I'm not sure when I began to read Barbara Pym -- over thirty years ago, I think, when, after a long period of obscurity, she was re-discovered by the literary world, short-listed for the Booker Prize, her early books were re-issued, and some new books came out.
And having discovered her myself, I wasn't quite sure what to make of these exceedingly quiet and quietly witty English novels. But over the years I kept returning to Pym's world of unmarried girls, middle-aged spinsters, curates, married vicars, anthropologists and academics, always finding myself drawn to the minutely pictured and well lived lives therein.
It took a while for me to realize that what I was reading were comedies of manners, written by a modern-day Jane Austen. Not a lot happens -- sometimes two people find each other; sometimes they don't. But it's a pleasant, cosy world in which to spend a little time.Recently I completed my Pym collection (one book not pictured, A GLASS OF BLESSINGS, is on my Kindle) and had the pleasure of reading a few I'd never read, including several works that were published after her death.
And I capped off my Pym orgy of reading with A VERY PRIVATE EYE -- one of the most intensely personal autobiographies imaginable. It was published after her death and consists of her diaries and letters from her undergraduate years at Oxford, throughout the early years when her first novels were published, her service with the WRENS in WWII, the agonizing fifteen year period when publishers decided her work was too old-fashioned, the wonderful turn her career took after the poet Philip Larkin championed her work, and all the way to her final days.
It's interesting to read these extremely frank and unguarded accounts of Pym's life and recognize how she made use of her experiences. Indeed, in her diaries she is always jotting down ideas and observations which show up in her work. As a reader and as a writer, I was completely fascinated.And I can't help thinking how wonderful it would be to have a similar companion to Jane Austen's work . . .