collection of books.
The early part of the book which recounts the so often told story of the Mitfords growing up at Swinbrook was my favourite part of the book. The stories are a little different however, because of course Jessica was quite a bit younger than Nancy, Pam, Tom and Diana, and so the stories involving her, Unity and Debo are not quite the ones we know and which were told so well by Nancy. In other books I have read about the Mitfords, I had never really got a feeling for Esmond Romilly, Decca's first husband, but here he is portrayed faithfully and of course with real affection. An excellent memoir, which I am immediately adding to mypermanent collection of books.
May 10, 2021
I can't believe how moved I was by this book. I'm accustomed to starting to read my next book the moment I finish the previous one, but for some reason I couldn't here. I needed several hours to savour Hons and Rebels. It broke my heart in the strangest way.
It's a classic memoir of a classic time, the 1920s and the 1930s, which is one of my favourite periods of history anyway. The characters who wander in and out of Hons and Rebels are a marvel, think Evelyn Waugh, Winston Churchill, WH Auden. Even Adolf Hitler had something to say about Jessica Mitford!
But for me, Hons and Rebels went far beyond a memoir. It spoke of an England divided, half generous towards the refugees who fled from Hitler, half disparaging. There are comments such as, "The Jews brought this on themselves," and "It's harsh, but Hitler is only doing what he must to rebuild his country." (Make his country great again?) It felt like a warning. It's the story of a war no-one believed would ever happen.
It's a classic memoir of a classic time, the 1920s and the 1930s, which is one of my favourite periods of history anyway. The characters who wander in and out of Hons and Rebels are a marvel, think Evelyn Waugh, Winston Churchill, WH Auden. Even Adolf Hitler had something to say about Jessica Mitford!
But for me, Hons and Rebels went far beyond a memoir. It spoke of an England divided, half generous towards the refugees who fled from Hitler, half disparaging. There are comments such as, "The Jews brought this on themselves," and "It's harsh, but Hitler is only doing what he must to rebuild his country." (Make his country great again?) It felt like a warning. It's the story of a war no-one believed would ever happen.
February 15, 2021
This was so good, much to my astonishment as I am not usually fond of biograhies. But this one resonated with me, partly because I have 4 sisters myself and I could vaguely recognize some of the dynamics in a group of siblings, partly because I have recently found myself reading quite a few books which took place around the time of WW2. And then I have an inner snob who enjoys all things related to the British upper class 😀 And I can see that I'm not alone in enjoying Jessica Mitford's writing, J.K. Rowling is apparently a fan too.
But one thing drags it down, and that is the narration of this audiobook, I don't know why the narrator thinks it is necessary to put stress on a lot of randomly chosen words in a sentence, to me it doesn't make sense, it just sounds annoying and like she has no clear idea of what is essential in a given sentence.
But one thing drags it down, and that is the narration of this audiobook, I don't know why the narrator thinks it is necessary to put stress on a lot of randomly chosen words in a sentence, to me it doesn't make sense, it just sounds annoying and like she has no clear idea of what is essential in a given sentence.
August 15, 2025
4,5 🌟
Unas memorias muy divertidas, que cuentan los primeros años de la autora, un miembro de la famosa familia Mitford, hasta el estaliido de la Segunda Guerra Mundial.
Tiene un estilo muy ‘british’, que me ha recordado muchísimo al estilo de la hermana de la autora, Nancy. Por lo tanto, hay momentos que casi parecen ridículos, al igual que las novelas de ésta. Y también he visto la influencia de la vida de Jessica en “La búsqueda del amor”, el libro más famoso de ella.
La autora nos habla de sus hermanas, lo diversas que eran, lo rancio de su familia, y como contrastaban con los ideales de izquierda de la autora. Pero siempre lo hace desde el cariño y el humor.
La parte final me ha resultado un pelín menos entretenida, pero aún así me ha encantado leer sobre los entresijos políticos de la época, con el alzamiento del nazismo, la Guerra Civil, las ideas de los conservadores británicos sobre el fascismo (spoiler: a favor), el New Deal… como profe de Historia lo he encontrado interesantísimo. Y todo con un tono muy divertido, perfecto para leer en vacaciones.
Si os va el humor inglés y las memorias, este libro es muy recomendable.
Unas memorias muy divertidas, que cuentan los primeros años de la autora, un miembro de la famosa familia Mitford, hasta el estaliido de la Segunda Guerra Mundial.
Tiene un estilo muy ‘british’, que me ha recordado muchísimo al estilo de la hermana de la autora, Nancy. Por lo tanto, hay momentos que casi parecen ridículos, al igual que las novelas de ésta. Y también he visto la influencia de la vida de Jessica en “La búsqueda del amor”, el libro más famoso de ella.
