The Pursuit of Laughter

by Diana Mitford

Diana Mitford is one of the surprise discoveries of the phenomenally successful collection of Mitford letters published for Christmas 2007. Like her five literary sisters, Diana Mitford has written widely not only on her own fascinating, controversial life, but has recorded her intimately-placed observations of friends who also happened to have been leading political and social figures of the day. The majority of these scintillating articles circulated privately to a small group of people, and are published for the very first time in this volume.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Biography Memoir, Memoir, Autobiography, Biography

416 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2008

Reviews

[Cookie M. · Rating 3 out of 5]

A somewhat interesting, very dated book of essays and articles by the beautiful and charming Diana Mitford Mosley, one of the famous and literarily prolific Mitford sisters.
I am wild about this British aristocratic, idiosyncratic family, and am in the process of reading everything in print by and about them.
"The Pursuit of Laughter," a bit of wordplay on the title of sister Nancy's novel " The Pursuit of Love, " makes for an uneven 21st century American read. Many of the subjects of the articles are long read and passed into obscurity, the places unfamiliar to anyone who has not traveled extensively in Europe.
What I was able to follow, because of past reading on historic subjects covered almost made up for slogging through the rest of it.
Mosley's wit is spot on, and she is not afraid to use it. I long for the chance to time travel just to have lunch with her and hear her stories.

[C.S. Burrough · Rating 5 out of 5]

Diana Mitford Mosley, tagged on this book's cover 'The Most Controversial Mitford Sister', died in Paris in 2003 aged 93.

The onetime associate of Adolph Hitler, who attended her 1936 wedding to British Union of Fascists leader Sir Oswald Mosley at Joseph Goebbels' Berlin home, was famously 'unrepentant' to the last about political leanings that led her to Holloway Prison without charge or trial, on MI5's advice, for most of WWII.

'They'll go on persecuting me until I say Hitler was ghastly,' she said in a late life interview. 'Well, what's the point in saying that? We all know that he was a monster, that he was very cruel and did terrible things. But that doesn't alter the fact that he was obviously an interesting figure.'

'It was fascinating for me, at 24, to sit and talk with him, to ask him questions and get answers, even if they weren't true ones. No torture on earth would get me to say anything different.'

This brave, frank singularity was her lifelong hallmark, besides her aristocratic standing, two highbrow marriages and legendary beauty, which her novelist friend Evelyn Waugh said 'ran through the room like a peal of bells', with author-friend James Lees-Milne declaring, 'she was the nearest thing to Botticelli's Venus that I have ever seen'.

But with her sisters seemingly vying for notoriety, rationalising their race with 'Diana started it', her role as instigator of this famous contest would always have had strong readership pull, even had Diana herself never written or published a word.

A selection of diaries, articles, portraits and reviews, introduced by youngest sister, Deborah Mitford, The Pursuit of Laughter (the title a homage to oldest sister Nancy Mitford's 1945 novel The Pursuit of Love) is testament that Diana did write: prolifically, on a mind-boggling range, with extraordinary eloquence and despite her lack of formal education.

The six Mitford girls were home schooled, some as infants by their mother under the Parents National Educational Union (PNEU) scheme, but mostly by governesses. An Edwardian upper-class prejudice lingered, that saw public girls' schools middle-class, even common. (Their brother Tom prepped with them until aged eight, then boarded at Eton, eventually reading law in Berlin).

The basics their parents thought customary for gentlewomen were reading and writing; basic arithmetic for keeping household books; French, deemed essential for their class; enough geography and history to avoid seeming ignorant in polite society; music, needlework and deportment.

Their advantage over peers, however, was free-range access to their Batsford Park home library, the repository of a remarkable collection made by their grandfather, Algernon Freeman-Mitford 1st Lord Redesdale, whose country estates their second-in-line father inherited when his older brother died at war.

