Efforts At Truth - An Autobiography

Efforts at Truth – An Autobiography (1996) by Nicholas Mosley – Minerva

ISBN: 9780749396039
Condition: Good
Published: 1996
Offered by: Crappy Old Books

There are families whose principal historical achievements involve winning the village flower show, producing several generations of respectable accountants or maintaining an unusually bitter dispute over the ownership of a garden fence. And then there is the Mosley family, whose contribution to twentieth-century British history was considerably more controversial.

Welcome to Efforts at Truth, Nicholas Mosley’s remarkable autobiography, in which the distinguished novelist and son of Sir Oswald Mosley attempts the decidedly complicated business of examining his own life while disentangling it from the political notoriety of his father.

And what a family background to inherit.

Nicholas Mosley was born into the British aristocracy, his father was the infamous leader of the British Union of Fascists, and his stepmother was Diana Mitford, whose connections with Nazi Germany ensured that family gatherings were unlikely to resemble an ordinary Sunday lunch in suburban Surrey.

Yet Nicholas Mosley’s life was far more than an uncomfortable inheritance of aristocratic privilege and political embarrassment.

He served during the Second World War, experienced the moral and intellectual upheavals of a generation confronting the catastrophic consequences of European extremism, and subsequently established himself as an accomplished novelist and thinker.

His autobiography explores the complicated relationship between personal identity, family loyalty, political conviction and the elusive business of discovering what is actually true.

The title itself is revealing. Not The Truth, confidently announced from some lofty position of absolute certainty, but Efforts at Truth, suggesting that honesty is less a destination than a frequently uncomfortable process of examination, doubt and reconsideration.

Mosley writes with the perspective of someone whose circumstances placed him unusually close to some of the twentieth century’s most disturbing political developments, yet whose own intellectual journey took him in markedly different directions.

The result is an absorbing mixture of personal recollection, family history, philosophical reflection and literary autobiography.

There is something distinctly ironic about an aristocratic family whose members once entertained ambitions of reshaping British civilisation subsequently becoming the subject of such searching literary introspection.

Published by Minerva in 1996, this edition offers a fascinating account of a life lived in the shadow of extraordinary historical events, from the upheavals of the 1930s to the intellectual and cultural transformations of post-war Britain.

Condition: Good. A respectable second-hand paperback showing the ordinary signs of age, handling and previous ownership. It has survived the decades rather more successfully than the political ambitions of certain members of the author’s family.

Offered by Crappy Old Books, where uncomfortable history is welcomed, political reputations receive no special protection, and inherited titles are considered considerably less important than having something interesting to say.

An absorbing addition to any collection of British autobiography, twentieth-century history, literary memoirs or the extraordinary story of the Mosley and Mitford families.

A reminder that one cannot choose one’s relatives, but one can spend a lifetime attempting to understand them.

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