Civil to Strangers

 

Civil to Strangers / Barbara Pym
London: Flamingo, 1994, c1936
416 p.

My husband picked up this delightful Pym at the thrift store to complete my Pym collection. It's primarily a story called Adam & Cassandra, which she wrote in 1936 but which wasn't published until after her death. This book is made up of that story, now renamed Civil to Strangers, as well as three unfinished novels edited to long short story length, and four short stories, plus an essay/interview -- the only one in which Pym talked about her writing process.

Altgether it was a very entertaining read. The main story, Civil to Strangers, has a long-suffering Pym woman, Cassandra, married to a self-absorbed & pompous writer, Adam. It notes in the intro that Pym had read Enchanted April and Adam was slightly influenced by Mellersh Wilkins. I could see it!

There are the usual village residents in this story, unmarried 'spinsters' in their 30s, older widows, hapless men, and so forth -- but into the midst of this small village drops a strange new resident. He's a handsome youngish-middle-aged Hungarian, who is immediately smitten with Cassandra. This causes a fair bit of misunderstanding and gossip, especially when Cassandra heads off on holiday alone, on the same train that he is taking to town. 

It's an amusing and wry story, full of the laughable moments Pym is so good at creating from individual foibles. But it's also light and has a happy ending for all - in that aspect I got the feeling of The Women in Black from this novel as well. It's so enjoyable and this book is worth buying for this story alone. 

But there are others; only the one titled Flora & Gervase was a dud for me. The others were all entertaining in their own ways, particularly Pym's attempt at a spy novel, which is hilarious mainly because she has all her typical characters and typical descriptive writing experiencing a spy caper. It was a real delight, and I only wish she would have been able to fully finish this one.

And the brief discussion by Pym about her writing habits and career was wonderful. After reading this collection, I want to go back and reread all her novels again. If you haven't tried her yet, Excellent Women or Crampton Hodnet might be good places to start; and if you have read most of Pym, don't miss out on this collection of posthumous work.

Jane & Prudence

Jane & Prudence / Barbara Pym
London: Virago, 2013, c1953.
240 p.

An enjoyable reread, I found I appreciated this much more on the second time around! I think I first read it three or four years ago now. Perhaps my sensibilities have become more refined with age ;)

Jane and Prudence are unlikely friends, a decade apart. But they are old university acquaintances and have maintained their friendship. Jane is married to a Vicar, and they've just moved to a new country parish. Jane is a bit dithery and wears whatever clothes come to hand -- domesticity is not her strength, she'd rather be thinking about the 17th century poets she studied at Oxford so long ago.

Prudence on the other hand is a London girl, always dressed and groomed beautifully, but with a penchant for unsuitable love affairs. She fancies herself in love with her employer, a distant, gruff, married academic who works in some 'vague cultural organization'.

But now that Prudence is nearing 30, and Jane has a whole new social circle to explore, Jane starts thinking about matchmaking... and discovers that it is harder than it looks.

Like every Pym book, this one is full of wry observations, amusing reflections, and a reflection of the ways in which women prop up men in every way. And there is the reappearance of characters from her first novel, Crampton Hodnet.  But Pym's characters are often eccentric, not in behaviour as much as thought, and Jane lives up to this tendency well.

“Prudence’s flat was in the kind of block where Jane imagined people might be found dead, though she had never said this to Prudence herself; it seemed rather a macabre fancy and not one to be confided to an unmarried woman living alone.”

Jane's first try at matchmaking goes sideways, but Prudence has other irons in the fire anyhow. She has a few interests in London, and starts up a flirtation on her own. However, Jane is not dissuaded and comes up with a brilliant idea.

The joy in this book is in Pym's wonderful writing. The observations, the quiet humour, the archness of some characters, and the way in which she subverts any expectation that she writes as a repressed spinster. She has no qualms about love and all its ramifications, and about the worthiness of men.

“Prue hadn't really been in love with Fabian. Indeed, it was obvious that at times she found him both boring and irritating. But wasn't that what so many marriages were - finding a person boring and irritating and yet loving him? Who could imagine a man who was never boring, or irritating?” 