This library, which moved house with them to Asthall Manor, their father set up away from the Asthall house, in a barn with armchairs and grand piano. It became their autodidactic meeting point, where the foundations of their intellectual lives were laid.

Unimpeded by adults, they relished being left here to their own devices. While Nancy Mitford and Jessica Mitford longed to be sent to public schools, most of them, especially Diana, shuddered at the thought.

Diana was later a day student at Cours Fénelon finishing school in Paris's rue de la Pompe, the year's enrollment including lectures from visiting Sorbonne professors. In Paris she was painted by her mother's old family friend, Belle Époque portraitist Paul César Helleu, who lived near her hotel and took her around. One such painting appeared in L'Illustration, making her the envy of the school.

Far from home and unsupervised, Paris was her first taste of independence.

Her Cours Fénelon year was cut short, however, when she was kept home in disgrace one recess, having left open her diary. Her parents found details of an unchaperoned afternoon cinema date with a young man, which she admitted was 'a frightful disobedience and an almost unforgivable crime.' She wrote 'I learned more at the Cours Fénelon in six months than I learned at Asthall in six years.'

Back in rural England, with the crowding Mitford brood and parents, her London escape would be marriage, sooner the better.

So, her higher education was at the school of life, embraced by those 'Bright Young People' of the Roaring Twenties. The literati. Etonion, Oxfordian and Cantabrigan alumni. Writers, artists and great intellectuals who flocked to her and first husband Bryan Guinness, himself a lay poet-novelist, heir to the barony of Moyne and one of England's richest men.

The radiant newlyweds, having wrangled for parental nods to marry so young (eighteen-year-old Diana a freshly presented Court debutante) with the groom's exceptional wealth, were instant leading Society figures. Evelyn Waugh dedicated Vile Bodies, a satire of the Roaring Twenties, to the couple. Diana's portrait was painted by Augustus John, Pavel Tchelitchew and Henry Lamb.

They drew various sets: aesthetes, like Harold Acton, Robert Byron, Brian Howard, Henry Green, Roy Harrod; pre-jet jetsetters, such as Emerald Cunard, Duff and Diana Cooper, and Lady Violet Astor's daughter; cerebrals, like John Betjemen, Lytton Strachey and his girlfriend Dora Carrington; and Noël Coward's theatre crowd.

Only the dimmest soul could fail to soak much of this up, Diana the antithesis of dim. Not writing about it would have been a far worse crime than anything she might later face suspicion over.

Mitford sister buffs have favourites, mine the eldest Nancy, who mythologised her kin as 'the Radletts' in autobiographical novels The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate after Diana 'started it all' by scandalously dumping her besotted millionaire spouse for the much older, married, alpha male political livewire Mosley (who refused to divorce for Diana but, soon prematurely widowed, became marriageable).

(Diana's actions were thought a catalyst of competitive sister Unity's public ingratiation of herself to Hitler. Diana even first brought the pair together, on a German trip to visit their brother Tom, Unity tagging along. Both events were thought catalysts of sister Jessica's infamous reactionary elopement with Communist cousin Esmond Romilly, nephew of Winston Churchill.)

Yet most Mitford buffs read outside their favourite sister, drawing comparisons, cross-referencing the sources of this highborn sibling rivalry. Jessica Mitford's 1960 autobiography Hons and Rebels I found confirmative of Nancy's fictional Mitford/Radlett family portraits. Similarly with the priceless 2010 memoir Wait for Me! of Deborah Mitford, Dowager Duchess of Devonshire, friend of the Kennedys and restorer of historic Chatsworth House. Then I read Diana.

Whilst I find Nancy's playful sophistication the most entertaining, with Deborah's warm recollections the most easily digested, Diana is surely the most articulate, her intensity sometimes hard going perhaps due to her more studious genres – she never wrote fiction and her 'portraits' of high-profile loved ones have a distinctly more scholarly tone than any other Mitford memoirist.

