Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford's Love in a Cold Climate is a wickedly funny satire, brilliantly lampooning upper-class society.

When Polly, a beautiful aristocrat, declares her love for her married, lecherous uncle - who also happens to be her mother's former lover - she sparks off a scandal that has both disastrous and delicious consequences. Love in a Cold Climate is an unforgettable tale of the absurdities and obsessions of the elite.

 

Sometimes a book need be nothing more than just ‘rollicking good fun!’ (as the British upper classes might say) and a perfect description of this month’s classic read Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford. The over-drawn, preposterous characters had many of us laughing out loud, and once the small but conscious jump is made into Mitford’s writing style, there is nothing but fun to had within the lives of these satirical upper-crust characters.

We all had our favourites … Polly, Lady Montdore, Davey, Cedric, Aunt Emily … the cast is a wonderful mixture of crazy eccentrics that go about their business, never seeing or believing in the absurdity of their world or their part in it. Some of us were able to see people we know (or have known) within the characters, which always brings some enjoyment and a little more perspective to the reading.

We couldn’t find too much to be serious about with this novel. If there was a sober side it was the questionable fact that Polly needed only her beauty to happily exist. Although, we did end up having an interesting conversation on women’s education and marriage in the early 1900s, and the Mitford girls and their rather dubious relationship choices.

To finish, we all agreed with Nancy that Cedric’s parting comment summed up much of the book and was a classic worth noting …

‘So here we all are, my darling, having our lovely cake and eating it too.

One’s great aim in life.’

The Vintner's Letters by Peter McAra

 

Son of an Irish father and a French mother, Maurice George O’Shea was a famous Australian winemaker. Educated in France, he was also a man of passion, a romantic. In the cultured and elegant Miss Marcia Fuller, an accomplished pianist, he found his enduring sweetheart.

Theirs would be a many-faceted and often stormy romance, confronted by religious differences and tested by life’s vicissitudes. But their greatest challenge lay in Maurice’s other consuming passion – making fine wines. He could not tear himself away from his beloved Hunter Valley vineyard. Marcia, every inch a city girl, was appalled by the primitive living conditions of the struggling vigneron.

The Vintner’s Letters is based on their true story as recounted by Simone Bryce, their daughter, and on the letters written by Maurice to Marcia during their courtship.

This year’s first guest for our An Audience with program, Peter McAra, delivered a wonderfully entertaining and informative talk last Wednesday night at Dapto Library, discussing his novel The Vintner’s Letters.

Reading a novel based on real people and their lives can be an engaging thing. It is so easy to imagine their life, empathize with the characters, understand their difficulties and feel good about their pleasures. This is exactly what McAra has given us in his novel.

Firstly he explained how he came to write Vintner’s Letters (an interesting story in itself) then the process of bringing these two people to life and why the story was released as a novel and not a biography.

Maurice O’Shea provided the foundation for this story with his letters to Marcie over the years of their courtship. Then, with the help of their daughter Simone Bryce, Peter built an authentic, yet compelling story of a man swept up in his dreams of creating superior wine and balancing this with his love for a young woman, all during a time when transport and communication was far from as easy as it is today. 

The story has all the vital ingredients of a great novel … romance, relationships, family dynamics and as Peter explained, that crucial ingredient for a good story, conflict!

Author discussions provide great insight into the artistic process of writing a book and Peter gave us many wonderful stories relating to his research and method of crafting creative non-fiction. For those of us who had already read The Vintner’s Letters, we came away feeling more informed and intimate with, not only the characters, but with the writing process in general …  something always welcomed by avid readers.

And for those who had not yet read the book? It has now moved to the top of their reading list!

From our Book Clubs and readers, a big thank you Peter, for giving your time and sharing your stories in such a personal and friendly manner. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did!

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

 

Somewhere in South America, at the home of the country’s vice president, a lavish birthday party is being held in honor of the powerful businessman Mr. Hosokawa. Roxane Coss, opera’s most revered soprano, has mesmerized the international guests with her singing.

It is a perfect evening – until a band of gun-wielding terrorists takes the entire party hostage. But what begins as a panicked, life-threatening scenario slowly evolves into something quite different, a moment of great beauty, as terrorists and hostages forge unexpected bonds and people from different continents become compatriots, intimate friends and loves.

 

Differing opinions about a book brings out a lively discussion, regardless of the subject matter. But this month’s read gave us fascinating material … music, culture and political struggle with a dash of humour, romance and operatic drama.

When I say differing opinions, our group’s scores for Bel Canto ranged from 2 to 10. The low scores found the story slow and filled with mundane details regarding the hostages’ confined stay. There were also comments regarding the fantastical nature of the story, with little connection to the Lima Crisis of 1996, which it was based on.

Our high scores found the story enthralling with characters that drew you in and moved you emotionally. They found empathy for all of them, hostages and insurgents alike. It was mentioned that music itself became a character and that the whole story read much like an opera (Intentional? We think so), setting a scene, building the characters and rising to a climax.

The story could easily be represented on a stage, so this idea is not unrealistic and it found sound credit with us.

We had a great discussion on opera and how it resonates with people’s emotions. Combined with the cultural variety of the hostages and their evolving relationships, most of us found the whole concept a thoroughly entertaining and worthy read.