And she doesn't shy away from earlier characters who are quite realistic about the niceties of a woman's situation.

“Brides over thirty shouldn't wear white,' said Jessie, who had now joined them.
'Well, they may have a perfect right to,' said Jane.
'A woman over thirty might not like you to think that,' said Jessie quickly. 'There can be something shameful about flaunting one's lack of experience.” 

Anyhow, I should stop quoting her now as I could probably add twenty more funny bits before I'm done. This is such a sharp and charming read, and one that gets better each time. 

Buying It

My Barbara Pym tote bag that I received from Thomas at My Porch as a prize during Barbara Pym Reading Week has finally fulfilled its destiny...

I was in "the city" today and squeezed in time to visit  Steven Temple Books for a last go at his large collection -- his is another second hand shop that is closing down, sadly enough.

Here's what happened.

Eminently suitable

Everything unpacked!

In case you can't see those clearly, I found:

3 Margaret Millar titles, Spider Webs, Banshee, and Beyond this Point are Monsters;
2 Pyms, Civil to Strangers & Other writings and A Lot to Ask;
2 Viragos, E.M. Delafield's Thank Heaven Fasting and Phyllis Shand Allfrey's The Orchid House;
Margery Sharp's The Gipsy in the Parlour;
Carol Shields & Blanche Howard's epistolary novel A Celibate Season;
Vera Brittain's Testament of Friendship (lucky find!);
and a very unusual British ARC of Monica Dickens' The Room Upstairs

Very pleased with these finds!

A Few Green Leaves

A Few Green Leaves / Barbara Pym
London: HarperCollins, c1980.
220 p.

This is one of Pym's later works and feels a little bit darker, or more melancholy than previous books I've read. The story follows Emma Howick, an anthropologist in her 30s (again, an observer) who moves to a small English town for the summer, taking over her mother's cottage. Emma immediately gets involved in the local community, the first few pages taking place on her first weekend there, when she decides to join a group setting out for a walk on the lands belonging to the manor -- and open to the public by custom on the Sunday following Easter.

She thus gets to meet a handful of local eccentrics, including of course the vicar, and his spinster sister Daphne. While Emma thinks that as an anthropologist she can simply observe, she finds herself drawn into the intertwining lives of all these villagers, complicated by the appearance of an old flame, an historian who turns up on her doorstep. Pym says of this meeting,"She had never before experienced the curious awkwardness of meeting somebody you had once loved and now no longer thought about."

There is not a great deal of plot in this story, rather it's about the people -- Pym is excellent at catching every little nuance of individuality and interaction, and she has such an understated way of writing about it that it becomes very enjoyable just to follow along. This story isn't quite as lighthearted as some of the earlier books, though. It reminds me in a way of Penelope Lively's Spiderweb, another novel about an anthropologist who moves to a small village and is quite shocked by the insular and violent happenings she sees there. Lively's novel is darker, with much less humour, but there are still similarities in tone, somehow.

Pym allows for some possibility of happiness and change, though, and the ending of this novel is only a little bit melancholy. The characters and their competing desires will continue to compete, and we can only hope that Emma has decided to enter into life rather than only watching. She's made a start by deciding that she will be staying on in this cottage and becoming a true resident of the village, and this seems to hint that she will be experiencing, as she hopes, a love affair that is not entirely unhappy.

I really liked this book, despite it's more somber tone in comparison to her earlier books. There is still the precise observation, the wry humour, the oddity of her characters (reliably the same kinds as always -- vicars, anthropologists, excellent women -- even some of the exact same characters from earlier books), to enjoy. Emma appears to be a sensible academic, but Pym allows us to see beyond outer appearances, and we get a feeling for Emma's interior life. Pym is good at doing this with many of her characters, with a single sentence that can illuminate a life. Emma, however, as the main character, gets much of our attention, and I found her to be an utterly engaging heroine, the perfect still point at the centre of this novel. Another winner for Pym!

Barbara Pym, and Life Moves On

This is a weekend miscellany, a few bookish thoughts to share today.

