Darling by India Knight

published 2022

 

 

Now here’s a book that could have gone either way. Spoiler – it went the right way, it is a triumph.

Nancy Mitford’s The Pursuit of Love is one of my all-time favourite books – bound in a single volume with her Love in a Cold Climate it would be a book I would want on a desert island, and it is all over the blog, along with her other books and many other items from the lives of the mid-20^th Century Mitford sisters. (Read all the relevant blogposts and you could pretty much go on Mastermind with this family as your specialist subject)

The idea of a modern updating of the story was interesting: that is the concept of India Knight's Darling.

I have not enjoyed many such similar ideas (not going to name them here)  but wanted to keep an open mind. (I did very much like Emily Mortimer’s recent free adaptation of Pursuit of Love for TV)

And I LOVED this book, it gave me enormous pleasure, and will be granted a place on the precious Mitford Shelf, not consigned to the cold circles of book Hell.

Knight has moved the Radletts forward: now they are a smaller family, living in a remote farmhouse called Alconleigh in Norfolk. The children are being home-schooled, and there is ‘no signal’ so they are kept apart from the world of mobile phones, computers and even TV: their cousin Franny lives next door and narrates. Linda grows up longing to escape, and longing for love: she seeks it out with unsuitable men.

Her story walks the line between copying and renewing the original: every page has a reference back to Pursuit of Love, many of them laugh-out-loud funny. I think anyone could read this book and enjoy it, but to a true fan of Pursuit, the delight is even greater. Sentence by sentence you see how cleverly Knight has worked the material – and brought in other nice references, such as the location of Linda’s apartment in Paris.

Uncle Matthew is a retired rock god, which sounds insane but works brilliantly: in his leather trousers and punk t-shirt he is still recognizable as the maddening, opinionated country gent from the original.

An early scene has Uncle Matthew and Aunt Sadie doing (the song) Wuthering Heights to explain who Kate Bush is to the unimpressed children: ‘Have you nearly finished?’ asks Linda, as Uncle Matthew says ‘Here, Sades, am I your Heathcliff?’

Doesn’t sound very Mitford? Not at all, but it was at this moment that I became sharply convinced that the book was going to work like an exuberant dream.

Knight resists the temptation to over-use the Bolter, but she is a great cameo. ‘Say what you like about Auntie Bolts, but she’s not for show. I mean, she does follow her heart, doesn’t she? Wherever it may lead, and come what may, poor her.’

When asked to keep an eye on Linda, the Bolter is reluctant:

‘The thing about me is, I do know my limits darling.’

‘I don’t think Auntie Bolts is cut out to be the eyes and ears,’ said Jassy.

‘Quite right, darling,’ said my mother cheerfully. ‘I’m more the life and soul.’

Merlin has become a fashion designer, Davey is an interior decorator, Christian looks like the young Stalin - pure genius:

The plot wanders round and – rather like the original – in the end stops suddenly.

My own concern is always with Linda’s daughter Moira, in whom I have a name-related interest. (I greatly enjoyed the argument against giving her this name: Linda thinks ‘it would be well suited for a geriatric lady murderess’ - #squadgoals. And I was very taken with her nickname Momo – if only I had thought of that 40 years ago for myself.) Nancy Mitford seems to simply forget about her after her final appearance two-thirds of the way through Pursuit, and she is never mentioned again – even though Mitford updates us on nearly every other character in the subsequent books.

Now, my great hope is that India Knight is going to do a follow-up to Darling, and I put in my request now for her to keep her eye on Momo.

The best magic in the book (and it is full of enchantment) comes in the conversations among the Radletts, which are completely convincing, very funny, very different from the original but in a way that makes you nod, yes modern Radletts would be like this. You long for them to keep on going forever.

[Aunt Sadie says:] ‘An awful lot of older women become lesbians, I think. So much less alarming than dealing with cantankerous old men, somehow.’

‘Do you have a specific cantankerous old man in mind?’ asked Jassy.

 ‘I’d totally take up with Rose from the shop,’ said Linda.

‘We all would,’ said Aunt Sadie. ‘She’s divine.’ The shop was a shed two villages away that sold milk, newspapers, bread when Rose could be bothered to make it and boiled crabs in season.

There are also some really excellent social event setpieces: Louisa’s 21^st birthday in the barn (top picture giving an idea of the girls together), Linda’s disastrous newly-wed dinner party.

And some splendidly silly moments: Linda catches two people in her bed –

Unfortunately, the clattering-heel noise she had cinematically anticipated making as she headed for the bed was muffled by the rugs, so that [they] remained unaware of her presence.

There are hilarious moments dealing with influencers and Instagram, beautifully done.

Of course, the clothes are wonderful.

Linda, pacing, looked beautiful in an old cashmere cardigan that perfectly matched the violet of her eyes. She wore it with a red tweed skirt, brogues and a green velvet ribbon in her dark hair, and managed to make the whole ensemble look ravishingly chic, as only she could.

Franny  has a job involving ‘sourcing old plaid patterns from vintage American checked shirts and sending them to the designer to modify minutely and pass off as their own.’ (‘Lucky you went to school,’ Uncle Matthew had said, ‘and got that degree.’)

She also wears an ‘ankle-grazing nave-blue knitted dress that had seemed fashionable, unfrumpy, even chic when I’d looked approvingly at myself in the mirror this morning’.

And now here’s a thing, and a reason to love modern life – I was enjoying the descriptions very much, and eventually decided, unexpectedly, that the clothes sounded very Ralph Lauren. I am sure Merlin would be horrified at the very idea, but that’s what did it for me. And then – there turned out (this is the modern life bit) to be this wonderful tumblr: Old Ralph LaurenAdverts: Archive (tumblr.com). (Love the idea of Old Ralph Lauren, the fashion sage of the Bronx)

That’s an hour of my life I won’t get back – all these pics (except the plaid shirt, Stalin and the knitted dress) come from there, reflecting a mood rather than exact outfits, and expect to see it contribute a lot to future entries on recent books.

My opinion of Ralph Lauren is that half his looks are awful - preppy boat-y navy and white with brass buttons – and the other half are fake countrified and wonderful, and the third half are incredibly desirable evening wear that no-one can afford. I speak as someone who, after returning to a proper job after a gap, spent my first paycheck on a Ralph Lauren tweed jacket that I cherish to this day. A bit like this one, on a model I don't otherwise resemble in an ensemble I would never wear:

 

Knight has kept the ending of the original, more or less, and the final sentences, more or less – lines that, as I have said before, I consider one of the best endings of any book. The final words, from the Bolter, grab your heart every time. Every, every time.

People vary: I’m sure there are those who do not want to imagine how Linda would be in the 2020s, and those who get annoyed by eccentric families in literature. But if you fancy the idea, and want the perfect book to enjoy on an autumn afternoon on the sofa, you cannot do better than this.