Hitting the wrong target

Poor J K Rowling. Why do people have it in for her? Jealousy? Mean-spiritedness?

The Times today devoted most of a page to an article by Michael Gove entitled "The Revelation that put me off J. K. Rowling". There is a large pull-out quote on the page that states "Diana was not just the willing partner of Oswald Mosley in race hatred and active treachery, she was also an unrepentant admirer of Hitler", leading the reader to expect some grave wrongdoing.

So what exactly is J K's crime? After reading a few paragraphs too many of build-up, containing lines like "My respect for J K Rowling has taken a knock from which it will take a long time to recover", it turns out that she has been quoted in the Sunday Telegraph's review of Jessica Mitford's letters as being an admirer of Mitford. (I had read an interview years ago in which J K is said to have named her elder daughter after Mitford.)

The rest of Gove's article is an attack on the Mitford family as a whole, and what he calls "the Mitford mythology" which "illuminates a strain in our national character I can't abide". Most of his article is an attack on the well-known Nazi sympathisers and Fascists Diana (wife of Oswald Mosley) and Unity (mistress or "close friend" of Hitler). But Jessica was the opposite pole, who cut herself off from her family when very young, and from the Fascist elements of it for her entire adult life. Far from living in the idle rich lifestyle which she easily could have done, she worked all her life for a cause she believed in. And it is this sister whom J K Rowling admires, not Diana or Unity.

Yes, as Gove points out, Jessica was taken in by the Communists in 1955 Hungary and supported the Soviet Union for a couple of years longer than Gove finds palatable. But a lot of people at that time were similarly taken in: one has to judge their gullibility in historical context, when memories of Fascism in Europe were fresh, and people yearned for peace after the hard years of war.

Gove does not mention far more significant events. Jessica's first husband, Esmond Romily, with whom she eloped when both were extremely young, was a pilot who fought in the Spanish civil war and was shot down and killed during WW2. And after moving to the United States and marrying Bob Truehaft, Jessica worked long and hard for civil liberties -- I remember laughing out loud when reading her autobiography about her group's practice of "buying" houses in White neighbourhoods on behalf of Black people, to whom Whites would not sell, and the expressions on the White people's faces when the Black neighbours moved in. She is perhaps most famous for her witty but cutting expose of the funeral business. Jessica did many, many good deeds in her long life and wrote very amusingly and movingly. You may not agree with her politics, but she was a woman of principle as far removed from Nazism as it is possible to be.

Quite apart from all this, what on Earth is wrong with J K Rowling admiring someone? Can't this Michael Gove find something more important to get upset about?

Here is a resource about Jessica Mitford if you are interested in knowing more about this remarkable woman.

Telegraph article about Jessica Mitford with samples of her letters.

Publisher's website feature on the book, including quotes by J K Rowling.

Comments

[James]

Good post, Maxine - you clearly know a bit about the Mitford girls.

[Debi]

No wonder JK shuns publicity if this is what she gets!

Well done for correcting the balance ...

Doesn't make such a good headline though, does it? 'JKR admires someone whose sisters were hideous even though she wasn't ...'

[Susan Balée]

How silly can people get? Well, sillier than this (as I have, ruefully, learned on another blog!). I like the Mitfords' *writing* too -- I think _Love in a Cold Climate_ is a charming novel by Nancy and Jessica's _American Way of Death_ had me howling with laughter (and is still accurate, in many regards -- we Americans don't like to see what happens to people after they're dead; maybe that's why we harbor the delusion that we might be able to live forever if we just try hard enough!).

In the U.S., idiots like the person who disses JK for liking the Mitfords can diss those who enjoy William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, Walker Percy and a whole raft of white Southern writers who had very retro views of race relations in the South. After all -- they were living and writing *before* the Civil Rights movement. Actually, what is amazing about Faulkner and O'Connor is how prescient they were about racism in the South-- they knew it was wrong and, invariably, black characters in their stories are the noblest, wisest characters (think, Dilsey).

I love the stuff you post to, Maxine, and the wisdom of your comments on what you read.

Rock on, MClarke.

[Maxine]

Thank you so much, Susan, for those lovely compliments, blush blush! I read Nancy's books when a girl myself - also later on her bio of "The Sun King". I've read a lot of Jessica's output too, and another sister, Deborah, became Duchess of Devonshire and wrote many fascinating journalistic articles in the Spectator and elsewhere, and various books eg about Chatsworth, the Duke's "seat". She died fairly recently I think. The village where Lord Redesdale (Mitford is the family name) has his own "seat" is Swinbrook, near my father's village.

I wouldn't call myself wise, Susan, but I do think I'm an independent thinker, unpopular though it makes me in some quarters. (not as unpopular as you with our buddies Jessica and Dan, though! What loonies! Their attitude speaks for itself.)

[Clare]

Have you seen the portait of JK Rowling in the National Portrait Gallery, Maxine? It's quite strange and striking. I'd love to know what JK Rowling thought of it.

[Equiano]

Gove's latest book was recently blisteringly trashed by William Dalrymple in the Times. I haven't read a review filled with such righteous indignation in a long time, and thoroughly enjoyed it!

[Maxine]

I've seen pictures of the JKR portrait, Clare -- it was analysed endlessly when it was first unveiled, wasn't it? But I have not seen it in reality.

Thanks for the Gove update, Equiano. He is a Tory MP also, so what can you expect?