First of all, I am saying farewell to Pym Reading Week. Many thanks to Thomas at My Porch for alerting me to this readalong event and for his hosting. Check out his wrap-up posts for numerous links to some Pym love! Considering that I didn't know if I would participate until a few days beforehand, I have really enjoyed this week, and read some more Pym from my Pym Pile, and found new bloggers who are also Pym readers. And discovered many recommendations for authors to follow up with... Angela Thirkell, Hazel Holt, Anita Brookner, Iris Murdoch, the Penelopes (Lively & Fitzgerald), Catherine Fox, Stella Gibbons... who all have some level of similarity to elements in Pym.

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A little late to the game I've discovered Alex in Leeds' Book Jar. It's a wonderful concept, reminds me of something faintly similar I did as a  young teen, and had completely forgotten about. She's already read & reviewed 3 titles pulled at random from her jar. Take a look -- would you keep a TBR this way?

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Last but not least, it's time to start thinking about the next round of the Canadian Book Challenge! It is Year 7, and I'm looking forward to another fun year of reading 13 Canadian books from July 1/13 - July 1/14. John at Book Mine Set hosts this one, and it is very simple: read anything Canadian, and review it online to share. I've enjoyed this for the last six years and am already pondering a theme for year 7... even if you don't join in, be sure to check out his compilations of links for all of the previous years. It's a treasure trove of Canadian book suggestions!

The Attractive Rattle of Tea Things

Today I thought I'd share a few quotes from Pym's work about one of my own favourite subjects, and one she talks about extensively... Tea!

Perhaps there can be too much making of cups of tea, I thought, as I watched Miss Statham filling the heavy teapot. Did we really need a cup of tea? I even said as much to Miss Statham and she looked at me with a hurt, almost angry look, 'Do we need tea? she echoed. 'But Miss Lathbury...' She sounded puzzled and distressed and I began to realise that my question had struck at something deep and fundamental. It was the kind of question that starts a landslide in the mind. I mumbled something about making a joke and that of course one needed tea always, at every hour of the day or night.

 ~Excellent Women

I was so astonished that I could think of nothing to say, but wondered irrelevantly if I was to be caught with a teapot in my hand on every dramatic occasion.

~ Excellent Women

‘Do you know, Wilmet—’ the dark eyes looked so seriously into mine that I wondered what horror was going to be revealed next — ‘he hadn’t even got a teapot?’

‘Goodness! How did he make tea, then?’

‘He didn’t — he never made tea! Just fancy!’

‘Well, one doesn’t really associate Piers with drinking tea,’ I said.

‘He drinks it now,’ said Keith, in such a governessy tone that I began to feel almost sorry for Piers.

~ A Glass of Blessings

Ianthe was not the type to pour herself a glass of sherry or gin as soon as she got home from a day's work, nor yet to make a cup of tea. One did not make tea at half-past six in the evening like the 'working classes', as her mother would have called them.

~ An Unsuitable Attachment

It was to be a confrontation in daylight and at the tea table, Leonora realised, dealing as calmly as she could with the business of getting an extra cup and saucer and pouring tea.

-- The Sweet Dove Died

‘There is tea over here,’ said a voice at Dulcie’s elbow, and she found Miss Wellcome standing by her. ‘You take a plate and choose what you want, then pay for what you have — a good idea, I think.’

‘Yes, isn’t it — and rather like life,’ said Dulcie. ‘Except that there you can’t always choose exactly what you want.

— No Fond Return of Love

The subject of Miss Clovis’s quarrel with the President was known only to a privileged few and even those knew no more than that it had something to do with the making of tea. Not that the making of tea can ever really be regarded as a petty or trivial matter and Miss Clovis did seem to have been seriously at fault. Hot water from the tap had been used, the kettle had not been quite boiling, the teapot had not been warmed…whatever the details, there had been words, during the course of which other things had come out, things of a darker nature.

-- Less Than Angels

She went out of the room and I could hear her filling a kettle and collecting china. I also heard a step on the stairs and Julian's voice saying, “May I come up? I can hear the attractive rattle of tea things. I hope I'm not too late?”

