This is Barbara Pym’s last novel, published only a few months before her death in 1980. I don’t think it’s her best novel, however it’s still a Pym novel, and that makes it well worth reading.

It’s set in the 1970s in a small English village, where time seems to have stopped somewhere in the 50s. Everyone knows everyone else’s business; village life revolves around the church, jumble sales and afternoon teas.

Emma Howick is an anthropologist: single and in her thirties. She takes up residence in her mother’s cottage in the village, thinking she will write an academic paper examining life in a small rural village. As Emma studies the villagers’ behaviour with her professional eye, it creates a sense of distance from the characters, making it difficult to connect emotionally with their lives.

However, Pym has such an eye for people and their foibles. She is sharply observant, but always with an underlying kindness. The vicar, Tom, who has lived with his sister Daphne for many years since his wife died, is suddenly left to his own care when Daphne decided to move away. There is much discussion amongst the village ladies about how will he possibly cope on his own? “It was a mistaken and old-fashioned concept, the helplessness of men, the kind that could only flourish in a village years behind the times”.

And Pym can be so damn funny! “Daphne realised that she hated flower arranging altogether. Sometimes she hated the church too, wasn’t sure that she even believed any more, though of course one didn’t talk about that kind of thing. And Christabel G. hadn’t told her what she was to do, just snubbed her and left her standing uselessly by a heap of greenery. Into Daphne’s mind came yet another Greek vignette, the memory of an old man on the seashore bashing an octopus against a stone…..”

It’s heartbreaking that we lost Pym way too early. Her insights into ordinary lives, quietly lived are unparalleled. Reading any of her books is always a treat.

This review is for Some Tame Gazelle.

Written in 1950, Some Tame Gazelle is Barbara Pym’s first novel. She introduces us to the Misses Bede, Harriet and Belinda who are unapologetic about their chosen lives as spinsters. Harriet asks rhetorically, ‘Who would change a comfortable life of spinsterhood in a country parish, for the unknown trials of matrimony?’ Their world revolves around the church (Church of England, of course, not Roman!) and it’s calendar, not to mention its curates.

Belinda fell in love with the insufferable Archdeacon over thirty years ago, and ‘not having found anyone to replace him since, had naturally got into the habit of loving him, though with the years her passion had mellowed into a comfortable feeling, more like the cosiness of a winter evening by the fire than the uncertain rapture of a spring morning’.

Pym’s gift is her eye for the beauty in the everyday; in her ability to put into words precisely how the mundane can be luminous: ‘Belinda’s eyes filled with tears and she experienced one of those sudden moments of joy that sometimes come to us in the middle of an ordinary day.’

Why should books only be about the ‘big’ stories - the grand passions, set in exotic locations, involving beautiful people? Pym celebrates our lives; her readers’ lives. She illuminates the thoughts we have all had, and shows them to be worthy, and full of pathos. As Belinda considers the purchase of some clerical grey wool to knit a jumper for her ‘dearest’ Archdeacon, she then resigns herself to knitting one for herself instead, because ‘when we grow older we lack the fine courage of youth, and even an ordinary task like making a pullover for somebody we love or used to love seems too dangerous to be undertaken’.

However, Some Tame Gazelle is not only contemplating the poignant lives of its characters, it’s also very wry and funny. When a famous librarian visits, it’s pointed out that he is ‘a great connoisseur [of wine]. It seems right that a librarian should be. Good wine and old books seem to go together.’

There are moments in this book that felt immensely personal for me, they resonated strongly. When Belinda takes to her bed with a chill, she luxuriates in the guilty pleasure, not even feeling like reading, but rather ‘she was quite enjoying her illness now that she felt a little better and could allow her thoughts to wander at random in the past and future without the consciousness that she ought to be more profitably employed.’ Only Barbara Pym would think to include this moment in a novel; so personal and yet so universal.

Do not approach a Barbara Pym novel with expectations of dramatic plot devices, or over-the-top characters, for you will be disappointed. However, if you want to spend time with characters with real hearts and souls, then pull up a chair, pour your favourite tipple, and enjoy - you’re in for a treat.