To dub her a widely read intellectual firebrand, cultured beyond words, would be gross understatements – she was formidable. In equal measures too, charming, witty, audacious, at times teasingly funny. This intoxicating mix makes her prose irresistible.

Having moved to France a post-war pariah with husband Mosley, the couple established publishing company Euphorion Books. There Diana translated Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's two-part magnum opus Faust.

Other Euphorion publications under her aegis included La Princesse de Clèves et autres romans (translated by sister Nancy Mitford, 1950) and Hans-Ulrich Rudel's memoir Stuka Pilot. She also edited several of her husband's books

In 1965 she wrote the regular column 'Letters from Paris' for the Tatler. She edited fascist cultural magazine The European for six years, contributing her own articles, book reviews and diary entries.

She specialised in reviewing autobiographies, biographies and the occasional novel, with commentary of her own experience of the subject, for The Daily Mail, The Times, The Sunday Times and Books & Bookmen.

She was the lead literary reviewer for the London Evening Standard during A.N. Wilson's tenure as literary editor (he called her the 'most beautiful, most intelligent, and most beguiling of the celebrated Mitford sisters.') The Standard resumed publication of her book reviews from 2001 until her death in 2003.

She wrote the foreword and introduction of 1975 biography Nancy Mitford by aesthete and family friend Harold Acton (on whom Waugh's Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder character Anthony Blanche was based).

In 2007 The Mitfords: Letters between Six Sisters was published, a compilation including many to and from Diana, edited by her daughter-in-law Charlotte Mosley.

Diana's own books included: A Life of Contrasts: An Autobiography (1977), The Duchess of Windsor and Other Friends (1980) and her memoir Loved Ones: Pen Portraits (1985). From these she built a considerable fan base.

Strangers with the worst preconceptions, on meeting her liked her despite themselves. Called 'effortlessly charming' by all, from early acquaintances to wartime Home Office interrogators, to late millennium media interviewees, she was loved by each Mitford sister of whichever ideological bent.

Many held blind to her dazzle, unable to reconcile her old association with the Nazi regime, never dropping her old moniker 'the most hated woman in England'. But in a 2001 letter to sister Deborah, she maintained: 'Being hated means absolutely nothing to me, as you know.'

Some people are simply more than their politics, Diana Mitford Mosley a pure gold example. I was spellbound by this collection of her writings.

[Simon · Rating 4 out of 5]

The high rating is for Mosley's writing style, which is engaging and frequently very funny without being unkind. She could be in her letters; there were some beauts to her stepchildren after one published a biography of Oswald Mosley once his father had safely died. Diana thought it was insufficiently reverential, but then until the day she died at 94, she considered her husband to have been a political genius. Most of the book consists of book reviews Diana wrote for the English press from the 1950s onward, something that continued until a year or so before her death. Given the strain reading put on her failing eyes, this was a remarkable achievement. Her sister Nancy Mitford was also a voluminous reader, and the sheer amount of books she tore through during the attenuated period before she died of very painful cancer presaged Diana.

