After my great enjoyment of Mariana and reading Simon at Stuck In A Book’s glowing endorsement, I couldn’t wait to read One Pair of Hands by Monica Dickens. Unlike Mariana, this is a non-fiction book (though one can’t help but feel that it must be at least slightly embellished) but it’s certainly just as amusing.
Bored with her privileged, undemanding life, Monica decides to strike out into the workforce as a (untested) cook in what her family refers to as a “period of strange and regrettable madness”(p.203-204). It’s very much a life-below-stairs story, from a woman more accustomed to being served than serving and it’s vastly amusing. From job to job, Monica pokes fun at her employers, her (lack of) skills, and the master/servant relationship in general. No one comes off unscathed, frankly, from the most demanding of employers, who want her to do everything and to not to spend any money doing it, to the most indulgent, who chat with her and treat her almost as one of the family.
While I am always fond of a book that makes me laugh, I didn’t end up liking this one as much as I’d hoped to. It was certainly amusing, but a slightly too formulaic and repetitive – regardless of where Monica works, there’s going to be flirting/fighting with tradespeople, at least one disastrous dinner party, many broken dishes, and a few clandestine nips of the cooking sherry/brandy/port. There’s also an overall consciousness that Monica’s slumming it and having a good joke on all of her employers that seems a little cruel and makes me slightly uncomfortable. I can understand the boredom that comes with too much money and too little employment, but this still seems a strange way to deal with.
That said, I would still highly recommend it and One Pair of Feet, Dickens’ memoir of her life as a nurse, is firmly on my To Be Read list.
The Captive Reader 
This reminds me of this series: http://www.rhysbowen.com/spyness.html It’s absolute fluff but I really enjoyed it (perfect breezy summer reading). It features a cousin of the royal family who moves to London and is forced to work and live within narrow means as her family has no money.
Also reminds me of the British series The House of Eliott, of which I’ve only watched half of the first season but I’m in love with it already, can’t wait to see the rest.
Thank you for the review, this sounds like a good read, although I agree that working as a servant just as a joke perhaps may not be in the best taste and would seem to deny any real character development. The cover of the book is great though 🙂
It’s not so much that she’s doing it as a joke – she really is looking for some sort of occupation, something to keep her busy – it’s just that she always feels so confident that she knows more than her employers, that the joke’s on them for having hired her.
The House of Eliott is good fun, I’m glad you’re enjoying it!
I’m sorry you didn’t enjoy this as much as you were anticipating; it really is one of my very favourite books. And I love One pair of feet where she works in a hospital. Her non-fictionalised autobiography (An open book) is also worth a read and reads quite differently.
I think An Open Book might be more to my tastes and am looking forward to reading it (as well as One Pair of Feet).
Oops, I see you’ve read these too. I wonder how I would like them now – it would have been around 35-40 years ago (see I’m really OLD) that I read them.