Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford and adapted for the BBC
Another version of this note and thoughts on other books are available at:
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This note refers to an adaptation for the BBC.
Notwithstanding the fact that I was not enthusiastic about the abridged version, the original could be fantastic.
Fanny is a main character in this narrative and she plays the role of the story tale.
It is about aristocracy, marriage, love- even if that may have a different meaning for the upper classes, or at least those of the period in which these events take place.
Polly is the only daughter of an extremely well situated couple, high in the social hierarchy, albeit they might be placed lower, on the scale of life satisfaction perhaps.
Lady Montdore, the mother of the aforementioned Polly is a woman that can appear as unscrupulous, yet amusing at times- for this reader anyway.
Boring…
This is what Polly feels like and this made me think of positive psychology and Bertrand Russell’s Conquest of Happiness
In his great book, the philosopher and scientist analyses various aspects of happiness and obstacles in finding it.
Women especially, until very recently have been in a very difficult situation, having to obey all sorts of rules that isolated or kept them indoors and ultimately bored.
Polly presents a more unusual situation, seeing as she belonged to the well situated classes and she could pick and choose suitors, activities…much more than a woman belonging to the lower or even middle class, the latter being nonexistent for most of history.
Polly is uninterested in the suitable men that come her way, being in love with her uncle or “Boy „as he is called, regardless of his habits.
This where the narrative veers into an awkward domain, that would make behavior, personages and attitudes unacceptable in the (civilized) world of today.
There are still places- Turkey had an odd attempt recently- that tolerate, if not outright encourage older men to have intimate relations with under age girls, especially or sometimes provided they marry them.
To add insult to injury, Boy has been the lover of Lady Montdore and he is also known as the “Lecherous Lecturer”…
He had a habit of supposedly instructing the children of the family- and others- into the matters of intimacy which would land him in jail for many decades in this day and age.
Some of them could see that his “teachings” could be pleasant and enjoyable, but not in his company…
Polly marries her uncle, for all the opposition and outrage caused – especially to her mother, who loses a daughter and a lover in one stroke, as another personage puts it.
Some psychological effects could be observed in this relationship:
- The honeymoon effect, hedonic adaptation together some myths of happiness
The honeymoon effect refers to the habituation and loss of enthusiasm that take place after a period of approximately two years in the life of a couple- I think married or just co-habiting.
Hedonic adaptation interferes even in A Warm or Hot Climate to paraphrase the title and it means that we adapt to many, almost all good things in life
Having moved to Italy, Polly and Boy are growing apart, with the woman suffering from the heat and distancing from a husband whose sexual identity is uncertain.
Never mind the perversity and pedophiliac inclinations, the man is a study case for analysts and psychologists.
But so are other characters.