Memorable first lines are notoriously hard to find, however Barbara Pym hits the jackpot in No Fond Return of Love: ‘There are various ways of mending a broken heart, but perhaps going to a learned conference is one of the more unusual.’ - sublime!
Dulcie Mainwaring is a woman in her thirties, recovering from a failed engagement, who has already accepted spinsterhood as her lot. She meets Viola Dace at the ‘learned conference’ and so begins an unexpected friendship. Viola is not a particularly kind person, often saying the first thing that comes into her mind with little concern for its effect on others. Dulcie is always trying to be helpful, even if the help is unwanted or needed. When Dulcie brings Viola a morning cup of tea, Viola says “…it was kind of you to bring the tea, even though it was Indian.” Ouch!
No Fond Return of Love is peppered with insightful gems that strike at the heart of ordinary lives. Here are my favourites:

Dulcie: “…life is often cruel in small ways, isn’t it?”
[Dulcie] went on to wonder why anybody married anybody. It only brought trouble to themselves and their relations.
Viola: Perhaps all love had something of the ridiculous in it.

This is only my second Barbara Pym novel (see my review of Excellent Women).
Quartet in Autumn is more contemporary - having been written and set in the 1970s, so is not as ‘quaint’ or removed as those set in the 1950s.
Edwin, Norman, Letty and Marcia work in an office - what they do is never discussed. However, they are all ‘of a certain age’ and know that as they retire, their small department will close. Although they would appear to have very little in common, they actually all share the same problem: loneliness.
They all live alone, and none of them have put any thought into what they will do when they retire, apart from ‘keep business’.
Pym touches on so many issues in this slender volume: growing old; feeling unloved or needed; and finding purpose and meaning in life after retirement. She gently probes into these people’s lives, uncovering prejudices, foibles, irritations and regrets, but never judging.
Letty wonders at one point: “No man had taken her away and immured her in some comfortable suburb where hymn-singing was confined to Sundays. Why had this not happened? Because she had thought that love was a necessary ingredient for marriage? Now, having looked around her for forty years, she was not so sure. All those years wasted, looking for love!"
An air of melancholy does pervade this novel, and there is no avoiding the sadness of these characters’ lives. But there is never despair, and the novel has a hopeful conclusion.
I loved this novel. I think Pym has an exceptional ability to peel away the protective layers of her characters, and share their private thoughts with eloquence and perception.
Highly recommended for readers ‘of a certain age’!

Barbara Pym’s Excellent Women surprised me. I picked it up because someone I respect said how much they loved Pym’s novels. I must say the blurb did not sound encouraging: a story about a mild-mannered spinster set in 1950s London.

However, I quickly found myself immersed in Mildred Lathbury’s life and the people who inhabit her world. This is a world where she attends daily church services in a building still half in rubble from the bombings; where eggs are rarely fresh, usually powdered; and tea is seen as the answer to all that life can throw your way. The church features quite heavily, which I imagine it did in the lives of many in the early 1950s, and is seen as a constant in most people’s lives.

Mildred is wonderful company, her musings always thoughtful and honesty: “I don’t know whether spinsters are really more inquisitive than married women, though I believe they are thought to be because of the emptiness of their lives…”. She is often scolding herself for being too critical or unkind: “I decided that I did not like Mrs Napier very much, and then began to reproach myself for lack of Christian charity. But must we always like everybody?”

Throughout the novel, there is an expectation that Mildred will do all manner of things for people, because she is a spinster, so obviously has nothing better to do! This is one aspect of the novel that still rings true today, as anyone who is either single, or childless, will no doubt agree with.

It could be easy to see Mildred’s life as sad and lonely, however I didn’t see it that way at all. She has many interests and is active within her community; she has a lot true friends, but she also likes her own company. She is well respected, and known to be a person that can be relied on. I was very sorry when I came to the end of this book - I wanted to keep company with Mildred for more than 231 pages.

Perhaps our current world would be a better place if we still honoured and respected excellent women?