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

Fifth Classic of 2014...

"...these foolish books have turned her brain!"

In The Female Quixote, Charlotte Lennox pokes fun of romance books and the effect they have on malleable young girls if read too often and taken too seriously. So it is with her main character, Arabella. The daughter of a Marquis, Arabella is young, beautiful, and lively; she has a quick wit and a kind heart. There's just one problem:

From her earliest youth she had discovered a fondness for reading, which extremely delighted the marquis; he permitted her therefore the use of his library, in which, unfortunately for her, were great store of romances, and what was still more unfortunate, not in the original French, but very bad translations....Her ideas, from the manner of her life, and the objects around her, had taken a romantic turn; and supposing romances were real pictures of life, from them she drew all her notions and expectations. By them she was taught to believe, that love was the ruling principle of the world; that every other passion was subordinate to this; and that it caused all the happiness and miseries of life.

While this novel is subtitled "The Adventures of Arabella", it should be subtitled "The Follies of Arabella". She is always imagining passion in the young men she meets, always fearing she's about to be 'carried off' by a scorned lover, and always taking offense where none was meant or given. For every situation she encounters, she has some crazy example taken from a bad romance novel which she then quotes from...extensively. It's funny, at first, then a little tedious. But overall, this novel made me laugh. Even the chapter headings are amusing. Like this one: Contains several incidents, in which the reader is expected to be extremely interested. I did feel bad for Mr. Granville, the young man who wants to marry Arabella, but who can't quite live up to her foolish rules and unrealistic romantic notions. Why he sticks it out through all her whimsical follies I'll never know. But then, I stuck it out to the very end, too. (All 423 pages!) And I'm glad I did.

First published in 1752, The Female Quixote seems like a precursor to Jane Austen's satirical Northanger Abbey, another favorite read. There were several things I enjoyed about this novel--for one thing, it's full of some awesome vocabulary. I mean, when did we stop using words like questionless and ravishers in everyday conversation? Some of my other favorites: dolorous, foibles, languishings, vexacious, haply, raillery, and quintescence. If you like books written in this time period, lightheared (if a little long-winded) novels that poke fun and don't take themselves too seriously, and books with some delightfully funny characters, I think you'll like this one, too.

Happy Reading!