Snobs (Audiobook)

Synopsis: Edith Lavery is a woman on the make. The attractive only child of a middle-class accountant, she leaves behind her dull job in a Chelsea estate agents and manages to bag one of the most eligible bachelors of the day - Charles Broughton, heir to the Marquess of Uckfield. But is life amongst the upper echelons of 'good' society all that it seems? Edith soon discovers there's much more to the aristocracy than dancing in Anabel's, shooting small birds and understanding which fork to use at dinner. And then there is Charles's mother, the indomitable Lady Uckfield, or 'Googie' to her friends, who is none too pleased with her son's choice of breeding partner. With twists and turns aplenty, this is a comical tale worthy of a contemporary Jane Austen.

Review: An amusing and witty comedy of manners set in the 1980's. This book tells the tale of Edith Lavery, a beautiful Chelsea Sloane who is looking for Mr Right. In particular she has ambitions to social climb her way into marrying a member of the aristocracy and is looking for a man who can remove her from her dreary life and elevate her to the position of mistress of some great country pile in deepest England. All her aspirations come true when she meets the rather shy and polite Charles Broughton who is heir to the Marquess of Uckfield. Charles seems to like her, he takes her to places she has only ever read about and Edith begins to get a taste of the champagne lifestyle in which she would love to become accustomed. Edith's mother who has always dreamt about her daughter making an advantageous marriage is in seventh heaven and Edith pulls out all the stops to secure him.

Although Charles is an absolute darling in many ways, he is also incredibly dull and then there is his mother 'Googie', a terrific snob who is not best pleased by her son's choice of wife (but who never publicises this with an outward show of hostility.) Much is made about the ridiculous pet names that have stuck with the upper classes since nursery. Charles's parents are 'Googie' and 'Tigger' which of course makes all those that aren't intimate with them snigger (but most of these are happy to start bandying the names about once they become even the slightest bit familiar with the family.) Edith finds that once the honeymoon is over she is thrown into a world of stultifying tedium, and also a world where everyone around her, except Charles, is at pains to point out, in the subtlest yet humiliating ways imaginable, that she does not and will not ever fit in.

It's hard to like Edith. She's too selfish and inconsiderate. She must be a top candidate for the title of 'heroine that no-one but the author will like', in fact she deserves it far more than Jane Austen's Emma. I wasn't keen on the narrator either, an un-named actor friend of Edith's, who seemed pompous and stiff.

Once Edith gains her position in society by marrying Charles she finds she is bored to tears by it and him and is missing the thrills of earlier days when her boyfriends were a lot less noble and a good deal more lusty. When a television company descends on the house to film a drama, Edith is drawn in a classic grass-is-always-greener way to the handsome (the next Simon McCorkindale apparently) actor Simon Russell who is everything that Charles is not.

It's obvious that Julian Fellowes is entirely comfortable in this tweedy aristocratic world of hunting, shooting, charity dinners, alice bands and kedgeree and writes with a great deal of authenticity. All sorts of comparisons to Austen, Waugh, Mitford and Wodehouse are made but I don't think it quite merits it. Whilst it's enjoyable, and there's plenty of delicious social commentary, the characters are not vivid or absurd enough and the wit is just not sharp enough to completely warrant the comparisons.

I think it wasn't helped by the rather stilted narration by Richard Morant. Someone like Stephen Fry would have brought the gossipy style of the novel to life (but then you could probably say that about every audiobook.)