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3.79 AVERAGE
3.79 AVERAGE
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
reflective
emotional
funny
lighthearted
relaxing
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I was surprised by the critique of anthropology and found it very enjoyable. it's Pym, so it is impeccably written.
funny
lighthearted
relaxing
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Full of great observations and life moments--"I'm not one of those excellent women, who can just go home and eat a boiled egg and make a cup of tea and be very splendid, she thought, but how useful it would be if I were!"
funny
hopeful
relaxing
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
'After all, life isn’t really so unpleasant as some writer make out, is it?' she added hopefully.
'No, perhaps not. It’s comic and sad and indefinite – dull, sometimes, but seldom really tragic or deliriously happy, except when one’s very young.'
'After the war, I got a job at the International African Institute in London. I was mostly engaged in editorial work, smoothing out the written results of other people’s researches, but I learned more than that in the process. I learned how it was possible and even essential to cultivate an attitude of detachment towards life and people, and how the novelist could even do “field-work” as the anthropologist did. And I also met a great many people of a type I hadn’t met before. The result of all this was a novel called Less Than Angels, which is about anthropologists working at a research centre in London, and also the suburban background of Deirdre, one of the heroines, and her life with her mother and aunt. There’s a little church life in it too, so that it could be said to be a mixture of all the worlds I had experience of. I felt in this novel that I was breaking new ground by venturing into the academic scene.'
–Barbara Pym, “Finding a Voice” (1978 BBC radio talk)
Review to come.
'No, perhaps not. It’s comic and sad and indefinite – dull, sometimes, but seldom really tragic or deliriously happy, except when one’s very young.'
'After the war, I got a job at the International African Institute in London. I was mostly engaged in editorial work, smoothing out the written results of other people’s researches, but I learned more than that in the process. I learned how it was possible and even essential to cultivate an attitude of detachment towards life and people, and how the novelist could even do “field-work” as the anthropologist did. And I also met a great many people of a type I hadn’t met before. The result of all this was a novel called Less Than Angels, which is about anthropologists working at a research centre in London, and also the suburban background of Deirdre, one of the heroines, and her life with her mother and aunt. There’s a little church life in it too, so that it could be said to be a mixture of all the worlds I had experience of. I felt in this novel that I was breaking new ground by venturing into the academic scene.'
–Barbara Pym, “Finding a Voice” (1978 BBC radio talk)
Review to come.
Reading Paula Byrne's biography gave me the urge to read all of Barbara Pym's books. I'd only read the first three, so I started this binge with her fourth published novel, and enjoyed it very much. It's set among a circle of anthropologists and anthropology students, a slyly humorous way of getting us to stand back from our mating rituals and social customs and regard them for the oddities they are. Though she's frequently compared to Jane Austen, JA (for all her wit and humor) has a kind of high moral earnestness that I find Pym sidesteps quite deftly. She sees us as "less than angels," indeed, and yet still conveys the warm appreciation of humanity that shines through all the best comic writing. I'm definitely glad I followed my impulse and will be reading more Pym soon.
I came across Barbara Pym via the wonderful Backlisted podcast (https://www.backlisted.fm/episodes/109-barbara-pym-excellent-women). They were so incredibly enthusiastic about her, that I thought I just had to try a one of her books. Unfortunately, that probably meant that my expectations had been built up rather too high. The book was nice, amusing in places and generally an enjoyable read, but epithets like 'brilliant' are too much. The book pokes fun at scientists, anthropologists in this case, with their otherworldly attitudes and obsession with the details of their possibly pointless studies, which was quite fun. It was also nice to see how the book makes a point of the fact the rituals of everyday life in suburban England are so comparable to the 'exotic' rituals in Africa studied by the anthropologists, and it to modern readers it is comes across as being even rather anti-racist in a contemporary sort of way. It is very literary, with countless allusions, but I'm not sure that really is a very positive thing. All in all, a pleasant read, and if the author hadn't been hyped up quite so much in the podcast, I might have enjoyed it more.