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 enlarge | Author: Juliet Nicolson
Publisher: Grove Press
Category: Book
List Price: $25.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  28 reviews
Sales Rank: 100233
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 304
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 8.8 x 5.9 x 1.4
ISBN: 0802118461
Dewey Decimal Number: 942.083
EAN: 9780802118462
ASIN: 0802118461
Publication Date: May 10, 2007
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| Customer Reviews:
 Not Such a Perfect Summer August 2, 2008
Because I am a long-time admirer of Nicolson's grandfather Harold Nicolson and his wife Vita Sackville West I read "The Perfect Summer".
I found it disappointing: a collection of many repeated and well-known anecdotes from contempory accounts of the early 20th century.
Far better to go to her sources which can be found in most libraries, second hand bookstores and Amazon. Sources like Harold's great political diaries, Diana Cooper's wonderfully engrossing memoirs, Chips Channon's Diaries not to mention all the collections of letters and novels of the era.
The photographs are sadly indequate, poorly chosen and often irrelevant. I feel Ms Nicolson was taking advantage of her illustrious connections and shows an intellectual laziness.
If Not Perfect, Awfully Good July 16, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Must say I'm a bit surprised by the negativity of some of my fellow readers' comments. I'm not sure what they expected in this slim but engaging account of the Summer of 1911, but I thought Ms. Nicolson delivered what I anticipated rather nicely. [If one objects that "Perfect" overstates the case, think how dull the title, "The Good Summer," would be.] In particular, and especially considering this is her first book, she has a "second nature" writing style which reminds me (perhaps partly because of the adjoining time periods) of Judith Flanders in her splendid "Inside the Victorian Home." Both authors express themselves beautifully and are able to move among and between characters and subject matter with fluidity and grace. Please don't be put off; if you enjoy English social history, I am quite sure you will enjoy this book. I, for one, hope that Ms. Nicolson is hard at work on her next project.
 Not what it could have been June 26, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book tries to paint a vivid picture of a "moment in time." It fails. There are good parts of course, but also stupid inaccuracies [i.e. the "Ancient" Ceremony of Investiture of the Prince of Wales.] For someone as wonderfully well connected as this author, she did not take adequate advantage of those connections, nor did she push herself hard enough in research or analysis. It's a decent read, but certainly not a true "history" of the summer. It is pretty shallow. I also found the book club questions in my edition to be silly and totally unnecessary. I imagine publishers feel these "add value" or make the book somehow seem less vapid than it really is.
Who can resist anecdotes about Society Folk (even when they're fools)? June 24, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
In our secret hearts, many of us imagine that we belong elsewhere --- say, in England, at a great country estate, in good weather, where we enjoy every luxury because we are rich and titled.
And why not, say, in May of 1911? Edward VII had died the previous spring; mourning was over, George V was about to be crowned, there would be a full season of glorious parties.
And the parties would be...hot. Paul Poiret's evening gowns were in vogue, and they were wonderfully sheer. The brassiere was replacing the corset; women were displaying their assets. Sex was everywhere. When Rolls-Royce commissioned a new hood ornament, it chose a woman in a clinging gown.
In that year, Winston Churchill wore pink silk underwear. Extra night watchmen were hired at great country houses to protect the precious jewels of weekenders. Porters rang bells at 6 AM so guests could scurry back to the rooms they were supposed to occupy. At parties, the jaded acted out --- for fun --- moments like announcing a child's death to its mother.
And, out of sight and out of mind, the lower orders seethed.
The upstairs/downstairs drama is old news --- the stuff of Masterpiece Theater.
What makes "The Perfect Summer" fascinating is that this story was, in 1911, about to change.
And --- how funny is this? --- the weather was a big factor.
Nicolson tells her story chronologically, month by month, a method that always builds suspense. In June, the crew of the Olympic goes on strike in Southampton; others follow. Diaghilev brings his new ballets to London. Leonard Woolf, dining with Lytton Strachey, meets 23-year-old Rupert Brooke.
In July, the temperature's in the 80s and there are 20 consecutive days without rain. Fires begin to break out along railroad tracks. At the Savoy, management sprays dancers with "ozone from iced cylinders". Only the African animals in the London Zoo thrive.
Along the way, there are fascinating details. Did you know that, in 1911, 700 families owned a quarter of England? That a fingertip rubbed on soap and then on the rim of a bottle of champagne will keep the bubbly from frothing? That, after rent, the greatest fixed expense the poor routinely faced was insurance to cover the cost of funerals and burial?
But the poor are a bore. Always with us, etc. Not good copy. So let us gloss over the 548 reported deaths from childhood diarrhea in England in August, when the temperature hit 100 degrees. And let's not spend too much time reading about that summer's strikes, even though some believed a revolution was happening and, in mid-August, a railroad strike pretty much crippled the country.
And so it goes, day after blistering day, with the rich as idle as ever and the poor making unaccustomed protest. And, of course, three years away and counting down, the war that will slaughter a generation.
This is a gripping portrait of otherwise intelligent people acting like fools because --- well, it's what people of a certain class do. In a way, it's a very reassuring read: nothing new under the sun, and all. And who can resist several hundred amusing stories about Society Folk?
Disappointing and superficial December 3, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is a book that simply doesn't work, much as its author knows about the period. She introduces historical "characters" as if we will be following some sort of narrative about them, then simply drops them after an extensive description and one or two anecdotes. The chronological arrangement would seem to promise that we are building towards a point somehow, but even the brewing conflict with Germany doesn't seem dramatic in Nicolson's hands.
I'll bet she would write really wonderful historical fiction, though, since she has such a feel for the times and characters, mores and hypocrisies. It's just that the format of this book limited her ability to focus on the parts that seemed to interest her most: the personalities and society of the era.
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