The rest of the book is filled out with articles about life in France, literary sketches of her friendships with Evelyn Waugh, Violet Hammersley and Lytton Strachey and a diary of sorts from the 1950s. Modern audiences are probably familiar with Waugh, but Strachey mainly survives as a character in the film Carrington, the title derived from the female artist who loved him, and who shot herself shortly after Strachey's early death from cancer in 1931. Diana, who loved them both intensely but briefly, was only 21, but had already been married to Bryan Guinness, heir to you-know-what, for three years. Bryan's wealth along with Diana's own beauty and personality made them the centers of social life for the Young Set (Diana herself did not consider herself to be a Bright Young Thing, although I think it was because she was too young during the 1920s to technically qualify). Had she not met British fascist Oswald Mosley we might know nothing of her save as one of the notorious Mitford sisters. But she did, and was so enraptured that she ended her marriage, willing to exist in the shadows until Lady Cynthia Mosley, his first wife, unexpectedly died. Mosley married her, although he continued unfaithful. Most of the Mitfords failed to see his charm, unlike sister Unity's idol Hitler. He reeled Diana in when they met, although they weren't what you could call close. No more was Unity, who behaved more as a teenager around the Fuhrer and when war broke out tried to kill herself. Diana and Mosley were chucked into Holloway Prison for years after her former father-in-law (and Nancy!) denounced her as dangerous to wartime Britain. Mosley and his followers who more understandably wound up there as well protested for the rest of their lives that their loyalties were with their home country. Meanwhile, Diana's young babies by Mosley were taken in for the duration by her sister Pamela. Unity was repatriated, and spent the next seven years as a damaged adult, the bullet remaining in her brain until at last she died from delayed infection. The only Mitford son, Tom, was killed in Burma during the last days of the war. The youngest sister, Deborah, married Andrew Devonshire and in due time became the Duchess of Devonshire and chateleine of Chatsworth House. Over the course of her long life Deborah transformed it into a running operation that has made it one of the chief tourist destinations in the UK and brought financially stability. Finally, there was Jessica (called Decca), the next youngest. At 18, after a childhood spent at figurative war with Unity because of Decca's communist tendencies, Decca ran away to war torn Spain with Esmond Romilly, remembered by Nancy as "the most horrible human being I ever met." He was also a communist, and related to both his new wife and the Churchills, as indeed were the Mitfords through Clementine. Aside from one letter, and a meeting at Nancy's house in Paris when both Decca and Diana were trying to care for their sister, she never spoke to Diana again. Decca herself said it would have been too hard. She had loved Diana, and could not forgive her for "German" sympathies and antisemitism after Romilly was killed early in the war. Decca stayed in the United States, where the young couple had emigrated, and became a leading left-wing (actually communist, she got a lot better at it with practice) figure for the rest of her life. Decca was active in the civil rights movement, became a famous muckraker and author, and was generally regarded as a liar by Diana after the publication of Decca's risible autobiograpy of her childhood, Hons and Rebels.

So. The main impression one gets is of a reader with enormously varied tastes. Very few of the works reviewed in this collection have much to do with the Nazis she knew, although there is a rather snarky piece about Putzi Hanfstangel's memoirs. Some others pop up in different contexts, and thus we learn how much fun Goebbals could be, how lovely Magda Goebbals could be (she and Mosley married at the Goebbals house in Berlin; they and Hitler were guests) and how fascinating they all were. Why? Well, Diana bought into the view that the National Socialists had revitalized Germany. She makes a number of "more in sorrow"-type remarks about Britain and France's democratic failure to do so. There is also a lot of "what about-ism?" concerning atrocities. The Nazis killed a lot of people, but of course . . . Dresden. Hamburg. The nasty Bolsheviks, who were indeed quite nasty, but who had been killed by the millions after June, 1941 and were understandably miffed. There is no mention of the Holocaust at all, perhaps a wise editorial decision? Diana also never mentions that Germany started the war in Poland. It is particularly offensive when she takes slaps at the United States. Hitler declared war on the US, four days after Pearl Harbor. Had he not, Roosevelt would have faced stiff opposition to an Atlantic War in addition to what promised to be a slog through the Pacific. No one was able to predict how quickly the United States would recover, and then go on the offensive with astounding wartime production and training for the armed forces. In these respects the book does suffer from Diana's unappetizing political views. Fortunately, The Pursuit of Laughter doesn't lose much of its charm through them, and Diana does remain someone one would have liked to have known. Or at least met.

[Shannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

After reading a biography of the Mitford sisters, I picked this book to get more of a sense of Diana. The book contains selected essays and book reviews she wrote, a diary of 1953-1960, and portraits of several important people in her life, including her husband Sir Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists.

