Noses up!

Snobs - Julian Fellowes

If you don't recognize the name, you should. Fellowes is the screenwriter for the Academy Award winning film Gosford Park, as well as an actor and director in his own right. Snobs is his first novel, but you'd never know that to read it!

Sticking with what he knows best, Fellowes' novel is a tale of English society and the class system, marriage, scandal, social climbing...with one major caveat: it's set in the 1990s. It's an unusual twist as most of the characters seem to be relics from Edwardian society and the appearance of cell phones and cars seems odd when set beside shooting parties, marriages of convenience, and HRHs, but all this serves to illustrate that the idea of class structure is very much alive and well in contemporary England.

Told from the point of view of a friend of Edith Lavery, the woman around whom the plot of the novel spins, the narrator remains unnamed throughout. He occupies a unique position in society, however, as both a member of the upper gentry or minor nobility (it is never quite clear) and as a working actor. His "in but not of" perspective allows him to narrate the tale of one woman's social climb, with absolutely shrewd insights into the nature of the world Edith is so desperate to enter. Snobs is at its base a critical examination of the mental, emotional, and personal state of the privilege class who have, unlike celebrities, been raised with the idea of their inherent self-worth, and the fundamental differences between them and the people who idealize them.

What made this book such an enjoyable read for me is that aristocrats in literature are often portrayed as heartless, evil, stupid, or completely unaware of their detachment from the life the other 98% of the population read. What sets the characters in Snobs apart is how deeply aware they are of their pretensions, traditions, and perceptions. The truly greatest character is the indomitable Lady Uckfield, Edith's mother-in-law, who has the clearest eyes and best sense of any of her family both as to outsider Edith's motives and struggles in her marriage, and to her own position and what power it gives her. The characters are honest, and if they prove not to be they are at least honest about their dishonesty.

The plot itself is pretty straightforward: girl marries up, discovers that aristocracy does not mean the same thing as celebrity, grows dissatisfied, and is tempted by a devilishly handsome actor. There is the natural ensuing struggle of what is most important: sex or security, privledge or money (they aren't the same thing at all), happiness or fulfillment. What makes the story gripping is the dialog and the candid insights into an archaic, protected, exclusive group of people who simply think differently than any other group.

Authentic, sharp, quietly intense, and merciless. If a canny peek into this world appeals, enjoy!