Barbara Pym has been on my radar for a while, ever since I read about her correspondence with Philip Larkin. The fact that he was a champion of her work means something. She came back to my attention earlier this year when my father-in-law, Tom, recommended an old BBC programme called Miss Pym’s Day Out, starring Patricia Routledge, which we watched on iPlayer, a weird fictionalized documentary about her nomination for the Booker Prize for Quartet in Autumn in 1977 on the back of endorsements from Larkin and Lord David Cecil after a 14-year hiatus when her publisher refused her manuscripts because she was too old-fashioned for the 60s. I'd also been saving the Backlisted podcast episode about Excellent Women, which I listened to after watching the TV programme. Then, when we were in Wales for my birthday in early May, we raided the shelves of the bung for all the Pym we could find, plus Fran bought this lovely Virago paperback edition of Excellent Women.
I'm glad I've been saving Pym until now. I'm not sure I would have appreciated her fully as an undergraduate. She is delightful. Her subject matter, on the surface, may be about spinsters, church gossip, jumble sales, clergymen's daughters and wives, learned societies, and endless cups of tea; but it's so much more than that. She has the clear and crisp, unfussy prose of Nevil Shute and W. Somerset Maugham; the heartachingly unrequited love of my lost 20s. Her characters live and breathe off the page and stay with you for the duration of your reading and then linger with you.
There is something very quaint and dated about the era she describes: London shortly after the war, when men were still returning from Europe; churches are partially in ruins but are still filled by keen congregations; women were very definitely subjugated by men, always expected to bear the burdens of domestic labour, but not without protest, however private.
There is a plot: new neighbours, a fractious marriage, the vicar getting engaged, invitations to lunch with various men who may or may not be interested in marriage. But the plot isn't really the point. It is nevertheless compelling reading in its delightfully digestable 10-page chapters - perfect for reading one or two over breakfast and lunch. A very fine companion. Utterly Pymsical. I'm looking forward to much more Pym in the weeks, months, and years to come.
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