The 1977 Club: Quartet in Autumn by Barbara Pym

. . . she still kept to her rules -- one did not drink sherry before the evening, just as one did not read a novel in the morning, this last being a left-over dictum of a headmistress of forty years ago.

The 1970s is kind of a dead zone for my reading -- I was pretty young back then and I hadn't really read any adult novels written in that decade except some fairly trashy mainstream books when I reached high school (Stephen King, the John Jakes historical novels, and dare I say it, some Danielle Steel!) When Simon announced that next readalong was The 1977 Club, my heart sank a little -- I was afraid I'd end up reading Jonathan Livingston Seagull (wrong year!) or something by John Le Carre. 

I was delighted to realize that one of my favorite authors, Barbara Pym, had published a novel in 1977 -- and it was sitting on my shelves unread! Eureka -- my choice was made, Quartet in Autumn.

The book -- a novella, really, at just 218 pages -- follows approximately a year in the life of four co-workers, most likely aged in their late fifties or early sixties. Letty, Marcia, Norman, and Edwin all work together at an amorphous office, where their work is never really defined. None of them are exactly friends, but what they have in common is that each of them is essentially alone. Edwin is a widower and spends a lot of time with vicar and his church; Norman lives in a bed-sit and has brother-in-law, his late sister's husband; Letty has a friend in the country, Marjorie, and they plan to retire together to Marjorie's cottage; and Marcia, a breast-cancer survivor, seems to have nobody since her cat Snowball died. The only thing she seems to look forward to is her regular check-ups. 

There isn't really much of a plot in this book, just vignettes about the characters and their interactions.  You couldn't describe the four as friends, and after Marcia and Letty retire, there's a very awkward lunch reunion for the four of them. Yet, they're somehow connected -- I suppose these four are almost like a vague sort of family. 

This is rather different than the other Pym novels I've read, in that the characters are all much older than the usual protagonists in Pym's novels, and there isn't really a romantic element plot among any of the main characters. It's rather bittersweet compared to some of the earlier novels I remember. Quartet in Autumn was the first novel Pym published since 1961 when No Fond Return of Love was published; her published dropped her after that novel and she was rejected by other publishers. She was rediscovered in 1977 after two influential writers named her "the most underrated writer of the 20th century" in the Times Literary Supplement. Quartet in Autumn was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and Pym was able to publish two more novels before she died in 1980. (Several of her unpublished works were published posthumously. 

I think I have all the Moyer-Bell editions of Pym's novels except this one. It's a little pricey.

I did like this book but it took a little while to warm up to the characters. The story didn't really grab me right away but the characters were really well drawn, though the plot is a little sad. It does rather make sense given the circumstances regarding Pym's publishing career, and the fact that she did die of breast cancer just three years after this book was published.

I have just one more of Pym's novels unread, A Few Green Leaves, and I also a copy of A Very Private Eye, a collection of her diaries, letters, and notebooks. I'm very happy to have completed this one for the 1977 Club. Thanks again to Simon and Kaggsy for organizing it!

Jane and Prudence by Barbara Pym

Reading a Barbara Pym novel is like slipping into a warm bath after a hard day (or any day, really).  They are the ultimate comfort read.  Not too long, nor too difficult, yet full of wit, sly humor, and great characters.  Jane and Prudence is my fifth Barbara Pym novel, and once again, Pym delivers.

Basically, this is a year or so in the life of two friends.  Jane is a fortyish clergyman's wife, with a single child nearing adulthood.  She once tutored at Oxford, and her former student, Prudence, is in her late twenties, and nearing spinisterhood, though she's very attractive and has had lots of romances.  Prudence works in a London office for some sort of academic and secretly loves her boss from afar.  Jane's husband has recently taken up a new post in the country, and they're settling in.  Jane meets all the people in the village, including busybodies, paid companions, and attractive widower named Fabian who might just do for Prudence.

Meanwhile, Jane's daughter Flora is off to Oxford for her first semester.  Like most Pym novels, not much happens, yet many small things happen.  We learn the tiny details of life in the fifties, about what sort of flowers are appropriate for a Harvest festival to what sort of hats all the women wear, and, naturally, what everyone eats.  Eyebrows are raised in the village since Jane can't cook her way out of a paper bag, yet nobody expects Fabian to pick up a frying pan and fend for himself.   Prudence and Jane make various visits back and forth between London and the village parish, and Prudence becomes involved in a romance.  Will this finally result in marriage?  Naturally, the course of true love does not run smoothly.

