I’ve had some of Barbara Pym’s novels on my shelves for decades. My resolution to deal with books that have been patiently waiting for years for me to read them finally brought me to Barbara Pym’s Excellent Women (1952).
One of my favorite poets, Philip Larkin, was a huge fan of Barbara Pym and her novels which caused me to buy Pym’s books…and then not read them until now.
The New Yorker published an article on Barbara Pym that provided some context: “Pym published six novels between 1950 and 1961, before her work fell out of favor. Through the nineteen-sixties and most of the nineteen-seventies, she continued to write but was unanimously rejected by publishers; these were not years receptive to comedies of manners set around a parish or an anthropological society. ‘It seems as if nobody could ever like my kind of writing again,’ she wrote in a letter in 1970.”
“She was wrong. In 1977, the Times Literary Supplement asked a number of figures in the field to name the most underrated writers of the previous seventy-five years. Pym was the only living writer to appear on the list twice, chosen by the biographer Lord David Cecil and Philip Larkin, the latter praising her ‘unique eye and ear for the small poignancies and comedies of everyday life.’ Almost immediately, Macmillan agreed to publish her next book, Quartet in Autumn. It was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. The Sweet Dove Died followed, in 1978; Macmillan reissued all her previous novels. That same year, Dutton began bringing out her books in the United States. Pym died in 1980.”
Barbara Pym’s Excellent Women reminded me of the novels of Anthony Trollope who also could capture the life of characters involved in community and church activities like Pym’s lead character, Mildred Lathbury, a clergyman’s daughter and a mild-mannered spinster in 1950s England. Mildred is one of those “excellent women,” the smart, supportive, repressed women who men take for granted. As Mildred gets embroiled in the lives of her new neighbors—anthropologist Helena Napier and her handsome, dashing husband, Rocky, there’s the complication of Julian Malory, the vicar next door, who Mildred is ambivalent about.
Pym captures the arid life for women in Oxford in the 1950s. Mildred lives her quiet life…but is it much of a life? The reader will have to judge. GRADE: B+
Pym (one of my favorite authors) wrote the sort of books (middle-class and upper-middle-class spinsters living rather limited lives that revolve around the church—but in a social rather than religious context) that would be impossible today: the world that produced those women no longer exists. It’s her eye for finely-observed detail that makes her so interesting to read. One of the funniest things about EXCELLENT WOMEN is when the Napiers first move in, Mildred notices a “rather inferior brand” of toilet paper as their contribution to the communal bathroom; toward the end of the book, she is gratified to see that the newest housemates bring a better quality product. Also, I hope it’s not a spoiler to say that in another Pym book there’s a casual reference to the fact that Mildred and Everard (I think his name is) have married. Anyway, if you’re looking for gentle humor and carefully-observed details about a world that is now long gone, Pym is a must.
Deb, I remember that toilet paper incident and Mildred’s judgement of the new neighbors. There’s a new book on Pym and in the review, I was struck by this passage: “In 1931 Pym went up to St Hilda’s College, Oxford, where she studied English and embarked on a number of infatuations, affairs and heartbreaks. She was remarkably ahead of her time in sexual liberation (“I can’t help choosing my underwear with a view to its being seen”) and, as Ms. Byrne shows, men were central to her life. She courted their attention, slept with them, typed for them and mended their clothes: Being without a man, she wrote years later, was a “nice lump of misery which goes everywhere like a dog.”
Here’s the link to the full review:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-adventures-of-miss-barbara-pym-book-review-a-modern-jane-austen-biography-11654264653?mod=Searchresults_pos2&page=1
Pym is one of those writers whose name I’ve been coming across for years but never tried. Looks like that was a mistake. I think what happened was that I got the idea, for some dumb ass reason, that she was a romance writer, and I looked no further. I’ll give her a try as soon as a space in the stack appears. Is EXCELLENT WOMEN a good place to start?
I think EXCELLENT WOMEN is probably Pym’s most representative work. If you read it and like it, you can select any of her other books to read next. If you don’t care for EXCELLENT WOMEN, the rest of her books would probably not work for you either.
Thanks, Deb. Sounds like good advice. My library seems to have all of her books.
Michael, like you I dithered over reading Barbara Pym even though I kept buying her books. I finally read EXCELLENT WOMEN–my first Pym–and now I plan to read more of her novels. Deb summarizes Pym’s strengths perfectly!
I love the way WSJ articles fade out as you’re reading them.
Yeah, they give you dick unless you subscribe.
Michael, that’s just the WALL STREET JOURNAL’s way of enticing you to subscribe to the digital edition.
Another one who has wanted to read Pym for years but never quite gotten around to it. Some day, maybe. I did like the underwear comment. Good for her.
Jeff, Barbara Pym experienced an active love-life for those conservative times.
Another author which I totally missed!
Maybe because she was in the beginning a fan of Hitler!!! and also had strong connections to the Anglican church?
That would have made me immediately cancel her …
Wolf, I’ll know more about Barbara Pym after I read the new book about her life, ADVENTURES OF MISS BARBARA PYM.