Category Archives: Pym, Barbara

The Weekly Reader, Vol. 2026, Issue 4

I’ve developed a new practice, where I open this post right after the prior issue is published so I can add to it throughout the week. It makes it much easier to schedule posting.

I can’t remember a time when I haven’t been reading Michael Connelly. He’s been an autobuy author for me for years. I even buy the Lincoln Lawyer mysteries, which I don’t really like (so much so, that sometimes I don’t even read them). I frequently re-listen to the audiobooks, especially the Ballard & Bosch books that are the more recent vintage, and the older Bosch installments. The mid-career Bosch books are my least favorite of the bunch.

But, now, Bosch is just an old man, and is unlikely to be front any more books. Last year, Connelly introduced a new character, Detective Stilwell, who works for the LA County Sheriff’s Office, and who has been exiled to a very undesirable posting on Catalina Island. Ironwood is the second mystery featuring Stilwell, and it is already merging with the Ballard series, because (I was pleased to see) Renee Ballard plays a big role in this one. Even Harry Bosch makes a cameo.

I liked this one better than the first one, Nightshade, probably because of the Ballard connection. And there is definitely something rotten in the LASD, that is about to be revealed. Stay tuned for book 3.

Welp, this one was a bust. I probably should have DNF’d it, because I didn’t really like it, but I needed to see how it would end, which is why I gave it 2 stars on GR instead of 1.

I checked it out of the KU. The audiobook is also available from the KU, so I was able to do my favorite tandem read, where I pick up the audiobook from where I left off reading when I have to do chores. I was hoping for something like the Renee Ballard books by Michael Connelly, or the very fun and action packed Eve Ronin books by Lee Goldberg. That seemed to be what Greene was shooting for but, frankly, I felt that this book fell short by quite a bit.

On the pro side, it was readable, the writing was fine and I liked the main character, Cassidy. On the con side was basically everything else: the overstuffed plot; the simplistic, poorly developed and all together one-dimensional characterizations of everyone but Cassidy, and the lack of attention to detail. I’m not convinced that the author has ever spoken to an actual police officer in her entire life, and it showed.

The primary plot for which the book was named (i.e., the Hollywood Hit Men) was solved in about the first 50% of the book. This was a mistake. The two remaining major side plots: Cassidy’s decompensating, newly retired father and the investigation of an evil, corrupt police officer being protected by a politician were neither interesting nor particularly well done. There were a few more minor side plots that aren’t worth mentioning, because they got little attention and serve only to distract.

I think that the author has it in her to write a pretty good thriller, but since I really didn’t enjoy this book, I won’t be reading more books in this series.

Although Pym began this book in 1939, it was not published until after her death in 1985, which makes it a bit unique amongst Pyms. At this point, I’ve read several of Pym’s novels: Quartet in Autumn, Excellent Women, Jane and Prudence, Some Tame Gazelle and Less Than Angels. I’ve enjoyed them all, although not all quite as much as some. Excellent Women remains my favorite.

I really enjoyed this one! It is quite funny, and had some of my favorite characters. I loved Miss Morrow, who defies expectations, as many of Pym’s women do, actually, and has a delightful inner monologue. The necessary curate, Mr. Latimer, is one of the more personable of Pym’s men. And the May-December “romance” between student Barbara Bird and her professor Mr. Cleveland, in addition to being wildly inappropriate, is also almost unbearably awkward and I am embarassed on his behalf.

The first book from my summer theme! I actually started this a little bit early, but I don’t care. I’m counting it.

I’ve read the two earlier Oxford Time Travel books: To Say Nothing of the Dog and Doomsday Book. I loved both of them, but Doomsday Book has a bit of an edge in my recollection.

This one took a bit for me to get into, but once I was in, I was in. There is a lot of detail about WWII and the London Blitz, and Willis does a great job making me feel the immediacy of the danger. Once I got past the first 30% or so, Oxford itself has disappeared from the narrative, the drops aren’t opening, and, like the characters stuck in the past, I have no idea what is going on in the present.

As I understand, Blackout and All Clear are basically one long book broken into two installments. I already checked out book 2 and will start it after I finish my work day. I need to know what happens next!

Currently Reading:

American Prometheus: the Triumph and Tragedy of J. RobertOppenheimer by Kai Bird: I am definitely on the back stretch of this one, and I think (fingers crossed) I will finish it next week.
Anne’s House of Dreams by L.M. Montgomery: I should squeak under the line to finish in May.
All Clear by Connie Willis: apparently all of my book titles this week start with the letter “A”. Weird.

