Looking at the cover photograph, one is slightly puzzled, is this the face the author repeatedly claims was painted by quite so many of the supposedly top artists of the day? One could explain that with her being of the top echelons of the society (- she claims they were brought up poor, but they do seem to move from one large country home to another, have seasons in London and holidays in France and Italy, while her father went on buying house after house; her first husband was a Guinness, and she says she did not know they were rich until she wanted a diamond tiara and he casually told her she has one somewhere around; she married another aristocrat, having divorced Guinness somewhere shortly before or after his father was Lord Moyne; and one of her sisters was married to Andrew Cavendish, who inherited Duchy of Devonshire due to the death of his elder brother in the war after his wedding to Cathleen "Kick" Kennedy, sister of John F. Kennedy) - this would be not too unlikely for a young woman of some attraction, but one keeps wondering what it is one sees in the face, for it isn't beauty.
Then somewhere at a quiet moment it comes to one, as things seem to - this is the face that literally illustrates in one's mind the actress who was paramour of the artist in an Agatha Christie work, about the artist dying as he painted the young woman. One of the most thrilling and satisfactory works of Agatha Christie, one wonders if she wrote it having seen this face, else it is too much of a coincidence this face fits that description quite so much, quite so well.
Even a reviewer of this work mustn't spoil so good a story as the particular work of Agatha Christie, for the reader who has not yet read it, but the character fits. This woman would not allow anything to stand in her way. And her fury is vented in this on not only communists and labour governments, but on Churchill - "cousin Winston" - whom she equates incredibly with Hitler whom she admired and loved, and on British in general unless they are the specific or nameless that stood by the fascist party Mosley founded and headed, She equates US and USSR as powers equally abominable in being outsiders in Europe and meddling by dividing it, and if this is not enough, takes care to quote someone who called the three allied leaders at Yalta "two pigs and a boar" - and just in case one did not get who is who, explains that boar was Stalin.
If one is not repulsed when reading this book and through the chapters about fascist or nazi figures of the era, if one is not revolted to the very core and at an almost physical bordering nausea when reading the blinkered and entitled rich author's vituperation poured against those opposing the fascists, then one ought to examine one's own thinking, for one can safely bet one is a fascist.
Proliferation of evil is of course helped by active participation, voluntary subscription et al, but one of the vital components of the proliferation and victory is the standoff by those that could but don't oppose it, not because they lack force or any other reason, but only because they would rather not lose their privileges and the good life due to such opposition. So they not only watch as the neighbourhood bully bashes up the weak and the not so weak of the neighbourhood but manages to have others shut their doors and windows tight, and then the once famous moral tale of the fascist era comes to life. It goes something like this - when they came for communists, I was silent, because I was not a communist; when they came for socialists, Jews, Gypsies, handicapped, I stayed silent; when they came for me, there was no one left to protest!
US was late in joining the struggle against the fascist threat looming against human civilisation, because the so called isolationists were dominant in not only industry and media but generally the people too, since English had won the language battle by only a small margin, and a sizeable chunk in Midwest was German origin. If it were not for Japan attacking US, what would be the state of the world today is an unthinkable horror to imagine.
In England the situation was less opaque, and those in sympathy with not Germany as such but far more specifically the then nazi regime of Germany, called themselves fascists - and the chairman and more, its establishing member and its spirit, was Oswald Mosley, and upper caste member of the aristocracy of Great Britain, who was son in law of the ex Viceroy of India Lord Curzon. This book is the work of his second wife, who is a shadowy figure in the biography of daughters of Curzon, The Viceroy's Daughters. There, she is the catalyst for the heartbreak and death of the beloved second daughter of Curzon, and known for her trysts with the married father of several children whom she married in secret after Cimmie Curzon Mosley died.
When one is not a fascist, nor tolerant of the ideology therein or any form of totalitarian dictatorship, and if one is aware of the era when fascism almost destroyed human civilisation and all achievements thereof via an avowed aim of conquest of the world and enslavement of all people of not one particular race - when one is aware of the important events and persona of the first half of the twentieth century, in short, one is in quandary about this book. One does not wish to have discrimination based on a prejudice even if it is about a figure that belongs more on the society pages among shenanigans of the upper castes of the world that frolic unscathed by poverty or even any of slightest limitations to their fun by economy, and only connected to one of the worst known fascists of Great Britain via an affair, one that culminated in marriage only via her divorce from the young upper caste father of her two sons and death of her paramour's wife - mother of his very young brood of more than two - due chiefly to heartbreak.
But if one puts aside one's fear of disliking this on basis of one's horror of fascism or one's sympathy for the sweet unfortunate Cimmie, and one goes on to read it, one is in for a horror only macthed perhaps by the horrors in Milton's description of hell. No, Diana Mitford does not describe concentration camps of Germany or even the million starved to death in India by the British when they took away the harvests for British soldiers and left the poor peasants of India starving with news thereof muzzled by force of the empire. She in fact frolics about from house to house, city to city, with fun and food and parties and more, dresses and music and adoration by various persona of the era - including, chiefly perhaps, by the nazi supremo.
