I had been reading Norah Lofts and someone suggested that I might want to try Pym. I can't remember which book it was (IIRC, it was around my Master's Comps....) but I remember being charmed by it. Not sure why I haven't tried more, should do that soon.

I read one or two Thirkells, and yeah, ""the sun's in it's heaven, everyone knows their place, all's right with the world" book" is a good way to describe them. But now and then, its just what one needs! And I landed a treasure at the library - I have five of them, library discards, with their original English dust jackets. Haven't read them all, but I do love the art work on these.

I just by chance started with "Excellent Women" and went on to read all of them...some not as strong as others.
I recognize "excellent women" types in churches I have belonged to in England and here in the States. I love the whole concept of "impoverished gentlewomen" too, and the idiosyncrasies of the vicars and other church people are really funny. There is so much that is so amusing, but bittersweet. The characters drink LOTS of tea and I get a kick out of their eating one egg for lunch or beans on toast. I am thinking there is not another writer like Pym.

Mollie-I have been in the US for years-and I still have beans on toast LOL! They do have to be the Heinz vegetarian beans though-I hate the pork & beans with those disgusting lumps of fat in them!.....and I still make a sandwich of my fried or poached egg-some habits are hard to break!

Pat

Thanks for the info. cc. I realized I have Love Among the Ruins from a library sale haul. May start there.

Socks-The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie or Memento Mori are two good ones.

Socks-sorry-I got lost between here and the Muriel Sparks thread!
Of Pym, I liked Jane and Prudence, Excellent Women and Some Tame Gazelle.

All these authors make me hungry. I have pulled out a favorite Thirkell to read after this flurry of a weekend, and all ready found myself somehow eating a large muffin and drinking tea. It's not as if I didn't have a huge Easter dinner. Next thing you know a scone will appear. I don't remember making them....

No, no, all I need is to read a book that will make me want to eat more food!

Anglophile that I am, how have I missed reading both Pym and Thirkell in my long life? Which should I read first? How does each compare to "Miss Read"? (I really do not care for Pilcher -- too saccharine for my taste).

CeCe, I so agree, there is something about reading novels set in England that always makes me hungry....

Thirkell is calm, village life as we envision it through rose-colored glasses, even the war and post-war years as they cope with loss and rationing! Pym is pithier, I think. Miss Read falls in between, slightly leaning toward Thirkell-in my opinion. I agree about Pilcher, she's more romantic in the overall sense. Much more relationship, emotion-driven stories.

Thirkell-simple pleasant slice of village life ("She viewed him with pity; in her opinion, London is someplace to escape from.") Continuing characters all the way through. Characters are not terribly developed-no deep family secrets and all the scandals are tame! Thirkell comes earlier chronologically. There is definite social heirarchy, from Duke to dustman! Reflects the real changes from pre- to post-war society.

Read-ditto-they are very similar, no aristocracy. Well, they open the occasional fete!

Pym and Spark are sharper in their character-drawing and their plots. All is NOT always right with the world.

It depends on what you are in the mood for. Thirkell and Read are pleasant restful vacations, Pym and Sparks are livelier,slightly astringent, but they can be very funny.

Thirkell and Read will make you crave scones and tea,
Pym and Spark will have you thinking martinis.

Cece, well put!

Food analogies are always appropriate!
hehehehehe!

Muriel Spark just died--did people notice?

I always associate Barbara Pym with Ovaltine. Her characters seem to drink it in inordinate amounts.

Readers interested in Pym should definitely check out her journals, edited by his sister Hilary Pym and friend Hazel Holt. Holt also wrote a short, but good biography of Pym entitled A Lot to Ask. This careful tending of a dead authoress's reputation by her unmarried sister seems uniquely British (at least to me). It will be interesting to see what revelations about Pym the person and Pym the author will emerge when her sister and Hazel Holt are no longer around. Holt's biography paints a memorable picture of Pym as a woman who enjoyed people, music, cats, church-going, etc. However, there were several great loves in Pym's life which came to nought.

jwttrans-
there is another thread about Muriel Spark's death that several of us have posted on.

timallan, I've read Barbara Pym's journals too. Definitely worth reading!

ccrdmrbks, I found the thread about Muriel Spark after I'd posted in this thread, but I couldn't come back and edit my remark here. Sorry!

no-just wanted you to know it was there!