~ Excellent Women

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And of course I must share once again the delightful mixture of tea and libraries that I found recently in a history of my local library from 40 years ago -- the last page had only this:

Pym: A Cover Story

Thomas of My Porch has issued a challenge this week for all we Pym readers... he suggests creating one's own cover for a Pym novel. While this is a rather intimidating idea, especially considering his fascinating post on the original, much admired, designer of the Dutton Pyms, Jacqueline Schuman, I thought I'd give it a go.

Since I read and enjoyed An Unsuitable Attachment so much this week, I thought I'd riff on the library content and try to create something with a library motif. Thanks to the very fun catalog card generator, and of course Flickr's Creative Commons, I began. Note that I am not a very good photo editor/manipulator!

First was this tea-themed faded glamour:

(teacup image via a bevy of, Flickr)

I liked this image, but didn't think it quite worked. The card doesn't meld in enough, my designer skills are pretty crap, as I mentioned. 

So then I thought, well, go minimalist! Library all the way, and got:

(card catalogue drawer image from j l t via Flickr)

I actually rather like this one. Looks like a punchy reissue, nothing girly about it at all. And the card acts as title & author as well, something I've always thought would be neat to see on the cover of a book. Of course, I could have continued on and actually added some subject headings, and maybe I will at some point -- but this will do for now!

What do you think? Would you read this book if it looked like this?

Pym's Excellent Women

Excellent Women / Barbara Pym
New York: Pan Books, 1995, c1952.
240 p.

Meeting Mildred Lathbury in this novel was like making a new and quietly entertaining friend. Her first person narrative is so self-deprecating, and she has such powers of observation and understatement! She is an "excellent woman", the type of middle-aged spinster who devotes her time to the church and good works, who takes on others' burdens as her own.

And yet, she sees herself as such and maintains an ironic perspective on her place in the social strata. Against expectations, she is not pining for the local bachelor vicar, although she is good friends with him and everyone assumes she is in waiting, so to speak.

However, Mildred's quiet and fairly predictable life is shaken up when new tenants move into the flat below hers. The flashy Napiers, Helena and Rocky, are unlike any other people she has known, and they quickly become involved in her life. Helena, an anthropologist, couldn't care less about housekeeping or cooking, shocking Mildred with the mess she leaves strewn about. Helena is currently in the throes of a passion for her fellow anthropologist Everard Bone, who is rather clueless about it all and frightened by Helena's declaration of love. Rocky, meanwhile, is an inveterate flirt who even works his charm on Mildred, who thankfully is sensible enough to eventually see through it. As the Napier marriage shifts, Mildred is placed in the middle, expected to communicate between Rocky, Helena and Everard, even looking after having furniture shipped from the Napier's flat to their cottage to which Rocky has decamped, Helena having gone to her mother's.

Meanwhile, the vicar Julian and his sister Winifred have taken in a new lodger, Allegra Gray, a clergyman's young widow, who works her wiles on Father Malory. An engagement arises, distressing Winifred, who will be expected to leave the vicarage to go somewhere, anywhere, once they are married. Mildred is also caught in the middle in this situation, due both to her friendship with the Malorys and to Allegra's assumption that Mildred is a disappointed spinster who wanted Julian for herself. Mildred realizes that no matter how much she protests, nobody is ever going to believe that she had no interest in marrying Julian, so she resigns herself to playing the role of chief disappointed parishoner. During lunch conversation between Allegra and Mildred, when Allegra is 'breaking the news' (or perhaps more properly, gloating) about her engagement, Pym's bookish references arise once more. Allegra, fashionably nibbling bits of her lunch, says lightly that she is like the girls in Crome Yellow. Having just read Crome Yellow myself, I recalled the story of three fashionably waif-like sisters caught gorging on banquets in private...

