Little Brown have re-launched the Barbara Pym novels with introductions from popular authors such as Alexander McCall Smith and with this one Salley Vickers. We re so glad her novels are being given a facelift as they are hugely enjoyable, witty and sharp. Treat yourself, you won’t regret it.
This choice is in part in memory of my mother, who loved Pym (and Jane Austen) and who shared her with me. Pym has a wicked eye for the small things, and creates a world in which the minutiae of life really matters to the characters, as it does to us all. I love her clergymen and her worried, well-meaning ladies. Her great gift was to make us smile with, not at, the quiet absurdity of life.
A tale of a woman's romantic entanglements with two anthropologistsand the odd mating habits of humansfrom the author of Jane and Prudence. Catherine Oliphant writes for women's magazines and lives comfortably with anthropologist Tom Mallowalthough she's starting to wonder if they'll ever get married. Then Tom drops his bombshell: He's leaving her for a nineteen-year-old student. 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 must figure out who she is and what she really wants. With a lively cast of characters and a witty look at the insular world of academia, this novel from the much-loved author of Excellent Women and other modern classics is filled with poignant, playful observations about the traits that separate us from our anthropological forebearsfar fewer than we may imagine.
Barbara Pym (1913-80) was born in Shropshire and educated at St Hilda's College, Oxford. When in 1977 the TLS asked critics to name the most underrated authors of the past 75 years, only one was named twice (by Philip Larkin and Lord David Cecil): Barbara Pym. Her novels are characterised by what Anne Tyler has called 'the heartbreaking silliness of everyday life'.
This choice is in part in memory of my mother, who loved Pym (and
Jane Austen) and who shared her with me. Pym has a wicked eye for the
small things, and creates a world in which the minutiae of life really
matters to the characters, as it does to us all. I love her clergymen
and her worried, well-meaning ladies. Her great gift was to make us
smile with, not at, the quiet absurdity of life.
