Barbara Pym
 

OK, Kevin, here you go. I just finished No Fond Return of Love, which is, I think, the last of the Pym novels for me. I read my first, Quartet in Autumn, last spring and have now read all of the rest. If I've missed one, it's probably because they tend to run together in my head. Excellent Women sticks with me pretty well as possibly the best, though I did greatly admire Q in A, which is a bit different in having a set of elderly characters.

I have a grad student writing a thesis on the Pym/Larkin friendship and correspondence, and it will be interesting to discover what kind of common ground they shared. With Larkin I suspect it was the "non-boring boredom" of Pym's world, and I'm sure she likewise appreciated the tone of his poems.

We can't get too esoteric here--at least not yet--as I have only read two of her novels. (I'm looking for her "autobiography," but it's hard to find. Pym just isn't very popular now, is she? Perhaps she never was, but she certainly did get published.) You and others must know more about her work than I do, so I will keep silent and not annoy everyone with questions.

But I will say that I put Pym in a genre of her own making. She reminds me a bit of Miss Marple, with the same keen eye, but with none of the discretion. She pins her characters with the most irritating and loveable traits, seemingly dishing them out all at once to each soul as if they were really human. I think that's why I admire her so. Veniality blended with a cup of tea and a charitable visit to the jumble sale.

I'm told there are scholars who count the number of tea services, but that may be a malacious rumor!

Kevin

Barbara Pym is exquisite - and has recently been reprinted, though I am not sure if all her novels are included in the new batch.

I'm inclined to take issue with the "jumble sale" image, though. My vote would be for "counted-thread embroidery". To my mind, her take on her world (the floating world of genteel nerds) is as precise as Jane Austen's.

Well worth reading!!!

There's a degree of pettiness in her characters, don't you think? One reads their 'thoughts' and is a trifle chastened to have thought the same way on occasion.

Kevin

Yes indeed - she has an amazing eye for pettiness. I think she is as good as EF Benson in this respect, though he does village and wannabe Society and Pym does petty bureaucracy. I come away from reading her being amazed that there are so many shades of beige in the human spirit. Really wonderful.

Thanks for starting a Pym thread. I have read all of hers, my favorite being the first one, Some Tame Gazelle, followed by Excellent Women.
I've also read most of the Amis-Larkin correspondence, which is hilarious & frequently obscene (as young men they enjoyed taking turns writing pornographic fiction about the lesbian goings-on at a posh girls' school). What more can I say?

I'm still furious at the twat from Jonathan Cape who gave Barbara the sack - all those extra novels we might have had!

I don't think she ever stopped writing during that 15-year period. Several of the earlier books were published after her career rebounded or posthumously.

I just made a count and realized I still have three or four to read. Oh joy, oh rapture!

I also recently enjoyed Muriel Spark's Girls of Slender Means and A Far Cry from Kensington. She's a bit wilder than Pym, though not funnier.

I've never read Penelope Fitzgerald. Any thoughts on her?

I rather think I met the twat from Cape at some publisher's piss-up long ago. Genial but definitely a fool I thought, though that is par for the course as far as publishers are concerned - I mean BIG publishers.

I think the other Penelope is better. Wht other Penelope? I'll gert back tom you when I remember.

Are you-all by any chance thinking of the classic feminist novel The Pumpkin Eater, by Penelope Mortimer?

I saw the film of this about 40 years ago and still remember the line "Here come those tired old tits again." Peter Finch and Anne Bancroft, as I recall.

She's good - or rather the film was - but no. The woman I'm thinking of started as a writer for children, older children. Good stuff that. She lived in India as a child and wrote an auto biography. Terribly English upperish middle class, but then all the Penelopes are that.

Penelope Mortimer was married to John Mortimer QC, the champagne socialist, novelist and playwright whose greatest literaray creation was Rumpole of the Bailey, a wine-soaked barrister undfer the thumbof his wife 'She who must be obeyed'. He defended small time criminals and always got them off. Short stories of a very middlebrow kind. Worth looking for if you are an American. If you are English you will know them. The character was brought to life by the excellent Leo McKern.

Rumpole is well known here, too. My father loved the series! (As do I.) I brought the series home to my father, whose hearing by that time began to fail and he couldn't watch unless the volume was turned up to an unbelievable volume. I could hardly complain as he adamantly denied being hard of hearing. Instead, he blamed the (damn) English accent!

Kevin

Penelope Lively?

THAT's the lady! And jolly good she is too. Thanks Holly.

I am a new latecomer catching up on things
 

What a treat to stumble upon a thread with the heading: Barbara Pym. I love her books, the humor bubbling under the surface, the precision of her descriptions of character, everything she wrote is a delight: The dirty dish water in Jane and Prudence, the hasty stashing away under a sofa pillow of a corset being mended in my absolute favorite, Crampton Hodnet.
And then you go on to name a bouquet of favorites, Penelopes Lively and Fitzgerald. Offshore is my favorite Fitzgerald, of Lively's books I have only read The Photograph, I don't know what I'm waiting for to read all of her books, she is a wonderful writer.
And so nice to know that Muriel Sparks is on someone else's list of enjoyed reading. No one has mentioned Anita Brookner, I like her bitter books. And going back a little further, how about Molly Keen (Kean?). I love her Good Behavior..........
And re. Amis, Sr. - Lucky Jim is a gem!

The latest Spark I've read is The Girls of Slender Means, which is a real joy and very moving.

For Henry James fans, I recommend both David Lodge's Author! Author! and Colm Toibin's The Master. You might be interested in Lodge's essay "The Year of Henry James," which details his reaction when he found out that Toibin's novel was scheduled for publication a few months before his own.

I really enjoyed Author Author. Interesting that Lodge should write a book so different from his earlier, humorous books. I started to read his book about the three simultaneous books about Henry James, but found it whiney, and I put it away.