hogglestock

 

Scroll down to the next post if you want to skip BPRW housekeeping and get right to the heart of the festivities.

The RULES for Barbara Pym Reading Week:

1. There are no rules.

Seriously, it’s anything goes for the next eight days, but there are a few things to keep in mind:

• Both Amanda at the Fig and Thistle and I will be posting Pym-related content all week.
• Other bloggers from all over the world will be posting things as well which we will link to here and at Fig and Thistle.
• If you are a blogger and have posted something about Pym please leave a comment with a link to your post.
• If you aren’t a blogger we want to know what you think send us an email or leave a comment.
• We have lots of Pym PRIZES (books, bags, tea towels, tea bag parkers). Those who leave comments on either My Porch or Fig and Thistle will be entered into a random draw.
• We are also having a Pym Cover CONTEST. Submit via email or link in a comment by 6 AM U.S. Eastern Daylight Time on June 7th. Get creative and make a cover image for a Pym novel. Extra points go to those who make it thematic to a specific novel. Multiple entries are acceptable. Paint, draw, sculpt, do a collage, manipulate a photo, you name it, just make sure you put some creativity and originality into your entry.
• For a LIST OF PYM’S NOVELS and the story of how I met Miss Pym, scroll down to the next post.
• Follow the fun on Twitter #PymReadingWeek and #BarbaraPym100

Have fun. We look forward to reading your comments and seeing your blog posts.

  

I first met Barbara Pym thanks to Nancy Pearl’s Book Lust. At the time I was in my early 30s and hadn’t really developed my penchant for the kind of fiction that I most like now. I was still a bit stuck in one of those typically late 20s kind of reading loops that relied on the “in” literary novel of the moment coupled with lots of canonical books that I had never read in college or grad school. And although I had already embarked on my love affair with Anita Brookner, it was still early days for me. I hadn’t quite grown to fully appreciate the character-driven, plot-optional, novels that so permeate my reading life these days.

So I may have been a little too young for my first date with Barbara in 2002. I checked out Crampton Hodnet from the library, and while I enjoyed the experience, I really didn’t remember too much about it. But there must have been something about it since I picked up A Glass of Blessing five months later. I followed up in 2004 with Jane and Prudence, but it really wasn’t until I read Some Tame Gazelle while in the south of France in 2009 that I really began to appreciate just how brilliant Barbara Pym’s novels are. Since then I have read Excellent Women and The Sweet Dove Died and reread CH, AGoB and JaP. But that is a story best left for later this week.

Since Pym’s publishing history is a bit odd to say the least, I thought it might be helpful to provide a list of her fiction. She had six novels published in the UK between 1950 and 1961. But then her publisher Jonathan Cape declined to publish her next two novels and so did everyone else. It wasn’t until 1977 when both Lord David Cecil and Philip Larkin cited Pym as the an underrated author in a piece in the Times Literary Supplement. Pym was the only author to be mentioned twice and it thrust her work back into the spotlight and provided new publishing opportunities not only in the UK, but she was also published in the US for the first time.

Pym’s Fiction in the order it was written…
Since the information varies from place to place, I have relied here on the publishing history in Hazel Holt’s wonderful biography of Pym A Lot to Ask. Publishing dates are for first issue. Note how long it took some of her work to find its way to America. Anything after 1980 was published posthumously.

Some Tame Gazelle (Written 1935-50 / first published UK 1950 / first published US 1983)
Civil to Strangers (1936-8 / 1987 / 1987)
Crampton Hodnet (1937-8 / 1987 / 1987)
Excellent Women (1949-51 / 1952 / 1978)
Jane and Prudence (1950-2 / 1953 / 1981)
Less Than Angels (1953-4 / 1955 / 1980)
A Glass of Blessing (1955-6 / 1958 / 1980)
No Fond Return of Love (1957-60 / 1961 / 1982)
An Unsuitable Attachment (1960-5 / 1982 / 1982)
The Sweet Dove Died (1963-9 / 1978 / 1979)
An Academic Question (1970-1 / 1986 / 1986)
Quartet in Autumn (1973-6 / 1977 / 1978)
A Few Green Leaves (1977-9 / 1980 / 1980)

   
I tried to explain to John that a post filled with garden pictures would inerrupt the flow of my Pym countdown and that the countdown would be followed by eight days of Pym posts. He seemed to think that there is always room for garden pictures. So I am indulging him. Of course one imagines that Ms. Pym would approve.

 

 

The bulbs for the Love plant (oxalis) to the left was given to us by a friend who took them from a plant I gave him back in 2000.

We first saw this ‘Lord Bute’ pelargonium at Sissinghurst about six years ago. John finally found a supplier in the US.

[Editor’s note: Since a few of the bobs this week are a bit lengthy, the Editorial Board decided that this week’s Bits and Bobs could not be accurately named so. Not wanting to break from the Bits and Bobs format, the Board determined by majority vote to temporarily modify the title of the series for this, and any, occasion when a Bob is long enough as to constitute being a Robert.]

