Crampton Hodnet

While Barbara Pym wrote this novel in 1939, it wasn't published until after her death in 1985. But it's not because this novel is lacking in anyway. It's as funny and delightful as all her others. Even the title, Crampton Hodnet, is an inside joke between two of her main characters.

This novel takes place in North Oxford and revolves around Miss Doggett, "a formidable woman of seventy (whose) chief work in life was interfering in other people's business", her meek yet sensible companion, Jessie Morrow, and Mr. Latimer, the young and handsome curate who comes to board with them. (Because all of Pym's novels need a curate!) Then there's the Clevelands:  Francis, an established professor who's writing a book he'll never finish and who is also Miss Doggett's nephew, his placid wife, Margaret, and their daughter, Anthea, "a tall, slender girl with golden hair curling onto her shoulders and a gentle, pretty face, not too intelligent but just right for one whose only occupation in life so far had been to fall in love and be fallen in love with." And then there's Barbara Bird, one of Francis Cleveland's students at Oxford who happens to be falling in love with him.

At its heart, Crampton Hodnet is a novel of "unsuitable romantic entanglements" written in that perceptively witty and uniquely satirical Barbara Pym way. It's charming. And humorous. And I liked it a lot.

Happy Reading!

Pym-isms

I love Barbara Pym's novels. She writes about ordinary people living ordinary lives in a way that makes you smile, laugh, and sometimes even cry. She had a real gift for creating memorable characters and also for writing witty observations about life. I recently finished reading No Fond Return of Love, a novel about a thirtyish single woman named Dulcie Manwaring and her tangle of relationships, which I quite enjoyed. Here are a few of my favorite Pym-isms from it:

"There are various ways of mending a broken heart, but perhaps going to a Learned conference is one of the more unusual."

"It was sad, she thought, how women longed to be needed and useful and how seldom most of them really were."

"Viola had turned out to be a disappointment. In a sense, Dulcie felt as if she had created her and that she had not come up to expectations, like a character in a book who had failed to come alive, and how many people in life, if one transferred them to fiction just as they were, would fail to do that!"

"Life's problems are often eased by hot milky drinks."  

Barbara Pym
(1913-1980)

"One never met anybody interesting travelling second class."

"Some men seem to make a habit of choosing the wrong women," said Dulcie thoughtfully.

"Perhaps love for somebody totally unsuitable dies more completely, when it does dies, than any other kind of love."

Happy Reading!

Other Pym novels I've read and enjoyed:
Quartet in Autumn
Less Than Angels
Jane and Prudence
A Few Green Leaves
Some Tame Gazelle
Excellent Women (which oddly enough I never reviewed, even though it's my favorite.)

Reading Barbara Pym

Whenever I try to describe the plot of a Barbara Pym novel it never sounds like much. For example, Less Than Angels is about a group of anthropologists living and studying in London. There's Deirdre Swan, a first year student, Mark and Digby, two grad students hoping to get field grants, and Tom Mallow, the handsome one who's just returned from a two-year stint in Africa. And I mustn't forget Alaric Lydgate, also back from Africa, recently retired from the Colonial Service because of ill-health, and living next door to Deidre.  Tom lives with Catherine Oliphant, a writer, and is working on his thesis. Then he meets Deirdre. Who meets Catherine. Who meets Alaric. And none of them are ever the same again.

See? It doesn't sound like much, does it? But somehow, with her wit, charm, and keen insight into human nature, Pym can take the simplest of plots and turn it into a delightful story that sings. Less Than Angels is no exception. I thoroughly enjoyed this "simple" novel. But the best way to appreciate Pym's genius is to experience her writing and wit for yourself. So here are a few of my favorite Pym-isms:

"She sometimes felt, as she climbed the worn linoleum-covered stairs, that she was worthy of a more gracious setting, but then there are few of us who do not occasionally set a higher value on ourselves than Fate has done." 

"There are few experiences more boring and painful for a woman than an evening spent in the company of one man when she is longing to be with another."

"Deirdre, like Tom, was tired after the long walk and was glad when the time came to go to bed and dream about him. But dreams can seldom be arranged as we wish them, and Deirdre's were of Digby Fox, of all people." 

"The day was coming to its end, and although it had been tiring and upsetting it had at least been full and that, she supposed, was all to the good. Pain, amusement, surprise, resignation, were all woven together into a kind of fabric whose colour and texture she could hardly visualize as yet."

 Happy Reading!

Bookish bonus:  Since I pulled this book off my TBR shelf I get to count it as one of the ten books I'm reading for the 2017 Backlist Reader Challenge.
Books read so far:  3.  Still to go:  7.

Other Pym posts:

Jane and Prudence

Some Tame Gazelle

A Few Green Leaves

Quartet in Autumn

Another Pym...

"...everyone knew that people in villages were different."