But, in all of her messengering between all these people, Mildred begins to develop some kind of stilted friendship with the awkward Everard Bone. He invites her to dinner with his mother, a scene that is classic and very funny, as his mother is a bit of a crank who is convinced that birds are going to take over the world. Mildred is able to keep a sense of the absurd and find this meal entertaining. As the book ends, Mildred is once again having dinner with Everard, this time at his home, and cements their friendship by taking on the proofreading and indexing of his great work, despite knowing nothing of either the subject or the niceties of such tasks.

There are so many asides and pointed comments in this book -- Mildred is very funny, even if she doesn't necessarily see herself that way. She is self-aware and always interested in other people; she gets involved in all of this interpersonal wrangling despite admitting to herself near the end that she was tired of bearing other people's burdens. She is the quintessential 'excellent woman', but one who perhaps is not content with  that role. In stepping outside of that role she is amusing, independent, and in the end I think admirable.


*in reading An Unsuitable Attachment, I noted a reference to Mildred that gives us some hint of her future. It's always fun to see how Pym inserts characters here and there in all of her books! 

An Unsuitable Attachment

An Unsuitable Attachment / Barbara Pym
London: Panther, 1983, c1982.
255 p.

There are a few unsuitable attachments in this book, a few more than the primary one which is considered socially suspect, due to the male party being younger than the female! There is the vicar's wife who has an obsessive focus on her cat Faustina; and there is the nebulous relationship between anthropologist Rupert Stonebird and the vicar's sister-in-law Penelope, two lonely people who seem to me to be temperamentally unsuited.

But the primary titular attachment which is most unsuitable is that between middle-aged librarian Ianthe Broome and her new coworker, the (younger by 5 years) John Challow. John is not quite the type of man that Ianthe generally knows, not a curate, vicar, anthropologist or civil servant, rather, a man who "likes putting up shelves". But that doesn't stop her from following up on her attraction, though John seems rather callow (or shallow?) to me (named well!).

When Ianthe's aunt and uncle (also clergy) hear the news that she is intending to marry John, they come to her vicar's wife, Sophia, to see if she could put in a word.

"She told me she loved this young man -- John, isn't it -- but I never realized that she wanted to marry him." Sophia said.
"At least he works in a library," Bertha murmured. "One does feel that is something."
"He is not, I understand, a qualified librarian?" asked Randolph in a brisker tone, as if he had decided to make the best of a bad job.

I enjoyed Ianthe a great deal, and her interactions with her coworkers, John and Mervyn. There was a lot of library humour, including the three musing over a damaged book just returned -- is it HP sauce? or A1? So familiar... Mervyn, her boss, is a querulous man, older than Ianthe, who still lives with his mother and covets Ianthe's lovely inherited furniture. He gets irritable over many things, many familiar things, including the following:

"Now here's something wrong again," he said, picking up a card. "London colon -- not semi-colon and not comma. I should have thought it wasn't too difficult for other people to get the details right occasionally. That doesn't seem too much to ask, does it? I can't see to everything myself."

Perhaps it is simply librarian humour, but I laughed a lot in this book. Pym's wit is so wry and catches the nuances between people so well. All of the characters exist in relationships of one sort or another, unhappy marriages, unhappy singledom (or hopeful singledom), in close friendships or simply propinquity. The circle of characters includes a couple of people we've met in other books, but the primary relationships are all focused on this story. Members of the parish even go off on a trip to Rome together at one point, a not completely successful pilgrimage of sorts. Sophia is deviously trying to matchmake for her younger sister, so is suspicious of the very self-collected Ianthe.

Pym's familiarity with other books comes through clearly as Sophia and Ianthe stay on alone for a few days to visit Sophia's aunt. As they climb up to her villa, Ianthe comments.

"It's lovely," she said. "It reminds me of The Enchanted April -- the wistaria and the roses..."
Sophia had forgotten what happened in that book, but remembered enough to realize that there was a sort of bringing together of husbands and wives and that in the end everybody was satisfactorily and happily paired off... That was not the sort of thing she wanted to happen and must be prevented at all costs...

