This second volume of James Lees-Milne’s biography of Harold Nicolson covers 1930-1968. With the large amount of world and personal history that this book covers, JLM continues to masterfully shepherd the reader through Nicolson’s fascinating life. I enjoyed this volume more than the first one (although they are both excellent) mainly because with him leaving the Foreign Office, the foreign policy explanations die down a bit and I am more well versed in the history of this era. While the Paris Conference and the Lausanne Convention were very important, I struggled a bit with the minute by minute negotiations in the last book. However, by the time I finished my opinion about Nicolson had changed because of a combination of factors. His terrible judgement about his friends (Oswald Mosley and Guy Burgess in particular, although he was also friends with Charles Lindbergh before he went fully fascist) and his racism really wore on me by the end of this book, especially his descriptions of Filipino, Japanese, and Black people. I was truly disgusted by his continued correspondence and kindness to Guy Burgess, who had betrayed his country and Nicolson in particular to the Soviets, and how Nicolson’s response was to be angry at another person for writing an excoriating article about Burgess and how he kept his friends’ letters for blackmail. Lees-Milne explains that Nicolson could only see the good side of his friends and how they were when they first met, but he had such a bottomless well of sympathy for some truly evil people — at one point he visits the Nuremberg trials and feels sorry for Goering in jail and the Nazis who are executed — that it became a moral failing to me. There has to be a line where you don’t feel sorry and stay in helpful correspondence with someone, and he seemed to not have that other than with Mosley and Lindbergh when they were supporting the Nazis during WWII (and even with Mosley, he tried to go visit him while he was imprisoned!!).
He was lovely to his friends, a highly intelligent and educated man, a brilliant writer of books, diaries, articles, and letters, a loving father and husband, and someone who worked hard to help others financially and to escape from horrible world events, but the weaknesses in his moral character and judgement made me feel like I lost wholehearted admiration for him. I think it is to Lees-Milne’s credit that he explains and covers these flaws in a way that makes the reader understand but allows them to make their own conclusions. Considering how much Lees-Milne clearly loved Nicolson, it was impressive how he was able to provide a pretty clear-sighted image of Nicolson and his downsides along with all of the fun times that they had. They were both great writers and this book is a delight to read and to spend time with the people therein. Nicolson did so much and knew so many people that this is just a fun excursion through the history of the 20th century with some interesting companions. His relationship with Vita in particular I found very heartwarming. I also enjoyed James Pope-Hennessy’s continued appearances throughout and how much Lees-Milne clearly hated him and writes about him in the most cutting terms. I have a weird soft spot for James Pope-Hennessy and his enfant terrible ways, although I can understand Lees-Milne’s strong irritation as Pope-Hennessy sucks money and time out of Nicolson and engages in various tantrums and dramatics. It made me sad to finish this and I wanted to spend more time with these witty, erudite, flawed people. I’m going to get the biography of Lees-Milne and probably some of his diaries — the good thing about them all hanging out is that they were all writers so there are lots of books about this group for me to explore. My only sadness is that no one has done a James Pope-Hennessy biography!
The last chunk of the book is very sad as Nicolson declines physically and cognitively, especially after Vita dies. It was honestly hard to read the details of his dementia and I again respected Lees-Milne for being able to convey the sheer horror of the loss of this brilliant man’s ability to talk and care for himself. To end the book with the eulogy and the description of the relationship between Harold and Vita was very moving and drove home how intertwined they were and what a beautiful relationship they had. This is overall really recommended reading for anyone interested in this time period. The writing is beautiful and evocative and I fully enjoyed my time engaging with the ideas and events here.