No, the horror is that she - after a careful denunciation of the holocaust once or twice, to cover - questions British for going to war, blames them for doing so for a distant Poland that did not matter to British Empire, and in the process causing the destruction of the Empire, thereby causing England to reduce from a world girdling empire to a small nation without power even in Europe - and she heaps this blame on British, mostly, with scarce a finger of blame pointed at the fascist powers for causing the war in the first place.
No, in her book their - the then German regime's - leader could do no wrong, because he was nice to her and her sister, and if he wanted to occupy all of Europe, British should not have bothered until he attacked the British Empire. Along this argument, she not only disparages the British government and her "Cousin Winston" in particular, but equates him in a separate chapter with his opponent, comparing point by point, and goes to the length of disparaging the men who fought for the allies - although not a word about the men who went to war to conquer the world for their leader of Germans, attacking nation after nation and massacring chiefly civilians in an effort to wipe Europe clean of all others so that Germans could have "living room".
But when she asserts, quoting Mosley, that this position of theirs was because British empire was in jeopardy if British went to war with Germany, and that definitely what Britain should not have gone to war for was for a "distant" central or east European nation, unless British empire was attacked directly by Germany, and that Mosley personally too would have gone to war against Germany if the British empire were in fact in danger due to Germany attacking it directly - one wonders what geometry, what measurements they have been taught, in school or at home! Hallo, isn't central and eastern Europe closer to London, to all of mainland Britain, than most of the dominions and colonies, perhaps with exception of Hebrides or Channel islands, which should count among mainland Britain anyway?
She is as completely a nazi as the top echelons of Germany accused at Nuremberg trials, and she blames the allies for being unfair at the said trials for not accusing a single non German even for seeming fairness of the trials. She is scathing about suspension of her freedom of speech, and being sent to prison during war for being not only an outspoken fascist but a personal friend of Hitler amongst others in her family - her sisters, Mosley - and more, but is completely obliterating in her own mind or is being hypocritical about such rights being suspended in Germany even during the years she was visiting the country and its top echelon leaders personally.
To be fair she seems to have an inkling that those rights, even right to life, were not allowed the colonial subjects of British empire, and seems to be fine with it, which is usually called racism. This she does not mention much less discuss, but does at one point say she was disapproving of a European friend being bad to an Indian he brought to the party with him - so presumably she is ok with Dyer killing hundreds of civilians in India at Jalianwala where a tank was positioned at the single gate of the enclosed garden by him while all those enjoying a quiet time en famille in the garden were shot dead, men and women, babies and old.
She manages to quote repeatedly in favour of Mosley, and for someone unfamiliar with the era it might seem that it was surprising Mosley was not carried to the British Parliament or even the Buckingham Palace on shoulders of the countrywide adoration of the people of the country. Fact is, people were fond of their king who abdicated, but adjusted placidly to his leaving the country, and Mosley's popularity was not a thousandth if that of the ex king. The two couples were neighbours in France for a while until the Duke of Windsor died, and friends, unsurprisingly, given their state of exile due to their nazi sympathies albeit carefully covered with protestations of loyalty to their country they found it difficult to share travails of.
When not doing this defence of fascism and fascists of the era, and attacking all others, the woman brought up privileged and never brought out of blinkers of entitlement gives endless descriptions of places, food and personages she encountered across the continent and in the isles - it gets repetitive and bores one after a while, and one is anxious to finish the book only because when something is so repulsive, one wishes to be fair and see if there is a saving grace. But through almost nine tenths of it, no there isn't. The author does not even mention the first Lady Mosley - or was she not titled because he was not yet? - more than about twice, and one wonders, was she unaware her husband's and his children's upkeep was only due to Curzon wealth, including the share of the eldest daughter who took care of the children, or does this Lady Mosley take it for granted she deserved it just as she takes it for granted Poland should not have been gone to war for by the British and the French?
At some point one begins to wonder if one takes for granted a logical mind, a fair sense of justice and a good heart, and these are in fact not so obviously seen by everyone as a necessity, not at heart although much of the time they are paid lip service to. The second Lady Mosley is less bothered about paying such lip service, at that, and thinks - no, in fact demands as an obvious right - her privileges above the rest.
And necessarily thereby one is reminded of Galsworthy's portrayal of the British and their upper caste, and their creed of noblesse oblige, of an obligation to give life to public service for the country and even humanity, since they have had their livelihoods provided for unlike most of the rest.One reads his beautiful portrayals of England's landscape and seasons, and the creeds and thinking people live by. It is not merely mesmerising one into tranquillity, it is very reassuring too - and even though one knows that the world isn't as tranquil, as beautiful, one finds it soothing to let that portrayal be a corner of the world in one's mind.
And then one reads about this life, from this woman, and one wonders, just how many of the said upper caste are in fact brought up to live with this creed of noblesse oblige, of devoting the privileged life to public service, rather than not only living a circuit of party - holiday - townhouse season - country house summer - riviera and so on, but espousing it at the expense of the poor, the whole world? She would call this communism, but it is no more so than the Galsworthy characters who would be scandalised at such a thought.
