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Product Description
Review
An intoxicating mix of pretty absurditites and farce Time Out Revel in a slice of arcadian 30s silliness, preserved, as it were, in aspic...there are still plenty of jokes that raise loud, unforced laughter 75 years on...a satire on marriage, and a clear-eyed on at that Guardian
Book Description
Eugenia Malmains is one of the richest girls in England and an ardent supporter of Captain Jack and the Union Jackshirts; Noel and Jasper are both in search of an heiress (so much easier than trying to work for the money); Poppy and Marjorie are nursing lovelorn hearts; and the beautiful bourgeois Mrs Lace is on the prowl for someone to lighten the boredom of her life. They all congregate near Eugenia's fabulous country home at Chalford, and much farce ensues. One of Nancy Mitford's earliest novels, "Wigs on the Green" has been out of print for nearly seventy-five years. Nancy's sisters Unity and Diana were furious with her for making fun of Diana's husband, Oswald Mosley, and his politics, and the book caused a rift between them all that endured for years. Nancy Mitford skewers her family and their beliefs with her customary jewelled barbs, but there is froth, comedy and heart here too.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
3.5 out of 5 stars (10 customer reviews)
35 of 37 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Controversial, Long Unavailable, Bit Of Mitford, Aug 12 2010
By John D. Cofield - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Wigs on the Green (Paperback)
At her best Nancy Mitford was an extraordinarily funny novelist, a witty popular historian, and an accomplished letter writer. I now possess all of her novels, several volumes of her letters, and most of her histories. I would dearly love to have met her and her equally famous (or infamous) sisters, Pam the farmer, Unity and Diana the Fascists, Jessica the Communist, and Deborah the Duchess. While I can't do that in this life, I can enjoy Nancy's novels in their new and very fine editions, including at long last Wigs on the Green.This is not one of Nancy Mitford's finest works, as she herself admitted. Published in 1935, it belongs to her early, immature period of writing silly little stories like Highland Fling, Christmas Pudding, and Pigeon Pie. Her best fiction came in the 1940s with The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate. Nevertheless Wigs on the Green has plenty of Mitford's trademark wit and good humor and unforgettable characters based on her family and friends.
And that's the main reason Wigs on the Green has been unavailable for so long. In the early 1930s two of Nancy's sisters fell head over heels in love with Fascism. Diana left her first husband to marry Sir Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists, while Unity developed a crush on Hitler, went to Germany, and actually managed to become part of his inner circle. Nancy disliked Fascism but saw her sisters' obsessions as a great source of humor. So Wigs on the Green is all about young women involved with clownish Fascists. Plenty of fun is poked and lots of sniggering takes place, and nowadays it all seems more than a little jarring. But remember, in 1935 nobody, least of all Nancy Mitford herself, knew what was to come. Hitler was easy to laugh at with his absurd little mustache, and as daughter of a British Lord (who was more than a little Fascistic and clownlike himself), Mitford saw no reason to temper her witticisms with more serious observations.
After World War II Mitford acknowledged that Wigs on the Green took too much too lightly, and she let it go out of print. Now at last modern readers can read it and enjoy it, albeit with a wince every now and then.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
A fun read, with undertones of foreshadowing, Aug 20 2010
By Phelps Gates - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Wigs on the Green (Paperback)
This is a most entertaining light novel, something in the tradition of Waugh's Vile Bodies (or the movie Bright Young Things based on it). Contemporary attitudes toward divorce, adultery, and family life are satirized, with many laugh-out-loud moments, and all the naughty behavior builds to a hilarious climax in a disastrous historical pageant (complete with wigs on the green). My favorite chapter was the one on Peersmont, an insane asylum for peers of the realm (built on the floor plan of the House of Lords)! Of course, what sets this apart from the other silly novels of the period is the character Eugenia (based on Unity Mitford) and her troop of Union Jackshirts (based on the British Union of Fascists). We are, in effect, transported back to the early 1930's, when such a movement could be and generally was regarded as a subject for humor. Alas, the Jackshirt leader (the "Captain," based on Oswald Mosley, Nancy Mitford's brother-in-law), gets off fairly easy, since much of the material satirizing him personally was apparently removed at Unity's pleading and for fear of a lawsuit.
10 of 12 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars
Not Worth The Wait, Nov 2 2010
By JACK "audio aficionado" - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Wigs on the Green (Paperback)
Like many of her fans, I was enchanted by Nancy Mitford's skewed comedies of manners. Mitford's third novel Wigs on the Green became, for me, the literary equivalent of Big Foot. Pre-Internet, a few used copies in dubious condition and at grossly inflated prices were reputed to be for sale yet remained unseen and unverified. Alas, after a personal wait of nearly 30 years, I find the reissued Wigs on the Green to be tepid (probably from too much familial fiddling that watered down the storyline and caricatures). Worse, given Mitford's comedic reputation, Wigs on the Green commits the cardinal sin of being simply not amusing. Ironically, the true life backstory of the novel holds more interest than the novel itself. The characters are flat, interchangeable in their speech mannerisms. I read the novel just for the sake having done so at long last. Overall, a forgettable early literary effort from the novelist who later penned the fictional gems, The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate.
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