Medium – Audiobook
About the Book – Linda Radford is the beautiful, daring and romantic daughter of a peer living in 1920s, 1930s and 1940s England. ‘Pursuit of Love’ is the story of her life and loves, told from the point of view of her cousin, Fanny, who also narrated the audiobook I listened to last year, ‘Love in a Cold Climate’. The book charts Linda’s life from her early days on her father’s estate in England, through to her marriage to a conservative politician, then her marriage to a communist activist, and finally her love affair with a French intelligence man. Her life is full of drama and love, slightly opposite to Fanny’s, who is married to an Oxford Don and settles happily into a life of domestic bliss.
My Rating – 4.5/5
My Thoughts – The Pursuit of Love seems a very apposite book to be reading at the moment, mostly because it has recently been dramatised on the BBC with one of my favourite actresses, Lily James. I haven’t had a chance to watch it yet, but I am looking forward to seeing this book on the small screen! When talking to my husband about this book, I likened it to ‘Wodehouse with sex’, and I think that is a fairly good summation of the book. It is very funny, and set in the same time periods as Wodehouse, but focuses on a very dramatic woman, with no concealment of the fact that she is having a very nice time with a good range of men, although (apart from one) always men she is married to. There is a sadness to the book – until the end of her life, poor Linda never seems to truly understand happiness, with her first two marriages disintegrating and leaving her unhappy. And then the book does not end as you expect it to…
I really enjoy the characters of Fanny and Linda. Fanny is the much more strait-laced version of Fanny, but she is also extremely clever and holds her own against Linda, the clever men that are in her circle and her Oxford Don husband. She isn’t ‘just’ the archetypal young mother (so often seen in books of about this time). Linda is lovely – romantic, a dreamer and a complete free spirit. As the book progresses, you feel more and more sorry for her, as she becomes more and more disheartened with love and relationships. The story is semi-autobiographical, with Nancy Mitford taking the role of Linda, and her family taking some of the other roles (most recognizably, her parents), and the knowledge of this does show some sadness in Nancy’s life, as well as her wit and sparkle.
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