I was amused by this exchange, as the entire trip to Italy had put me in mind of Enchanted April myself. I like how Pym both reflects and influences other writers: as I've been reading a few of her novels this week, I see similarities to Elizabeth von Arnim in her work, in the pointed comments and women's relationships especially. But I'm also feeling that her influence has appeared in authors like Alexander McCall Smith (as I mentioned in an earlier post) and also one of my great favourites, Penelope Lively.

I enjoyed the tone of this book and the bit of happiness that comes Ianthe's way. I found this novel particularly entertaining (probably the library content) and complex in the way that the entire narrative and all the characters were woven into one whole story which is hard to tease apart into individual constituents.  Taking one situation out of the context of the whole makes it less plausible, less probable or meaningful. This is one that I've already reread pages of, and know that I'll pick up again, often. I think it has become my new favourite Pym....for the moment....

Happy 100th, Barbara Pym!

Today is the centenary of Barbara Pym's birth, certainly a wonderful time to celebrate her literary legacy! I was fortunate enough to awaken this morning to a feature on Barbara Pym on the CBC's Sunday Edition, hosted by Bill Richardson (a former librarian and very amusing writer) which I hadn't known about beforehand. It didn't uncover anything new for the Pym fan, but was a wonderful appreciation of her work and her life.

And then I lazed about with my morning tea, finishing off A Few Green Leaves, which I very much enjoyed. The more Pym I read, the more able I am to recognize recurring characters, a particular pleasure, I think.

But the highlight of the day had to be our tea to celebrate the centenary. I joined in on the Virtual Tea Party which heavenali was hosting on Facebook, and had a small at-home tea just for the two of us here. A great reason to get out the wedding china, and use the linen napkins that I picked up at a jumble sale at the nearby Anglican church a while ago -- appropriately Pymian, I believe.

The sandwiches and salads I made myself, but my lovely husband dashed out early this morning to pick up some fresh scones from our favourite local supplier, they are always so tasty and so substantial! Of course we finished off with tea and a biscuit, and the tea seems to taste so much nicer in these delicate cups. I keep telling myself I must use them more often.

The tea table awaiting our attention

Lunch is ready, with cucumber sandwiches, potato salad
and a citrusy lentil salad: scones and tea up next!

Our teatime conversation also reflected a few Pym preoccupations, as we are both librarians and second-hand book dealers as well, though no anthropologists or curates here. I was able to share some of the library humour in An Unsuitable Attachment, which I am finding very amusing indeed. Perhaps the humour in this particular book will be most amusing to librarians, as it is so spot on -- but I would be glad to hear from any non-librarians who have an opinion on this book ;)

Thanks again to all the hosts of Pym Reading Week for the inspiration to celebrate Pym this week!

Miss Pym and I

For the first day of Barbara Pym reading week, hosts Thomas and Amanda have shared how they met Barbara Pym. Which made me think about how and when it was that I first read Pym.

As far as I remember, I'd been aware of Barbara Pym as a name. But I was under the impression she was a mid-century British writer, probably of little interest to me -- why I made this assumption, I am not quite certain, as I do read quite a bit of both mid-century and British women's novels.

In any case, there were two elements that made me decide to read my first Barbara Pym, a few years ago now. First was the general influence of so many bookish blogging friends mentioning her novels, continuously, in an offhand manner that suggested that of course one must also be a fan. More specifically, the influence of Kerry at Pickle Me This, a member of the Barbara Pym Society! If so many people who I loved to read and take advice from agreed, then it must be time to pick up a novel. I had No Fond Return of Love in the house so I started with that one. And quickly realized that this was a wonderful author who was going to become a favourite, which she has.

A secondary impulse toward reading Pym came from a stranger direction. I am, despite his enormous popularity, a fan of Alexander McCall Smith, having read every single book in his multitudinous output. I can't recall where I read that he is a Pym fan, and that he's read all of her work and recommends it, too. But, wondering about it, I went into my first Pym read with that in mind. It was fairly easy to see her influence on him, actually: in some of the phrasing, in some of the focus on domestic detail, certainly in the observation of people and their personal oddities. My discovery of Pym has added extra depth and a resonance to my McCall Smith reading.

