Life imitates art: Undine Spragg - a model for a Modern Fortune Hunter?

[ShamedBySiri]

As I said on the other thread I'm not the type to take ownership of a thread and police it but I am aware that whilst some posters are very familiar with the book, others are just starting. I'm half way through. So not sure about possible spoilers for those who are just at the beginning. My copy of the book has a long introduction which offers the following warning:
"Readers who are unfamiliar with the plot may wish to treat the Introduction as an Afterword".

So if you want to maintain an element of surprise in your reading maybe follow this thread at your own risk?

I'm a few chapters in. It's a great portrait so far of self absorption.

From early in the book I have been struck by how Meghan and Undine share certain traits, but around where I am now there is a particular action that Undine does that really upsets Ralph, and Meghan has done the exact same thing although we aren't party to Harry's views on the matter. It's quite uncanny!

Hang on, so this isn’t just a discussion or readalong thread for Wharton’s The Custom of the Country? It’s a ‘Compare and contrast Undine Spragg and Meghan Markle’ thread?

Like I said - I’m not the thread police. We can discuss the book in its own right or draw parallels anywhere it strikes us.

We could delve into the psychology of child rearing.

For instance very early in the book we read: “Mrs Spragg had no ambition for herself - she seemed to have transferred her whole personality to her child - but she was passionately resolved that Undine should have whatever she wanted”.

There’s a topic that would set AIBU alight!

'She found out that she had given herself to the exclusive and the dowdy when the future belonged to the showy and the promiscuous.'

It’s just too easy to “compare and contrast” Undine Spragg and Meghan Markle! There’s a parallel in practically every paragraph.

The over-indulgent parents for example: nagging at her father for a horrendously expensive opera box then finding that it was a bit showy for the cognoscenti. Thomas Markle was apparently run into the ground “launching” Meghan in true Spragg fashion.

I've ordered the book (£1.49 on Kindle ) and I am happy to self police re spoilers etc.

Thank you for the thread @ShamedBySiri - Just started. It is such an easy & amusing read and I'm very much enjoying the irony.

Awaiting your observations @BasiliskStare

The living in a hotel… or is it an hotel? (Latter always sounds awfully weird to me.)

Living in a hotel… I can’t make up my mind whether this might be bliss or not. Having just today bust a gut cleaning the bathrooms and battling the limescale enemy, being Mrs Spragg might be right up my street.

@MaturingCheeseball I am (because Kindle tells me so ) 48% through.
I love it. It has some feel of some of Scott Fitzgerald , but lighter and wittier. (No-one probe me on that - it's over 40 years since I did my Eng Lit degree 😊)

I do love the phrase used of Undie - "sentimental casuistry"

I love how mean, angry and victimised she gets when told something is not affordable.

I've just finished the book - loved it. It's sort of an ode to joys of contentment by way of a cautionary tale. But very funny in parts.

Yes indeed.
The monogrammed notepaper ✅
Resetting her engagement ring✅

Poor Ralph is hurt in equal measure by her lie and by her lack of sentimentality, having no care for a family heirloom. I’d lay a big bet that Meghan never told Harrybshe was getting her ring reset - needed to go to the jeweller for a clean, or one of the stones working loose or some such excuse. I wonder what Harry thought when he finally saw the new improved version.

I love this too: “Undine was fiercely independent and yet passionately imitative. She wanted to surprise everyone by her dash and originality, but she could not help modelling herself on the last person she met”.

It really is uncanny. Yes - even the ring re-setting!

Also someone commented how Undine was disappointed by the plain food served at the first dinner party with Mrs Fairford.
I bet Meghan had a few culinary surprises too. I’ve read how The Queen (HMTLQ) liked plain food, no garlic, lots of game and also that Charles favours certain nursery dishes (not sure which).
On holiday in Exmoor I came across this gem in a 2nd hand shop and couldn’t resist it - a fundraising recipe book from the Beaufort hunt. Suspend your views on hunting for a moment and consider the eating habits of the smart folk of the corner of Gloucestershire inhabited by our King. Some of these offerings are from mothers of William and Harry’s school friends. Mrs R Meade - the wife of the Olympic eventer Richard Meade, their son James is a great friend of William’s & previously of Harry too. The Hon Mrs Inskip - mother of old friend Skippy, Tom Inskip whose wedding H&M attended in the early days of their relationship.

These women are not cooks!!! Honestly there are some of the most vile and disgusting recipes I could imagine in this book. I have wondered if it was actually a joke - maybe they competed to dream up the worst recipe to prove how down to earth they are or something. Or asked their cooks to offer a recipe and the cooks dreamed up something horrid for a laugh.

Poor Man’s Gespacho anyone? Remains of last night’s salad plus salad dressing all liquidised with some tomato juice. 🤢🤢🤢

And Mrs Meade’s Stilton and onion soup isn’t soup at all. It’s cheese sauce!

I assume Harry and William will have been fed some of these treats when visiting their school friends.

Perhaps Meghan also found herself at dinner parties with similarly homely fair on offer.
I’m not sure shut up and put up and eat up are likely to be in her vocabulary even in the early days of an ambitious relationship but she is an actress after all - it would have been quite the challenge.

Several years ago a local Block Association sold their cookbook at a fair in my local park. I bought a copy. Most of the main meal recipes involve Bisquick. It did have some good cookie and cake recipes.

Sorry to ask a silly question! I love reading, I love Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters but hated Thomas hardy , would I enjoy this book or be better off listening to you good ladies describing it?

I was just thinking some of the social insights and gentle observations of hypocrisy are quite Austenesque. Give it a go..

@jeffgoldblum - I confess I’m not a huge Hardy fan either. But if you like Jane Austen I don’t think Custom of the Country (I keep wanting to call it Coward of the County…) will disappoint.

One of my favourite books is Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton. Not like her others, but I so enjoyed it (and a good short wintery read).

Thanks to you both, I will give it a go !
ps I’m now humming Kenny Rodger to myself now! 😂

Another agreeing with @MaturingCheeseball and @StartupRepair . I think anyone with a wry sense of humour could not fail to like this book.