Return to Pym-land: Less Than Angels

Less Than Angels
by Barbara Pym
Publication Date: January 1, 1955
Genre: fiction
Pages: 262
Project: a century of women

This classic novel holds the mirror up to human nature and the battle between the sexes as it explores the love lives of a group of anthropologists

Catherine Oliphant writes for women’s magazines and lives comfortably with anthropologist Tom Mallow—although she’s starting to wonder if they’ll ever get married. Then Tom drops his bombshell: He’s leaving her for nineteen-year-old student Deirdre Swan. Though stunned by Tom’s betrayal, Catherine quickly becomes fascinated by another anthropologist, Alaric Lydgate, a reclusive eccentric recently returned from Africa. As Catherine starts to weigh her options she gradually realizes who she is and what she really wants.

With its lively cast of characters, Less Than Angels is an incisive social satire that opens a window onto the insular world of academia. It’s also a poignant and playful riff on the messy mating habits of humans and the traits that separate us from our anthropological forebears—far fewer than we may imagine.

It’s been a few months since I read this – I never got around to writing the post about it and now I’ve forgotten most of what I had to say! This is the third Pym that I’ve read – my first was Excellent Women, which I loved, and then second was A Quartet in Autumn, which was much darker in tone. I would put Less Than Angels in the middle, between them. I read it as a buddy read with some friends on Goodreads, and it generated some lively discussion.

The thing that I like about Pym, that this book does really well, is her somewhat rueful examination of a very specific type of British woman. Less Than Angels focuses on Catherine Oliphant, a young woman who is a writer, and who is in a relationship with an anthropologist named Tom, who has been away in the field. He is very scholarly and dismissive and of her accomplishments, and she accepts this attitude as well-warranted. She is waiting for him to propose. Instead of proposing, he takes up with a nineteen year old named Deirdre.

I’d like to say that Tom’s ridiculousness and Catherine’s acceptance of it are things of the past, but I was young in the 1980’s and many of these same attitudes of male entitlement prevailed at that time, as well. I can’t speak to what’s happening today, because I’ve been married to a wonderfully supportive man for two and a half decades, and I’ve raised a son who I believe I have imbued with a sense that his maleness doesn’t entitle him to anything. But, I digress a bit.

Pym’s books are wonderfully character driven, and she holds a microscope up to their behaviors.

It is surely appropriate that anthropologists, who spend their time studying life and behavior in various societies, should be studied in their turn,” says Barbara Pym.

There is a gentle sort of mockery in Pym’s attitudes towards her characters. I get the sense that she both likes them, but also that she sees their foibles and occasionally inexplicable behaviors. It reminds me of the attitude that many families have towards their own parents/siblings – proprietary, but still clear-eyed about their failings.

I have a few more Pyms in my possession – Jane and Prudence and Some Tame Gazelle, that I plan to read next year.

Love is like a white rabbit?

Excellent Women
by Barbara Pym
Publication Date: December 26, 1952
Genre: classic, fiction
Pages: 231
Project: a century of women

Excellent Women is one of Barbara Pym's richest and most amusing high comedies. Mildred Lathbury is a clergyman's daughter and a mild-mannered spinster in 1950s England. She is one of those "excellent women," the smart, supportive, repressed women who men take for granted. As Mildred gets embroiled in the lives of her new neighbors--anthropologist Helena Napier and her handsome, dashing husband, Rocky, and Julian Malory, the vicar next door--the novel presents a series of snapshots of human life as actually, and pluckily, lived in a vanishing world of manners and repressed desires.

This review does contain some mild spoilers, although this is not a book that is particularly suspenseful, nor does it rely on a mystery to move the plot forward.

I suppose an unmarried woman just over thirty, who lives alone and has no apparent ties, must expect to find herself involved or interested in other people’s business, and if she is a clergyman’s daughter then one might really say that there is no hope for her.

And so we meet Mildred Lathbury, the first person narrator of Excellent Women, Barbara Pym’s second novel, published in 1952. The book opens with the arrival of a new resident in Mildred’s building – Helena Napier, whose husband, Rockingham, has not returned from Italy, where he was stationed with the Navy. Helena is a type of woman that is almost completely foreign to Mildred – an anthropologist with little interest in her marriage, and less interest in housekeeping, cooking or church, the things that Mildred understands the best.

I loved Mildred – she is a bit bewildered by her new neighbors, but is also unapologetically interested in the oddness of their lives. She is a sheltered gentlewoman who, over the course of Excellent Women, allows a talent for mild rebellion to emerge. Her attitude is generally one of rueful irony, and there are times that she is positively funny. She, rather than Helena, might have been the anthropologist, but the object of her study is the doings of post-war Brits, especially her neighbors.