Barbara Pym's last novel, A Few Green Leaves, is about life in a West Oxfordshire village. Emma Howick, a single anthropologist in her thirties, has come to this village to do some research for her next paper and observe the customs and characters living in this village. And there are plenty of characters:  Tom, the widowed rector, "who might sill marry again"; Daphne, the rector's single sister, who dreams of living in a white-washed Greek cottage somewhere on the Aegean; old Dr. G. who prefers his patients to be young, and young Dr. Shrubsole, who has an interest in geriatrics; Graham Pettifer, Emma's ex-lover, who unexpectedly turns up at the village to work on his next book; and Miss Lee, Miss Grundy, and Miss Lickerish, the bevy of spinsters that seem to be a given in any Barbara Pym novel. As Emma observed, "There was obviously material for note here." And the possibility of romance as well.

While there's no mystery or psychological suspense in a Pym novel, there is humor and characters to which you quickly become attached. A Few Green Leaves follows life in a small English village over a summer. It's charming, well-written, and thoroughly enjoyable. Pym does it again! I've read four other Pym novels: Excellent Women, Some Tame Gazelle, Jane and Prudence, and Quartet in Autumn.  They are all worth checking out.

Happy Reading!

Quartet in Autumn

Letty. Marcia. Norman. Edwin.

"Four people on the verge of retirement, each one of us living alone,

and without any close relatives near--that's us...(with) all the freedom

that loneliness brings..."

In the hands of any other author this novel would have been sad and depressing, but Barbara Pym's lyrical writing fills it with warmth and wit and hope. Of the four characters, I liked Letty best. Letty, who "had always been an unashamed reader of novels" and for whom love had never come. She works in the same office as Marcia, Norman, and Edwin (although you never know what it is that any of them actually do). They are colleagues, but not necessarily friends. Then Marcia and Letty retire, affecting all four of their lives in unexpected ways. Quartet in Autumn is a quiet, character-driven novel set in England in the 1970s. And I loved it. It made me feel a little sad, but it also made me smile. And it made me realize all over again just what an amazing writer Barbara Pym is. I think the last line of this thoughtful little novel sums it up best:

"But at least it made one realise that life still

held infinite possibilities for change."

Happy Reading!

P.S. Thank you, Liz, for passing this novel on to me...I really enjoyed reading it!

Third Classic of 2014...

It's not plot that drives a Barbara Pym novel, it's the characters. And in Jane and Prudence, Pym has created some delightful ones. Prudence Bates is 29, "an age that is often rather desperate for a woman who has not yet married." She works in London, is in love with her employer, and specializes in unsatisfactory love affairs. Jane Cleveland, on the other hand, is 41, and a clergyman's wife trying to adjust to a new parish, who "reads too many novels." She's a bit scattered and not very domestic, has one daughter, Flora, and is determined to find Prudence a suitable widower to marry. These two friends from Oxford are the heart and soul of this charming novel.

I happily immersed myself in their lives, enjoying their various encounters, sympathizing with their defeats and disappointments, and laughing at their astute observations of life. Take this bit of dialogue between Prudence and Jane's "suitable widower":

     "I always think women who write books sound rather formidable."

     "You'd prefer them to be stupid and feminine? To think men are wonderful?" (Prudence)

     "Well, every man likes to be though wonderful. A woman need not necessarily be stupid to admire a man."  

See what I mean? Pym's writing (like Jane Austen's) is witty and insightful and her novels are delightful and funny. My favorite is still Excellent Women, but I enjoyed this one almost as much. Plus, it filled another category for me in the What's In A Name Reading Challenge that I'm participating in this year. (Not that I needed another reason to read this Barbara Pym novel; her novels are reason enough.)

Happy Reading!

What's in a Name 2014 Reading Challenge Update: 2 books read; 3 more to go.

Category completed with this read: Read a book that has a forename (or names) in the title.

 

Some Tame Gazelle by Barbara Pym

Have you ever read a Barbara Pym novel? I hadn't until earlier this year. Her stories are delightful studies of curates and spinsters, of English society and manners. And they make me laugh. Some Tame Gazelle is Pym's first novel. I think what I like most about this novel are the two main characters: Harriet and Belinda Bede. Harriet is the "plumply attractive", exuberant and unflappable sister; Belinda, who is a little more drab and somewhat timid, is the sister who worries more about propriety. I found them to be both sympathetic and appealing.

"It's no use being sentimental about things," said Harriet. "You shouldn't keep a clutter of clothes you never wear just because you once liked them."

Belinda made no comment on this, for she was thinking that Harriet's words might be applied to more serious things than clothes. If only one could clear out one's mind and heart as ruthlessly as one did one's wardrobe..." 

 Pym pokes gentle fun of all her characters. The foibles of the archdeacon and his wife, Agatha, the new curate, and the Italian Count who is in love with Harriet, make this novel entertaining even though not much happens along the way. Pym's novel, Excellent Women, is still my favorite, but I liked this one almost as much. Best of all? I still have 10 more Pym novels left to read.