I found the book incredibly interesting, even though, at times, Diana's viewpoints appear naive and represent poor judgment. Her wit and humor shine through in her book reviews and make you want to search them out. The most interesting part is truly her perspectives on Germany, Hitler, England and WWII. It's not often that we find people defending Hitler for his humor or good company, and as much as her comments make you cringe, they are quite interesting to read, to say the least.

I found her portrait of Sir Oswald Mosley the most fascinating part. It truly gives you a sense of how committed she was to Mosley and his ideas, and she defends him almost to point of farce, making him seem as though he alone could have prevented the atrocities of WWII.

I definitely recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the Mitfords and the English aristocracy.

[Freda · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are so many funny stories in this book, one that leaps to mind is Bertrand Rusell reading Lytton Strachey while in prison, and being reprimanded for the loudness of his laughter; prison was supposed to be "a place of punishment."

Diana, too, spent time in prison. The collection is aptly titled "The Pursuit of Laughter."

[Paul Magnussen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Aristocratic, beautiful, intelligent, charming, literate and trilingual, a personal friend of Hitler (who was a witness at her wedding to a charismatic politician who vociferously opposed war with Germany) and sister of an avowed Nazi, it’s no wonder that Diana Mitford/Mosley terrified MI5. The sheer spitefulness and pettiness of the treatment she got, none the less, almost defies belief — all, of course, without any charge, trial or chance to plead not guilty (An example? Her cell light being too dim to read by, she offered to buy a brighter one. She was refused).

This background might perhaps lead one to expect her writings to be political rants. Nothing could be further from the truth. This is a wide panorama of short essays, reviews, pen portraits, and one interview; and since Diana knew personally many of the protagonists of the books she reviews, her comments and corrections are of especial interest.

So much has been written both by and about the Mitfords that it may be hard for the newcomer to know where to start. The obvious entry point is Nancy’s best three novels (all with common characters and all hilarious):

The Pursuit of Love
Love in a Cold Climate
The Blessing

Then perhaps the book that made Jessica famous, The American Way of Death.. If these don’t interest you, there’s not much point in going further.

If, on the other hand, they leave you curious as to the authors and their era, I recommend Jonathan Guinness’s The House of Mitford (an excellent biography of the whole family), to give the necessary background for Letters Between Six Sisters. If you then choose to move on to Diana, I suggest first her autobiography, A Life of Contrasts, and then the present opus.

Whatever Diana Mosley’s politics, she was first rate writer with an astonishing breadth of knowledge.

There are also many photographs from her life.

[Nick Hoar · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was on the point of giving up on this book. I was not especially enjoying the opening chapters, which consist of historical book reviews. I could not see much point in this, although it does give a tangential insight into the reviewer. And a bonus of lots of ideas for future reading.
Then, suddenly, I found myself looking forward to opening my Kindle and reading on.
Diana Moseley introduces many of her friends, people with whom I am familiar by name. And their personalities have now been coloured in somewhat.
I also got to understand how very different everything is when viewed through the lens of inherited wealth and privilege. OK, she might tell you how fiscally hard up the Mitford sisters' upbringing was. But I've read the book on that, and anyone who, in the 1930's, buys their daughter an MG to run all over Europe. Or, who decides it's better to take on a London house, complete with a ballroom as a cheaper alternative to hotels, in which to accommodate each daughter throughout her debutante season, is not lacking funds in the way experienced by 99.9% of the population.
I especially enjoyed a peek into her life with Oswald Mosley. Much has been written about her and him. However, these are usually negativly tainted by extreme political or populist hatred.
She has her own agenda, of course, but I feel that I got closer to the people, their personalities, and foibles. Moseley, their children (although I'd like more of Max), King Edward VIII, and Wallis. John Betjeman, Lords Longford and Lambton. And a fascinating cast of others.
I hope this book has left me more tolerant of others' political views. Culture would stagnate without those with the courage to question the status quo. And, better still, offer alternatives. We don't have to take up their ideas, but isn't it these outliers who sometimes seed a better future?