In addition to the Napiers, Everard Bone, one of Helena’s colleagues, ends up insinuating himself into Mildred’s life. There is much scandal around Helena’s relationship with Everard, and Mildred finds herself in the middle of it. One of my favorite moments in the book occurs when Everard, lurking about waiting for her to leave work, persuades her to go for a drink with him.

“Women are quite impossible to understand sometimes.”
I pondered over this remark for a while, asking myself what it was going to lead up to, and then wondered why had been so stupid as not to realise that he wanted to say something about Helena Napier…

And, he does want to say something about Helena Napier, who has been behaving most indiscreetly, indeed. The two of them have been seen by their colleagues, at a time when they should not have been together.

“I suppose you would not want to marry Helena even if she were free. I mean, divorced would be against your principles.”
“Naturally”, he said stiffly. And I don’t love her anyway.”
“Oh, poor Helena. I think she may love you,” I said rashly.
“I’m sure she does,” said Everard in what seemed to be a satisfied tone. “She has told me so,”
“Oh, no! Not without encouragement! Do women declare themselves like that?”
“Oh, yes. It is not so very unusual.”
“But what did you tell her?”
“I told her that it was quite impossible that I should love her.”
“You must have been rather startled,”I said, “Unless you had expected it, and perhaps you had if it can happen. But it must have been like having something like a large white rabbit thrust into your arms and not knowing what to do with it.”

So, on the one hand, we have the Napiers, whose relationship and marital breakdown causes much upset in her home, and then on the other hand, we have Allegra Gray, who moves in with her vicar, Julian Malory and his sister Winifred, and immediately makes a play for Julian. Mildred, as a single woman, is accepted as the person who is going to deal with the fall out from this arrangement: is Allegra going to marry Julian? Is Winifred going to have to move out?

I loved Mildred’s reaction when Winifred shows up at her house, hair disarranged and somewhat wild, wearing no hat or coat and sodden bedroom slippers, and asks if she can move in – poor Mildred sees all of her independence disappearing before her very eyes as Winifred explains that she has disliked Allegra since Lady Farmer’s lilies ended up on the floor.

“Oh, but, Mildred, I hoped I could come and live with you,” said Winifred with appalling simplicity.
For a moment I was too taken aback to say anything and I knew that I must think carefully before I answered.”

Reading Excellent Women, I was reminded of Jane Austen, and especially of Anne Elliott after she turned down Captain Wentworth. Mildred is fighting against a culture that wants to deny her value because she is an unmarried gentlewoman – and therefore her emotional and physical labor are available to her community with or without her consent. Contrast Mildred with school headmistress Sarah Burton from South Riding, a book I read in December 2018, published decades earlier in 1936, who says of herself.

“No chance of a love-affair here in the South Riding and a good thing too. I was born to be a spinster, and by God, I’m going to spin.

But although Mildred is a much gentler person, must more quiescent and willing to accept societal boundaries, she’s not a pushover. It’s frustrating to her that everyone believes that she is crushed by Julian getting engaged to Allegra Gray, because they assume she wanted him for herself. But she didn’t and she doesn’t, and she can’t protest because they will assume she is lying to protect her pride. And her relationship with Everard, it seems, is to be one of friendship, once Rockingham and Helena Napier make up their silly quarrel and reunite. He has asked her to help him in his work, and she has acquiesced – this may lead to marriage or it may not.

I just don’t get the feeling, at the end of the book, that she wants to marry anyone – and she’s decided that on her own.

She says of herself:

And then another picture came into my mind. Julian Malory, standing by the electric fire, wearing his speckled mackintosh, holding a couple of ping-pong bats and quoting a not very appropriate bit of Keats. He might need to be protected from the women who were going to live in his house. So, what with my duty there and the work I was going to do for Everard, it seemed as if I might be going to have what Helena called “a full life” after all.

I hope so, Mildred. I hope you got everything you wanted, and then some. Not every woman needs to be married to find purpose. Not even in 1952.

I’m also going to link to an article from 2013, the centenary of Barbara Pym’s birth, written by Philip Hensher that talks about Barbara Pym and her career. She wrote a total of 13 books, divided into two distinct periods. Excellent Women is from her first period, and then her publisher dropped her in 1962. She wasn’t able to find a publisher again until Philip Larkin helped her to resurrect her career in 1977. Link to the article here.