tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6816366806127608207.post7868472674130356124..comments2023-04-11T10:26:47.795-05:00Comments on A Follow Spot: Read a Little "Snobs" to Get Ready for the Royal WeddingJulieKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12521424567356348282noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6816366806127608207.post-86215808069295020102011-04-26T20:58:18.447-05:002011-04-26T20:58:18.447-05:00I'm sure you're right. Plus I think the s-...I'm sure you're right. Plus I think the s-i-l had money, so selling off the daughter to a classless twit was no biggie. It's the son who needs to be properly settled, since he will be siring future heirs and all. Well, maybe. (Don't want to give away too many plot details.)JulieKhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12521424567356348282noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6816366806127608207.post-14415040194505408082011-04-26T19:29:28.055-05:002011-04-26T19:29:28.055-05:00I don't remember the book in much detail, I fe...I don't remember the book in much detail, I fear. Maybe the vile brother-in-law doesn't matter because daughters don't matter as much as sons when it comes to misalliances? (Like, Lady Mary Wimsey marrying a policeman was joked about but eventually grudgingly accepted, while Lord Peter marrying a novelist with a bohemian past is a scandal?) I don't know....JAChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10942256334004773509noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6816366806127608207.post-58525709535223450212011-04-26T16:01:05.470-05:002011-04-26T16:01:05.470-05:00That explains why he has a child named Peregrine!
...That explains why he has a child named Peregrine!<br /><br />It was very interesting to me how inconsistent some of the rules seemed to be. So Charles' sister is married to a money-grubbing nobody who is absolutely vile, and he seems to be accepted for the most part. (Because he's vile?) But then Edith simply cannot be allowed into the club, and the vile brother-in-law is the one at the front of the Anti-Edith Brigade.<br /><br />I imagine everyone's favorite character is Charles's mother, "Googie." (Also known as Lady Uckfield, which is a hilarious name all by itself.) You get the idea that Our Narrator likes her best, too, even though she really is awful so much of the time. And her life is no bargain, being married to a moron! Such is life in the Hoity Toity Club. Interestingly enough, this dilemma (A woman may hook up with a moron for the position that comes with it, but what about what she has to give up?) was also at the center of "Elemeno Pea," one of the Humana Festival plays I reviewed. We're talking East Coast, American-style aristocrats, but the putative love interest is just as idiotic, even if the in-and-out privileges are a bit more fluid.JulieKhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12521424567356348282noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6816366806127608207.post-46720413349219203282011-04-26T15:42:27.931-05:002011-04-26T15:42:27.931-05:00So glad you decided to write about this book, Juli...So glad you decided to write about this book, Julie! I bought it year ago in a UK airport bookshop for in-flight reading as I returned home, and it's just the thing for an ambivalent anglophile like me.<br /><br />All the little minutiae like how That Sort of People issue and receive invitations (they'll go to restaurants if they're in London, but oh never in the country), and how you can be welcome among them until you commit a faux pas after which it's forget it... I love that stuff. And indeed, nobody knows that milieu better than Fellowes, he being sort of half born into it and half an onlooker (being also an actor/writer).<br /><br />I love his parents' names: his mother was Olwen Stuart-Jones and his father was Peregrine Edward Launcelot Fellowes. His stepmother was an earl's daughter and a baron's widow.JAChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10942256334004773509noreply@blogger.com