I have discussed Barbara Pym and the funky new Virago Modern Classics editions of her work in a previous post. Since then I have accumulated two more titles, Excellent Women and A Glass of Blessings (the latter forthcoming in December), which Virago generously sent me. I now have a lovely little stockpile of Pym novels, which excites me as I have the feeling that I am going to love them and delight in Pym's ironic tone. What does concern me, however, is that I don't know where to start; I fully intended to read Excellent Women during November as I have heard that this is her best book but do I really want to start with the best? Isn't it more enjoyable to build up to the best novel in an author's canon and start with her first novel, Some Tame Gazelle, instead?
Please help! I desperately want to read one novel at least from the those above this month and value your input. This doesn't have to be based on personal experience, if you have none, but from the synopses below please vote which one you would read if given the choice.
Jane and Prudence: If Prudence Bates and Jane Cleveland seem an unlikely pair to be walking together at a reunion of old students in Oxford, neither of them is aware of it. Born a decade apart, their pupil and tutor relationship has circumscribed their lives and cemented their friendship.
No Fond Return of Love: Dulcie Mainwearing is always helping others, but never looks out for herself - especially in the realm of love. Her friend Viola is besotted by the alluring Dr Aylwin Forbes, so surely it isn't prying if Dulcie helps things along? Aylwin, however, is smitten by Dulcie's pretty young niece. And perhaps Dulcie herself, however ridiculous it may be, is falling, just a little, for Aylwin. Once life's little humiliations are played out, maybe love will be returned, and fondly, after all...
Some Tame Gazelle: 'It was odd that Harriet should always have been so fond of curates. They were so immature and always made the same kind of conversation. Now the Archdeacon was altogether different ...' Together yet alone, the Misses Bede occupy the central crossroads of parish life. Harriet, plump, elegant and jolly, likes nothing better than to make a fuss of new curates, secure in the knowledge that elderly Italian Count Ricardo Bianco will propose to her yet again this year. Belinda, meanwhile has harboured sober feelings of devotion towards Archdeacon Hochleve for thirty years. Then into their quiet, comfortable lives comes a famous librarian, Nathaniel Mold, and a bishop from Africa, Theodore Grote - who each take to calling on the sisters for rather more unsettling reasons.
Excellent Women: Mildred Lathbury is one of those 'excellent women' who is often taken for granted. She is a godsend, 'capable of dealing with most of the stock situations of life - birth, marriage, death, the successful jumble sales, the garden fete spoilt by bad weather'. As such, she often gets herself embroiled in other people's lives - especially those of her glamorous new neighbours, the Napiers, whose marriage seems to be on the rocks. One cannot take sides in these matters, though it is tricky, especially as Mildred, teetering on the edge of spinsterhood, has a soft spot for dashing young Rockingham Napier. This is Barbara Pym's world at its funniest and most touching.
A Glass of Blessings: Wilmet Forsyth is well dressed, well looked after, suitably husbanded, good looking and fairly young - but very bored. Her husband Rodney, a handsome army major, is slightly balder and fatter than he once was. Wilmet would like to think she has changed rather less. Her interest wanders to the nearby Anglo-catholic church, where at last she can neglect her comfortable household in the more serious-minded company of three unmarried priests, and, of course, Piers Longridge, a man of an unfathomably different character altogether.
What do you think? I'm at a loss and may resort to playing eeny meeny miny mo without your assistance... Which -if any- are you most intrigued by and does Barbara Pym appeal to you as a writer?
Please help! I desperately want to read one novel at least from the those above this month and value your input. This doesn't have to be based on personal experience, if you have none, but from the synopses below please vote which one you would read if given the choice.
Jane and Prudence: If Prudence Bates and Jane Cleveland seem an unlikely pair to be walking together at a reunion of old students in Oxford, neither of them is aware of it. Born a decade apart, their pupil and tutor relationship has circumscribed their lives and cemented their friendship.
No Fond Return of Love: Dulcie Mainwearing is always helping others, but never looks out for herself - especially in the realm of love. Her friend Viola is besotted by the alluring Dr Aylwin Forbes, so surely it isn't prying if Dulcie helps things along? Aylwin, however, is smitten by Dulcie's pretty young niece. And perhaps Dulcie herself, however ridiculous it may be, is falling, just a little, for Aylwin. Once life's little humiliations are played out, maybe love will be returned, and fondly, after all...
Some Tame Gazelle: 'It was odd that Harriet should always have been so fond of curates. They were so immature and always made the same kind of conversation. Now the Archdeacon was altogether different ...' Together yet alone, the Misses Bede occupy the central crossroads of parish life. Harriet, plump, elegant and jolly, likes nothing better than to make a fuss of new curates, secure in the knowledge that elderly Italian Count Ricardo Bianco will propose to her yet again this year. Belinda, meanwhile has harboured sober feelings of devotion towards Archdeacon Hochleve for thirty years. Then into their quiet, comfortable lives comes a famous librarian, Nathaniel Mold, and a bishop from Africa, Theodore Grote - who each take to calling on the sisters for rather more unsettling reasons.
Excellent Women: Mildred Lathbury is one of those 'excellent women' who is often taken for granted. She is a godsend, 'capable of dealing with most of the stock situations of life - birth, marriage, death, the successful jumble sales, the garden fete spoilt by bad weather'. As such, she often gets herself embroiled in other people's lives - especially those of her glamorous new neighbours, the Napiers, whose marriage seems to be on the rocks. One cannot take sides in these matters, though it is tricky, especially as Mildred, teetering on the edge of spinsterhood, has a soft spot for dashing young Rockingham Napier. This is Barbara Pym's world at its funniest and most touching.
A Glass of Blessings: Wilmet Forsyth is well dressed, well looked after, suitably husbanded, good looking and fairly young - but very bored. Her husband Rodney, a handsome army major, is slightly balder and fatter than he once was. Wilmet would like to think she has changed rather less. Her interest wanders to the nearby Anglo-catholic church, where at last she can neglect her comfortable household in the more serious-minded company of three unmarried priests, and, of course, Piers Longridge, a man of an unfathomably different character altogether.
What do you think? I'm at a loss and may resort to playing eeny meeny miny mo without your assistance... Which -if any- are you most intrigued by and does Barbara Pym appeal to you as a writer?
