Nancy Mitford fans never have to wait too long before a new offering or interpretation comes along. The last few years have seen the 2021 BBC adaptation of Mitford’s 1945 novel The Pursuit of Love, starring Lily James, and the “Mitford Murders” series by Jessica Fellowes. There always seems to be another volume of collected letters, or a gorgeous edition, or a biography coming out; the most recent was Laura Thompson’s 2016 group study The Six. The latest, much-anticipated addition to the Mitford shelves is journalist India Knight’s Darling, a modern re-telling of The Pursuit of Love.
Here are all the old favourites – gorgeous Linda, irascible Uncle Matthew, husky-voiced Bolter – brought up-to-date and reimagined by Knight. She uses the device of no phone signal, and a ban on electronics (“analogue children in a digital age”) to allow the Radletts to be as old-fashioned and wild as Mitford’s original clan. “We were the kind of children who shouted excitedly about the swallows and swifts returning. We ran about outside because there was nothing else to do. We were 20th century in the 21st.”
The Cotswolds of the original has become remote North Norfolk “‘Ah, here we are, the absolute arse end,’ Uncle Matthew would say with deep satisfaction whenever we drove home from somewhere.” Uncle Matthew is now a retired rock-star who wants to protect his children from the tabloids; Lord Merlin, the effete neighbour in Mitford’s original, becomes fashion wunderkind Merlin Berners (a nod to Lord Berners, who inspired the character); Davey, obsessed with his health, fits seamlessly into the modern world: “‘I have a lot of time for the late Dr Mayr’s method. Have you taken the cure? Austria? No? Oh you should, you’d love it. Stale buckwheat rolls, deeply thoughtful chewing, tiny sips of vegetable bouillon. It’s heaven. And of course the Germanic races really understand about faeces.’”
Knight goes light on the “poshos”, although there is still a smattering: Aunt Sadie has become the daughter of an Indian diplomat and an English debutante and Sir Leicester Kroesig is now a captain of industry with a daughter called Blanche, “a sinister name for the offspring of a UKIP supporter.” The plot remains very much the same; Knight has taken few liberties, but has recast the beloved characters and story in a modern mould. Louisa, for example, the doughty oldest daughter, still marries a Scottish peer, but in Knight’s version she becomes an Instagram influencer: “‘I take pictures of the house and the children and of me, looking all golden with the light streaming in, and then I get tons of followers who love me, and then people give me things.’” Uncle Matthew’s list of hates now includes “anyone with any kind of special food regimen or intolerance whatsoever … imported mushrooms, salted caramel (‘not a flavour’) … skiing, racists … people whose arms he considered too long … ‘wellness’, the use of the word ‘cis’ to describe anyone who wasn’t one’s sister.”
What it lacks in original storytelling, Darling more than makes up for in atmosphere and fresh jokes. You can almost feel Knight giggling as she invents a new lexicon for the Radletts: “If people were short – all the Radletts were long-limbed and rangy and viewed short people with fascination and envy (‘It must be so cosy to be short,’ Linda said) – we’d say they were ‘still growing’, even if they were adults: ‘What’s she like?’ ‘Dark hair, hazel eyes, still growing, very nice.’” In one memorable exchange, the youngest sister Jassy leads: “‘Do you know, ducks have actual penises. A male duck’s penis lives inside a sac in its body.’ ‘That’s so sweet,’ said Linda, meaning it. ‘All cosy in a little sac. I love ducks.’”
There is plenty of irreverence, and high spirits abound, but the Radletts are loveable to their cores, even as their searches for love go catastrophically wrong. Linda remains “soft-shelled as well as soft-hearted, with an overabundance of trusting optimism and friendliness”. Perhaps this is why she remains a heroine for all ages: there is an innocence about her, even as she abandons a child and, here, dabbles in drugs. Despite the hints of darkness, and the desperately moving ending, Darling is a warm hug of a novel. In her journalism Knight has written often about the importance of cosiness, and here she has the perfect cosy autumn read. It’s a book to escape to, get lost in, and fall in love with all over again.
Violet Hudson is a freelance journalist and trainee psychotherapist
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