Pym's dialogue and wry observations are once again peppered with wry observations.  For example, she describes a book that Prudence is reading as "a novel of the kind that Prudence enjoyed, well written and tortuous, with a good dash of culture and the inevitable unhappy or indefinite ending, which was so like life." Zing!  It's lines like this that Pym so great.  Very subtle and sly, but carefully observant.  I especially loved the interplay between the Prudence and her co-workers, who seem obsessed with what time everyone arrives and leaves the office, and whose responsibility it is to make the tea. For those who have read Excellent Women, there's even a mention of Mildred Lathbury.

Now I have read about 40% of Pym's oeuvre and I am dreading the day when I have finished all of them.  I've read two this past week, and two over the Christmas holiday.  I have several more unread on the shelf but I'm going to have to ration them out so I don't finish them all too quickly.

I've been trying to think of other authors that might be similar.  Elizabeth Taylor (not the actress, the writer) comes to mind, and maybe Anita Brookner.  And of course, my beloved Anthony Trollope and Jane Austen.  Who else writes like Barbara Pym?  What shall I read when I've finished all her books?  And which of her novels are your favorites?

Thanks again for Thomas at My Porch and Amanda at Fig and Thistle for organizing Barbara Pym Reading Week!

No Fond Return of Love by Barbara Pym

In honor of the centenary of Barbara Pym's birth, Thomas at My Porch and Amanda at Fig and Thistle have organized Barbara Pym Reading Week!  If you have not Barbara Pym, you are in for a treat.  I've now read four of her thirteen books and am just starting a fifth, and they have all been delightful.  

My fourth foray into Barbara Pym's world was No Fond Return of Love.  This is the story of three people who meet while attending a weekend conference on indexing in the late 1950s or early 1960s.  Two of them, Dulcie Mainwaring and Viola Dace, are thirtysomething women who have been disappointed in love; the third is a handsome scholar, Aylwin Forbes, who has recently separated from his wife.  Aylwin and Viola actually have a bit of history, though nothing's really happened, and Dulcie develops a bit of a crush on Aylwin.  

Viola and Dulcie become friendly and as their friendship develops, so does Dulcie's interest in Aylwin. In fact, she almost becomes a bit stalkerish.  At the time, it would probably have been considered just an eccentric crush, but nowadays I think one would be worried.  Dulcie begins to track down Alywin's ex-wife, the parish of Alywin's brother, a clergyman; and the somewhat shabby seaside hotel where Alywin grew up.  There are a lot of moments which are almost painfully awkward to read as Dulcie snoops about him and Viola, still getting over her crush, indulges her.  

Still, it's all very delightful.  We also get a bit of insight into a younger crowd as Dulcie's twentyish niece Lucy moves in with her while she starts a secretarial course in London.  There are also the usual cast of clergyman's wives and do-gooder churchwomen that seem to inhabit all of Pym's novels, and lots of discussion of the food and drink of the period.  I will be forever curious about Cauliflower Cheese from having read Barbara Pym, and though I am lactose intolerant and cauliflower is far from my favorite vegetable, I will probably try and make one soon since I recently ordered this:

It should arrive in the next month or so, and hopefully I'll be able to make all the recipes mentioned in the books.  

Though Barbara Pym is often compared to Jane Austen.  I don't know if I'd say that exactly -- her heroines are older, more jaded, and a little more worldy than Austen's.  However, if Jane Austen traveled in time to the 1950s, still unmarried and fortyish, without aristocratic connections, I can definitely see her writing books very much like No Fond Return of Love and Excellent Women.  They have a similar wry humor and sneaky observations.  

When I opened this book I was hooked from the very first page, with this sentence:

For what could be more peculiar than a crowd of grown-up people, most of them middle-aged or even elderly, collected together in a girls' boarding school in Derbyshire for the purposes of discussing scholarly niceties that meant nothing to the rest of the world?

This cracked me up because for the three of the past four years, I've spent  a long weekend at the Annual General Meeting of the Jane Austen Society of North America, surrounded by about 500 Janeites, discussing her works and her world, from its broad themes to absolute minutiae.  I'm quite sure most of my Janeite friends would love Barbara Pym, if they don't read her already.  

Who else is reading Barbara Pym this week?  Which are your favorites?  And who has a good recipe for Cauliflower Cheese?