So, I am at that lovely stage in which I have read just about half of her work, and have nearly half left unread.  I've managed to collect up all of her novels excepting three titles, which I'm still on the hunt for. And I'm on the hunt for Some Tame Gazelle which is somewhere in my house, I swear, though I was unable to rustle it up for this photo:

Scheduled Reading for this Week:

An Unsuitable Attachment

A Few Green Leaves

A Very Private Eye

Barbara Pym Reading Week!

I'm thrilled that Thomas of My Porch and Amanda at Fig & Thistle are co-hosting Barbara Pym Reading Week, coming this Saturday! Check out their blogs for more info... basically a great opportunity to gorge yourself on Pym novels and share thoughts. Always a good thing.

It's Barbara Pym's centenary on Sunday, thus the timing. But it also works out perfectly because early June is simply perfect for having tea outdoors, and of course, reading! And also on Sunday, heavenali is celebrating with a Virtual Tea Party in Pym's honour. Join in wherever you are, it will be lovely. I'll be trying some of these teatime treats.

I've reviewed a few of Pym's novels (favourite thus far is Crampton Hodnet) and read some that I haven't yet shared my thoughts on. During Pym Week I have An Unsuitable Attachment and A Few Green Leaves awaiting my attention. I'm also hoping to post a couple of outstanding reviews of her work, but we'll see... If you are also a Pym fan, join in, and if you haven't had the pleasure of meeting Barbara Pym yet, well, this is the perfect time to make her acquaintance.

Crampton Hodnet

Crampton Hodnet / Barbara Pym
New York: Plume, 1986, c1985.
216 p.

As it is the Barbara Pym centenary this year, I'd like to share some thoughts on some of her books, over the course of this year -- especially during the June Barbara Pym readalong that I discovered via Thomas at My Porch.

But I'm starting now with Crampton Hodnet.

I discovered Barbara Pym a while back (mostly due to Kerry Clare's blog Pickle Me This) and have really been enjoying exploring her titles. This book was the funniest one I've read so far -- it's not as leavened with melancholy or bittersweet encounters as her later books seem to be.

Taking place in the 30's, this is set in North Oxford, a community replete with professors, vicars, single women at loose ends, church functions, tea rooms and gossip. This seems to be Pym territory, and in this book it is handled lightly and with a great deal of humour. There is a varied cast of characters -- Miss Dogget and her companion Miss Morrow, who are boarding the new curate Mr Latimer; the Cleveland family, Professor (Francis), Mrs.  (Margaret) and daughter Anthea; numerous Oxford students; senior library assistant Edward Killigrew and his aged mother, and many more. The drama involves primarily minor aspects of life, for as Miss Morrow notes, "Clever people were inclined to be fond of spiteful gossip and intrigue."

There is much made of  the love lives of all of the interacting characters, married or not. One element has to do with the sudden infatuation that Francis Cleveland has for his student, Barbara Bird. After he has confessed his love to Barbara in the library (with Killigrew lurking in the background ready to pass on the gossip) he returns home:

"Francis, you're looking so odd," said Margaret, glancing up from her novel. "Have you got indigestion?"

"I don't think so," he answered shortly.

"Then it must be the effect of the British Musuem," she said.

That was exactly it, thought Francis, suddenly blaming it all on the British Museum. Everyone knew that libraries had an unnatural atmosphere which made people behave oddly.

There are numerous tempests in teapots here, and yet more serious things, like Francis attempting to run off to France with his student, are met with light reproof and the proverbial stiff upper lip by his family. The year has its dramas but as it nears its end, Miss Morrow (whose viewpoint carries much of the book) notes that nothing really changes, that the players who are leaving their circle will be replaced by others much the same, and life will continue along the same path for everyone. Perhaps this isn't such a comforting idea to Miss Morrow herself, but she has made her peace with her position.

The story is full of pretensions and expectations being deflated, comical misunderstandings, disappointed love, and lots and lots of tea and academia. It is charming and entertaining even while skewering its own self-satisfaction with Pym's particular wit. With many amusing and quotable lines, this is one of her novels that I know will be an enjoyable reread in future.