[Susann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mixed

I enjoy her writing, very concise and insightful. I especially liked her reviews of current books with the biographical ones being the best. What a brilliant woman...she knew everyone and had such stimulating conversations and relationships with them. While the book did cause me to smile once or twice, I can't say I laughed. The humor is a bit of the time and situation. It is a long book, primarily vignettes and the reviews so you can pick it up and put it back down for awhile without losing anything.

[Kitty]

jätan pooleli, sest seda on liiga palju, see on enamasti mu jaoks ebaoluline/ebahuvitav (tohutu hulk arvustusi raamatutele, mida ma pole lugenud, ja järelehüüdeid inimestele, kellest pole kuulnudki) pluss oma vaadete poolest on Diana ikkagi üsna talumatu (ja ei ole piisavalt vaimukas, et seda kompenseerida). kuna leidsin lugemiseks hoopis ta eluloo, siis aitab ehk see mul projektis "loen midagi igalt Mitfordi õelt" linnukese kirja saada.

[hayls 🐴 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Took longer than it should've.
Diana was controversial but she fascinates me and I kind of love her.

[Gonzaga Escauriaza · Rating 4 out of 5]

Diana always hilarious and very original and genuine

You never get bored with a Mitford and Diana is the most glamorous one

[MargCal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Finished reading The Pursuit of Laughter: Essays, Articles, Reviews & Diary of ... Diana Mosley. April 2014

As the subtitle indicates, this a mixed bag with mixed results, mainly because it is not of uniform interest as a single theme might be. But none the less most enjoyable for all that. Her portrait of her infamous second husband was particularly interesting, sympathetic of course as his son's was not.

It's hard to find the editor's name ... I'd be hiding my name too if I did the mediocre job that this book is on the editing side. There are no specific dates, only years for articles and reviews, the unhelpfully broad 1953-1960 for the diaries, and broad bush stroke eras as chapter headings which didn't always fit anyway. For those not old enough to remember (which is most people now) or with scant knowledge of early to mid 20th century (mostly) British history, specific dates and often a bit of context too would have been helpful and should have been included.

[Adele · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love the Mitford sisters and I think Diana is a wonderful character and very good at writing. I really liked this book but I found the content to be disappointing. I would have liked more or her life story as well. It was nicely sectioned and a unique view on the current state of affairs in the world.

[Geoffrey Rose · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book reviews and portraits of mid-century figures are erudite, witty and fascinating but it's occasionally hard to stomach Lady Mosley's fascism and her barely concealable anti-Semitism. Recommended with these caveats.

[Paul]

Really sharp and funny, Diana Mosley writes in a very clear fashion and also in very funny when dealing with some of the very well know personality here.

[Mike Ward · Rating 3 out of 5]

One to dip in and out of - some sections more interesting than others - full review here

http://0651frombrighton.blogspot.co.u...

[Maryanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book to enjoy as a long term read .The articles are a joy and are so Diana .Talented and observant she writes as she sees it ,one of the last true doyens of the upper class.

[Karen-Leigh · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful 'find' of a book, surprisingly fascinating, a collection of book reports/reviews which just happen to include a bunch I've just read, want to read, read long ago and found interesting. Or the reviews are interesting and informative enough that I don't actually have to read the book at all and since the time I have left on my perch is limited..that has become of value to me. her choice of so many political books is not surprising nor her German-centric slant - what was interesting to me was how well written the essays were...enough to almost sway me to her point of view or at least question my own historical view/knowledge. With Trump's current climate of rigging, spying, spamming, hacking and racism spreading wide bringing to mind the lead up to Nazi Germany - the parallels are frightening. Then she goes on to character portraits of so many people whose lives I have been interested in for a long time and since I had no idea what to expect when I bought the book it feels like I won the lottery. This is definitely a book to be reread as soon as possible.