Word: cowards
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...volumes of Beaton's diaries preceded this abridged collection, but in this case less truly is more. The dull passages have been excised, and only the best remain, glittering stories about glittering people. Cocteau and Colette, Coward and Capote, Garbo and De Gaulle. Advising the young Beaton about clothes, Noel Coward, for instance, sounds like one of his own characters. "One would like to indulge one's own taste," he says. "[But] I take ruthless stock of myself in the mirror before going out. A polo jumper or unfortunate tie exposes one to danger...
...people are not emotionally engaging. And such pin-flares of love as do appear seem to have been struck from a wet match. Obsessed as Pinter is by rooms, the drawing room seems to make him a trifle uneasy. Betrayal is a kind of bittersweet Noël Coward comedy in which the people are brittle, and more laconic than witty...