Anyone for Pym's?

 

     It has been many years since I read any Barbara Pym, but No Fond Return of Love was a delightful re-discovery. You wouldn't choose this book for its plot, but for its observation, its gentle humour, its careful, pensive mood. It is of its time in that published in 1961 when the author, then in her late 40s, was 'middle-aged', it has its central character Dulcie (not 'old' at all herself) looking forward to a cup of Ovaltine as the highlight of her evening.
     That's the thing about Pym's people, there is an air of slight sadness to them as if their lives, when finally assembled, had been found to have a crucial part missing, and the gradual fading of hope into disappointment pervades. But for all the gas-rings in sparsely furnished rooms, the relegation of the unmarried woman "to the shelf and good works", there is such humour in the book, and such interest as a portrait of a period and a type, that it is a great pleasure to read.
    There were good lines, too, from the opening: "There are various ways of mending a broken heart, but perhaps going to a learned conference is one of the more unusual", to a discussion of the curious habits of the locum vicar - "that seems to point to some dreadful kind of frustration - eating cold brussels sprouts in the middle of the night and tampering with the heating", and then there's the almost Fawlty Towers-like West Country hotel with its moulting (stuffed) eagle which 'attacks' the lady cleaning it with the Hoover attachment, and where the proprietress boils the coffee and the table cloths are made of plastic.
      "Who will run to greet him and be gathered to his heart?" wonders Dulcie of the alluring Dr, Aylwin Forbes, subject of so much of the book's spinsterly manoeuvrings. The reader must wait until the final page to find out.

Comments

[Karen]

LOL! -- We must be in the same reading "mood" at the moment! I just finished A Glass of Blessings myself.
Pymically,
Karen
www.bookishnyc.typepad.com

[Danielle]

I've only read one Pym (Excellent Women), but you describe the mood perfectly (I have a feeling all of her novels are similar in some ways). There are several readers around the blogosphere reading her, it makes me feel like picking up one of her books (I have several on my shelves).

[Rhys]

I have bought this one . My mother knew Barbara Pym slightly having been brought up in the same town where Barbara Pym's father was a well known figure. My mother did not take to her books and nor did I. When I saw this one recently I thought I would give it a go. My fear is that I associate Barbara Pym with the colours grey, brown, beige and I want a world of more vibrant colour.

[Simon S]

I havent read any Pym but I think that this is going to have to change! I own one somewhere and will have to dig it out now that have read this review. Thanks!

[Darlene]

I finished No Fond Return of Love recently and absolutely loved it. Dulcie and Viola cracked me up, plain and simple.

[Tara]

"You wouldn't choose this book for its plot, but for its observation, its gentle humour, its careful, pensive mood."

I think that you are so right about this.