Classic Club Spin 2
At the last minute I decided to take part in the Classic Club Spin 2. The number spun was 6 and so the classic that I must read by July 1st is The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac by Eugene Field. I am a little disappointed in the spin. Not because I don’t want to read TLAB, but rather because I was hoping the spin would force me to read something I was less keen to read, like Little Dorritt or Vanity Fair. Still, the spin did its job because the Field is a book that I probably would not have gotten around to for some time. I have half a mind to use the rest of my Spin list as some kind of crazy reading guide for the second half of 2013. As if finishing my Century of Books list isn’t enough.

Letting go of Bowen
Speaking of A Century of Books, one thing the process has forced me to face is that some authors may not be for me. Since I finished the majority of my ACOB list, I decided to read the remaining titles in chronological order. And let me tell you, when I am faced with a book I must read before I can go on to the next year on the list, I really start to get honest with myself about what I think of an author or book. You may remember me jettisoning Virginia Woolf earlier this year. I have read a few of her books, but after really, really struggling to finish the short Mrs. Dalloway, I decided there would be very little Woolf in my future. (I’m still going to try Leonard.)

So I made my way to 1929 and Elizabeth Bowen’s The Last September. In 1999 I read my first Bowen, The Death of the Heart and I remember finding it a little slow but overall liking it. A few years later I read To the North and had a similar experience. When I read The House in Paris in 2007 I quite liked it, giving it 8 out of 10. So I had high hopes for The Last September. But I struggled. I think I reread the first three pages three or four times with nothing sinking in. As I pushed myself forward to about page 60, all I could think was how much I wasn’t enjoying it and how I really couldn’t wait for it to be over. I know I am not supposed to think that way about the great Bowen, but boy it didn’t work for me.

I know very little about formal literary criticism or what constitutes what in terms of literary periods. But, having recently read and hated the “modern” (so I’m told) Some Do Not, the first of the Parade’s End books by Ford Madox Ford, I began to pay more attention to the notion of modernist novels and the fact that I think I may have a tendency to a universal dislike of the style/period. Isn’t Woolf considered modern? And while I wouldn’t lump The Last September in with Parade’s End, it did seem to have a whiff of the modern about it. And because all I could do was think how much I didn’t care about the characters and the fact that I didn’t like the writing itself, I decided it was time to let the Bowen go. Maybe another time and maybe another Bowen.

(If the Studs Lonigan trilogy is modern, I am in trouble since they are coming up on my list.)

Passing by Nella Larsen
Since I eighty-sixed the Bowen I needed to come up with a book from 1929 to fill the gap. Consulting all the relevant lists online and elsewhere, I began to despair. Not only did I not seem to have anything in my library from 1929 but all the titles were totally obscure or weren’t really tripping my trigger. The only title I saw that interested me was the great Dodsworth by Sinclair Lewis. But I read that ages ago. I even began to consider reading some non-fiction. (gasp)

So I left Lucy to chase chipmunks in the backyard so I could consult my shelves. I first went to my tower of unread Viragos. Out of about 40 of them I finally found one from 1929. The Laquer Lady by the oddly named F. Tennyson Jesse, it appeared to be a bit of historical fiction, which I thought kind of defeated the purpose of reading something from 1929. Moving through my unread hardcover collection I found nothing from 1929. Moving yet again over to my unread paperback shelves I came across Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves. Ostensibly a memoir, this also didn’t seem to really capture 1929 in the way I was hoping for. Plus non-fiction would never be my first choice (unless it was 84, Charing Cross Road).

Then I spotted a title that I had seen on the wikipedia list of novels from 1929. Passing by Nella Larsen. I had no idea I owned the book, but once I looked at it I realized I bought it fairly recently. It is one of those pale blue-spined Penguin Modern Classics that have such wonderful covers. I often buy lovely Penguin books at used book sales just because I like their covers. I am sure I picked this one up initially for that reason but I am also sure that I bought it because the subject was fascinating. It actually turned out to be way better than the Bowen in terms of capturing the spirit of 1929. No doubt The Last September is very much about its time, but it also smacks of earlier decades as the characters hold on dearly to the life of tennis parties at a big country estate despite. But in Passing, the 1920s are split open. It captures the spirit of the Harlem Renaissance, paints a picture 1920s Chicago and New York, and vividly describes race relations in middle and upper class society at the time.

The novel focuses on Clare, a light skinned African American woman who “passes” for white and is married to a racist white man who doesn’t know her true racial identity and Irene who can pass for white but doesn’t try to. The two were childhood friends but haven’t seen each other since Clare went off to live her white life. After bumping into each other in a whites only rooftop restaurant in Chicago, their two lives become linked in a way that leads to tragedy. This was a fascinating book for so many reasons. I am so glad the Bowen didn’t work out.

Some progress
Although I am quite enjoying A Suitable Boy, and find it to be a bit of a page turner, I still find myself needing to accomplish something in my reading. Meaning I have an overwhelming need to finish books more quickly so I have been reading shorter works while I work my way through ASB.

Ready to trip the light Pymtastic?
As most of you are aware by now, Barbara Pym Reading Week is just around the bend. Excitement has been picking up in the blogging world, on Facebook,  and on Twitter (#PymReadingWeek). It was even featured in the latest issue of Green Leaves, the newsletter of the Barbara Pym Society.  For more information on the upcoming reading week just scroll down to the previous post.