I just reread Jane and Prudence ahhhhhhhhhhhh. Excellent Women on their way from the library-no doubt wearing hats and gloves.

>Do any of you like Thomas Hardy too? I love Return of the Native. I'd love to know if you like him.

Not only do I like him, his is an ancestor of mine. Hardy was my maiden name. Return of the Native is my favorite.

Hi April,
Wow, to be related to the best of all authors, IMHO, and to have the name too!
He is my all time favorite author and I too like The Return of the Native the best. I especially love the first chapter so wonderfully descriptive about the heath and the reddleman.
I have been to Dorchester and the house in Lower Bockhampton(?)...it has been several years. I want my ashes scattered along the "woodland path" between the car park and the house.
Would dearly love to take the Hardy tour some day.
My doctor here majored in English at Duke and spent a year at Oxford studying Jude the Obscure before going to medical school. I think that is unique!
Are there other Hardy lovers out there? Anyone belong to the society? I have seen that Hardy is a favorite among Japanese.

mollie and april, we had a discussion here last December on Hardy's "Mayor of Casterbridge." With your interests in mind, I brought it up for you to read.

I'm a Hardy fan (though I'm not so keen about his poetry) too.

Thank you so much, woodnymph,
Great reading about "The Mayor."

>mollie and april, we had a discussion here last December on Hardy's "Mayor of Casterbridge." With your interests in mind, I brought it up for you to read.

Thanks so much!

Check this out-from Amazon:

"Welcome back to Carsely, the charming Cotswold village thatÂs home to the sixteenth Agatha Raisin mystery. (If youÂve missed the first fifteen, just imagine a Barbara Pym novel with murder, mayhem and the sexual longings of a fiftysomething divorced lady sleuth."
---Publishers Weekly on The Perfect Paragon

cece The Agatha Raisin stories have been made into a series by the BBC, with the wonderful character actress Penelope Keith playing AR. Very amusing and well done.

Vee-didn't you do a dramatization with Penelope Keith? I adore her work, and whenever something she has done floats to the surface in the US I grab it-Good Neighbors, To the Manor Born are two of my favorite re-watches. I do get a catalogue of BBC dvds-I'll keep an eye out. She'd be perfect as Agatha.

Much as I enjoy the Agatha Raisin books, though, I'm still not sure comparing them to Pym is absolutely accurate.

cece I should have made it clear that the AR thing was on BBC radio. And like her character in To the Manor Born and Margot in, what over here is called The Good Life (why do they have to change names of shows/books etc for the US market?) Penelope Keith is marvellous as the very English, bossy, nosey female. It helps that she is tall and stately . . . even on radio.

bummer-I've never found a source for BBC "books on tape" and dramatizations-and suddenly, for some reason, I can no longer "tune it" to BBC radio on my computer-it keeps telling me to download something onto my computer in order to listen-when I hit "download now" the message comes up that I all ready have it on my computer! arrrrgh! I use to listen to the shipping forecast in honor of Mrs. Bale on As Time Goes By. ;-)

I read just one Barbara Pym so far but intend to read more. The title escapes me but it was about a young woman living on her own who befriends a vicar and his sister. Sounds so boring but is so not!

What I like about Barbara Pym's novels is how well she creates a little world. You can just live in it for a while and add yourself in as a character if you want.

Maybe that's true of all good novels, but I particularly enjoy being in the world of a Pym novel.

