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3.75 AVERAGE
3.75 AVERAGE
Books by Pym are always concerned with the inner lives and details of people living quiet, retiring lives in England . As always, there are frustrated love-affairs, slightly uncomfortable dinner parties, and carefully examined friendships. Thirty years passed between Pym’s first novel and this one, and the time has clearly made an impression. Most obviously, there is a sizable queer presence in these books. Moreover, the parties and thoughts of the young people described are finally approaching modernity. I initially hated the main character, a middle-aged woman of delicate tastes and beautiful manners. Snobby, self-contained and selfish, she gives little and requires much from the people around her. She’s an older, less dynamic Lily Bart, and it’s actually quite disturbing. But as the book goes on, the subtleties of her situation and mind are revealed, and she slowly becomes more sympathetic. By the end, her own desperate loneliness has been exposed, but because she finally recognizes the truth—that she *is* lonely, and so are other people—it seemed a happy ending to me.
A pretty and clever but rather bloodless bit of fluff. Pym has an eye for the telling detail and a kind of psychological insight, but the pervasive air of mild absurdity and genteel restraint (including an annoying coyness about the one homosexual relationship) means all this impressive subtlety adds up to very little in the way of authentic feeling.
This was definitely less optimistic than earlier Pym novels, and less amusing, but I still found it entertaining. By the end I was sympathizing with everyone except the amoral Ned.