Like Jane Austen, Pym painted her pictures on a small square of ivory, and covered much the same territory as did her better-known predecessor: the details of smallish lives led to places that could only be in England. Neither used a megaphone; neither said much about the great issues of their time.On Excellent Women:
That world of vague longing is described in this novel in a way which not only shows us the poignancy of such hopes, but allows us to smile at them. One does not laugh out loud while reading Pym; that would be too much. One smiles. One smiles and puts down the book to enjoy the smile. Then one picks it up again and a few minutes later an unexpected observation on human foibles makes one smile again.Oh, but one does laugh out loud, repeatedly, even in a semi-public place. As I sat in a waiting room passing the time reading EW, I laughed out loud. Fortunately, I was alone in the room, but I wondered whether the receptionist behind the glass heard me.
It is these asides, I think, that make Excellent Women so beguiling.
Even the names of the characters...
'And Mr Mallett and Mr Conybeare, just look at them,' she went on in a voice loud enough for the two churchwardens to hear. 'It wouldn't do them any harm to soil their hands with a little honest toil. Teddy Lemon and the boys put up all the trestles and the urns.'Mildred Lathbury, the first-person narrator, is having lunch with Everard Bone, an anthropologist, who had just returned from an archaeological tour holiday visiting caves in the Dordogne.
'Yes, Sister, we found everything had been done when we put in an appearance,' said Mr Mallett, a round jolly little man. 'It was quite a blow, I can tell you.'
'There are stone circles in Brittany, aren't there?' I began, trying to show intelligent interest. 'And then of course there's always Stonehenge.' I remembered that my father had been interested in Stonehenge, and I seemed to see us all sitting round the dinner-table, my mother, father, a curate - I could not remember which curate - and a canon and his wife. We were having a conversation about Stonehenge and suddenly all the lights had gone out. The curate let out a cry of alarm but the canon's voice went on without a tremor - I could hear it now - just as if nothing had happened. My mother got up and fussed with candles and the canon went on explaining his theory of how the great stones had been carried to Salisbury Plain. It was an impressive performance and had been rewarded, or so it seemed to me, by a bishopric not long afterwards. Thinking about it after all these years, I smiled.I remember a conversation when I was in England last year about what a group of us would do on the day we met together. One person in our group said, 'Can we not go to Stonehenge?' All of us had seen Stonehenge, and we agreed that none of us were particularly eager for another visit. Not that there's anything wrong with Stonehenge...
'Yes, there's always Stonehenge,' said Everard rather stiffly.
Mildred reminds me of myself in the way her mind drifts from the present moment to a time past and then responds to the memory with some sign, such as a smile, before drifting back to the present.
On marrying:
'Perhaps one shouldn't try to find people deliberately like that,' I suggested. 'I mean not set out to look for somebody to marry as if you were going to buy a saucepan or a casserole.'Oh no. I was somewhere else.
'You think it should just be left to chance? But then the person might be most unsuitable.'
The idea of choosing a husband or wife as one would a casserole had reminded me of Rocky's letter and his allegation that Everard had broken one of his casseroles. I suppose a smile must have come on my face, for he said, 'You seem to find it amusing, the idea of marrying somebody suitable.'
I look forward to my binge. I'd forgotten what a delight it is to read Barbara Pym. Most of her novels are available at Amazon, and Excellent Women is on Kindle.
