Does anyone remember Barbara Pym?
I’d read her books years ago while still at school. I wonder why, since I was at Greek school and she could hardly have been on the curriculum. Probably browsing my mother’s bookshelves, where I was allowed a free run. At the time it was difficult to find foreign books in Athens and she was member of a book club – cloth-bound volumes arrived by post every month or so: Agatha Christie, Georgette Heyer, Ian Fleming, Neville Shute. I still have most of them. The thrill of it, the anticipation of receiving a new book, before the instant gratification of Amazon (I almost miss it—still prefer Amazon, though.)
But I digress. I recently came upon a BBC dramatisation of some of Pym’s books on Audible and downloaded it on impulse.
Barbara Pym wrote a series of social comedies in the 50s, but by the 70s her work was deemed too old-fashioned and was rejected by several publishers. Still, she kept writing, and forged a friendship with the poet Philip Larkin, who championed her work. When both he and the critic Lord David Cecil nominated her as the most underrated writer of the century, her career was revived. Her book Quartet in Autumn was nominated for the Booker Prize.
Pym was a shrewd observer of a certain type of English middle-class behaviour. Spinsters, bored housewives, academics and, in particular, vicars and curates, all came under her sharp and ironic scrutiny.
Of course I did not recall details of the books but I seemed to remember amusing and straightforward stories of village life and church goings-on. Via the dramatisation I am now discovering a narrative full of undertones, sexual innuendo and a delightful disregard for morality. Respectable wives go out to lunch with their friends’ husbands, spinsters plot to entrap men into marriage, older women meddle in everything. County housewives obsess over the new curate as they would today over the Kardashians. And all of it delivered in posh cut-glass accents you never hear any more because people are careful to disguise them even if they spent their childhood at Eton.
Probably this is not to everyone’s taste—I don’t think the young would appreciate it—and even for me there is no element of nostalgia, since it is set before my time. But it is an excellent production and I am deriving considerable amusement from listening in the car.
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Letters from Athens 
I feel I should have known about her work, and feel mildly ashamed that I have never heard of her, Marina. I am going to investigate her further.
Best wishes, Pete.
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Too many books, too little time…no one can have read everything, Pete, especially when you have a full time job.
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I think I read one of her books a long time ago. It was okay as I recall but I wasn’t eager to go out and get another one. But I might enjoy them now. An audio version is a good idea.
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Yes, it’s very entertaining 😄
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I have one or two of hers. Maybe I’ll dig them out.
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I do think you’d enjoy the audio, Derrick, on a day when you’ve done too much reading. It’s really well done.
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Am laughing – since way-back-when I read just about everything coming from each of the other authors you have mentioned, I must have read Barbara Pym also, tho’ comedic literature was not necessarily ‘big’ in my agenda. Talking of Amazon – it should deliver the Dalai Lama’s latest book today . . . have not consumed his others but am strongly leaning towards Buddhist thought, so . . . ?
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I hope you’ll enjoy it!
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I know the name but don’t think I’ve ever read any of her books. It sounds like they would make for a very entertaining car journey.
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They do! And its value for money. Many hours of fun.
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You have made me want to check it out.
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Definitely worth it, Bruce, if you enjoy that kind of thing.
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Barbara Pym is one of my favourite authors, so I might have to download these dramatisations – thanks very much for flagging them up!
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You’d love them, Jacqui—the accents😆
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beautiful! Reports Detail [Cultural Exchange Programs] and Their Significance 2025 likable
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an English Heritage blue plaque on Barbara Pym’s Pimlico home.
i thought it might interest you if you didn’t already know.
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Eek, the first half of my comment got cut off. It meant to say that I just noticed on Lucy Worsley’s Facebook page that she recently unveiled the above mentioned plaque. 🙄
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