La autora nos habla de sus hermanas, lo diversas que eran, lo rancio de su familia, y como contrastaban con los ideales de izquierda de la autora. Pero siempre lo hace desde el cariño y el humor.
La parte final me ha resultado un pelín menos entretenida, pero aún así me ha encantado leer sobre los entresijos políticos de la época, con el alzamiento del nazismo, la Guerra Civil, las ideas de los conservadores británicos sobre el fascismo (spoiler: a favor), el New Deal… como profe de Historia lo he encontrado interesantísimo. Y todo con un tono muy divertido, perfecto para leer en vacaciones.
Si os va el humor inglés y las memorias, este libro es muy recomendable.
November 22, 2020
A fascinating insight into the Mitford sister’s upbringing and my first Slightly Foxed edition (number 707) I have read most of Nancy Mitford’s stories and enjoyed this window into the Mitford world. Jessica is so interesting and her childhood dream of running away is realised with sheer guts and determination.
December 11, 2012
Wonderful book. Poignant, insightful, interesting - and left me wanting to find out more about Jessica Mitford. I have purchased Decca: The Letters of Jessica Mitford to read soon. I wish I had more time to write about this book - I may come back and edit this review to make it more fulsome. However, for now, if you have an interest in this era then this is an excellent memoir and well worth reading.
April 6, 2025
ABANDONADO. No he conectado ni con la forma de escribir de la autora ni con la historia. Una lástima porque le tenía muchas ganas a este libro. Quizá no haya sido el momento. Quién sabe.
July 25, 2020
Just a little bit (a lot) in love with Decca <3
January 9, 2023
0,4 estrellas
August 5, 2009
Jessica Mitford's dashing and dramatic life story is almost too good to be true from a biography standpoint--and she's so utterly appealing that I think I have a bit of crush on her. Aristocratic and hilariously eccentric upbringing, one of the famous/infamous Mitford sisters (their number including a noted writer in Nancy, not one but TWO Nazis, and a communist--that's Jessica), elopement with her dreamy second cousin and their travels to go fight in the Spanish Civil War, emmigrating to America on next to no money, romantic slumming around the USA...you really could not make a lot of this stuff up. This is a very romantic book; the relationship between Esmund and her, especially their time on the road in America, is so sweetly portrayed. I really enjoyed seeing pre-war America through their eyes. Also, there is some lovely writing about the importance that books can have on the interior life of bookish children that had me nodding my head in agreement.
The book was a ripping story, delightfully told. The only thing I wished was different about it was how oddly light on information it was about some rather important details. The name of the infant daughter who died is never given, for instance; her beloved husband's death in the war is revealed offhand in a footnote; we never find out what happened to Unity, her favorite sister, the fascist and close friend of Hitler, after just surviving her suicide attempt at the outbreak of war between Germany and England. Thank goodness for Wikipedia.
The book was a ripping story, delightfully told. The only thing I wished was different about it was how oddly light on information it was about some rather important details. The name of the infant daughter who died is never given, for instance; her beloved husband's death in the war is revealed offhand in a footnote; we never find out what happened to Unity, her favorite sister, the fascist and close friend of Hitler, after just surviving her suicide attempt at the outbreak of war between Germany and England. Thank goodness for Wikipedia.
September 17, 2021
I find the Mitfords a fascinating family to read about, (though I wouldn't have wanted to be friends with them), so I was looking forward to this one and thought she might be more sympathetic than some of her sisters, at least she wasn't a Hitler lover or a fascist and she comes across as kinder; she spent a lot of her life fighting for the Black Rights movement. Disappoingly, she comes across in this as a snob and a hypocrite, castigating her family for the selfishness while describing her working class neighbours as a breed apart.
When they get to America, they blow their money on one of the best hotels, (it's important to put on a good show). When touring the country, Edmond gets a job as a travelling salesman; he's told the English method is behind the times, merely trying to persuade people to buy their wares, instead they have to basically trick their "victims" (yep, Decca's word) into signing up for the product, which is later delivered by a couple of heavies, "in case the husband is home". Seems like capitalism at its worst to me, I'd have called the police if they'd come knocking on my door, but she seems to think it's all rather fun. Anyway, it was interesting and I did like it, and I will be reading the sequel.
When they get to America, they blow their money on one of the best hotels, (it's important to put on a good show). When touring the country, Edmond gets a job as a travelling salesman; he's told the English method is behind the times, merely trying to persuade people to buy their wares, instead they have to basically trick their "victims" (yep, Decca's word) into signing up for the product, which is later delivered by a couple of heavies, "in case the husband is home". Seems like capitalism at its worst to me, I'd have called the police if they'd come knocking on my door, but she seems to think it's all rather fun. Anyway, it was interesting and I did like it, and I will be reading the sequel.
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