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?