Jwttrans,
I too love to "live" in Pym's world and also Hardy's as well as other English writers. It is often comfy and cozy in those places.
Life in Hardy's novels seems nostalgic, simple and sweet, but then I think about using outhouses and chamber pots, pumping and carrying water, cooking over a wood stove, having no refridgeration and so on. What a difficult life that was!
Maybe if I had been one of the rich folk....
I enjoyed your web page very much and wrote down many reading ideas. Thanks.

Bringing up this interesting thread, as I am about to begin my first Pym book. The posters here remind me of how many we have "lost" in just 2 years....

Barbara Pym's book Excellent Women is one of those books that I was 'forced' to read in college and just hated. Now that I have the perspective of a couple of years (ok, more than a couple!) I think I would enjoy it a lot more now. I remember my professor at the time loved the book.

mollie-can't say I have ever seen Hardy as simple and sweet-everyone in his books is so tortured!

I'm just about to begin Pym's "Jane & Prudence". Can't wait to be plunged into the green English countryside/villages.

Finished it and loved it! Count me in as another Pym fan. The part when the Vicar was drying his tobacco in the kitchen, while Jane was canning, as nosy Miss Doggett makes her entry, and her reaction, etc. was laugh-out-loud funny! I really enjoyed the various characters and great, detailed descriptions of houses and English foods, and church customs. I feel as if I've had a trip down Memory Lane to rural England of the early 1950's, with all its unique customs and cultural differences.

Hi all,
I am surprised that Woodnymph2 resurrected this thread from two years ago! Coincidentally, I very recently bought two used non-fiction books by and about Pym plus Civil to Strangers and other writings. She, her writings and information about her still hold my interest and fascination.
Ccrdmrbks, I think I consider Hardy's books to be "simple and sweet" despite the characters' hardships and problems, because there were so few options for them in their lives. May I get "sweetness" from the "simplicity?" Works for me!

Mollie, I have Civil to Strangers in my TBR pile, and it's the last unread Pym I have. I've been saving it. I love Barbara Pym, she's my go-to author when I occasionally have a fit of Reader's Block. A couple of hours with her characters usually sets me back on track.

I guess we just differ in our definitions of "simple" and "sweet" when it comes to books-I don't find Hardy simple, either-but I am looking at the writing style and the plot lines, and the effort needed to read him! I think of sweet as something that makes readers go "aahhh" and smile. But the fact that we all have different responses is what makes this site so interesting. For instance, elsewhere, someone said she didn't like In This House of Brede because it was sad-I find that book exhilarating and positive.

With high hopes, I visited my nearest public library in search of more Barbara Pym novels. My hopes were dashed, as I found not a single one! I can only guess they were "weeded out" along with some other older books, such as those of Eliz. Goudge. I am really disheartened at the book selection folk on the library staff anyway, but this was almost the last straw. So I will try our University Library (now in the midst of remodeling) or take myself off to Barnes & Noble, with gift card in hand....

woodnymph-just in case b&n doesn't come up to snuff...paperbackswap has several available for swapping...bookmooch has three.

Cece, thanks!

Dear Sheriz6,
I finished "Civil" myself last week. To me, it is unlike her other books. Tell us what you think when you finish, okay?
Mollie

Reading Crampton Hobnet and giggling.

Dear ccrdmrbks,
....okay, okay, okay....
Thomas Hardy's books may NOT be "sweet!!!" I lay awake one night and mused about it and have mulled it over during the day at times. Most of his characters ARE "tortured" in one way or another.
I'm afraid I mistakenly confuse sweetness and nostalgia. I am especially drawn to the agrarian elements of Hardy's works. Sorryyyyyy. Glad you made me think about it, though.

mollie-it's all semantics! I understood your point about a simpler life-it was slower and more earth-centered....but boy was it hard! Whenever I feel nostalgic about life in a country cottage long ago-I remember the main character in the BOOK (not the movie) Bedknobs and Broomsticks who agreed to travel back in time as long as she could bring along her indoor plumbing! Thatch on the roof and a flush inside!

And Dove soap and deodorant and sanitary supplies!

oh geez-I didn't even think about that!