James Pope-HennessyBesprekingen

Funny but not hilarious (quotes on cover over-state it,). Improves in second half of the book. Chapter on Duke of Gloucester particularly good (only watches children's tv, in particular The Lone Ranger!). Main impressions are the ignorance, cruelty, stupidity, pettiness, selfishness, hostility, and drinking. Generally an amusing but unpleasant group of people.

Read this a long time ago. What I remember is its prose. It's dramatic and well-written. Goes into details describing the horrors suffered by the slaves in the plantations.

This is a set of reminiscences and journal entries from the time Pope-Hennessy, in many ways a tragic figure, produced his magnum opus, his biography of Queen Mary. If you are familiar with that work and its subject, this is a fascinating companion book, as it records Pope-Hennessy's journeys around Europe to catch the last remnants of the old order before they died. En route he has many adventures in palaces and castles, and there are very funny accounts of meals and conversations. His trip to stay with the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester is perhaps the highlight. One of the interesting aspects of the book is how he is obviously both fascinated and appalled by many of the people he meets – all of whom are now I think dead, except the present Queen.
If you are not familiar with the biography then you are likely to find this book somewhat bewildering. But the solution to that is simple, and will enrich you.

Shortly after Queen Mary's death (1953), James Pope- Hennessy was commissioned with writing her biography. This is NOT that book, but a collection of the many inteviews he had with those who knew her,; the (often more revealing) letters P-H wrote about those interviews to his friends...and very literate (and often hilarious) descriptions of the places, the characters and the author's reactions, the whole interpolated with explanations from editor Hugh Vickers.

Utter entertainment as P-H prowls around stately homes, gets invited to stay with sundy royals, reminisces with past servants, ladies of the bedchamber etc. I feel hugely motivated to read the actual work. Normally a biographer is a shadowy presence as he brings forth the character of his subject, but Pope-Hennessy is a very vivid, vital part of the telling- and, strangely, that in fact adds to his work.

Who could forget the Duchess of Windsor ("She is flat and angular, and could have been designed for a medieval playing card...the expression is either anticipatory (signalling to one, "I know this is going to be loads of fun, don't yew?") or appreciative- the great giglamp smile, thee wide wide open eyes, which are so very large and pale and veined, the painted lips and the cannibal teeth.")

And the surprisingly negative take on Sandringham- a place I've never visited- "Next to the death-chamber is the most sinister little room of all, now used by Prince Charles as his schoolroom...I should not like to be alone in that room at night."

Completely brings flat characters in Burke's Peerage to very vivid life. I'm very glad Mr Pope-Hennessy never wrote MY biography! Uttely recommended.

Travel in Provence is not, and never has been, all roses and orange-blossom, although the scents of both these flowers are wafted down the heat-locked streets of Avignon, and mingle with the smell of garlic, oil, bad drains and warm red wine.

A picnic is one of the most difficult meals in the world to manage well; to make it not merely enjoyable but even decent demands considerable intelligence and taste.

How many of us have not felt a certain sneaking satisfaction, towards the end of a long day of sightseeing, at finding the penultimate chapel, or the final museum, firmly, irrevocably, shut?

This is a gloriously idiosyncratic little book, zooming around the landscape of south-eastern France apparently at random, full of witty put-downs of earlier travellers in Provence and disparaging remarks about the way the French look after their cultural heritage, and sometimes written from absurd heights of cultural superiority, but it does keep coming back down to earth to show us how much there is to love and appreciate in the scenery and culture of the region and in the lives of some of Pope-Hennessy's heroes who have lived there — in particular van Gogh, Frédéric Mistral, Gounod, Cézanne and Zola, as well as the philosophe Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues.

Like all really good travel books, this one contains next to no useful information (and whatever it does contain must be 70 years out of date), is a constant delight to read, and makes you want to go and see the places described for yourself. Excellent.

Very funny read.

Excellent first-hand account of life at Balmoral. Queen Victoria figures prominently. Letters describe amusements, terrific heat wave, train travel, primitive train air conditioning by storing tubs of ice under beds.

Lovers of Old Trollope shouldn't miss this one.

A one sided view of the history of the African Slave Trade.
The author shys away from the conterverisal questions and sticks to the greed issue of the Europeans. Interesting, but leaves many questions unanswered. Makes no mention of pre-European slave tade by Arabs.

Map of Provence endpapers shown. ExLib.