I just love the way Pym describes characters and her writing.
At a book sale Leonora Eyre meets Humphrey and James Boyce, uncle and nephew. They get entangled in each others lives, while we also meets other people close to them.
I just love the way Pym describes characters and her writing.
At a book sale Leonora Eyre meets Humphrey and James Boyce, uncle and nephew. They get entangled in each others lives, while we also meets other people close to them.
The first part of this sentence reminds me of the first sentence in Pride and Prejudice
Not your typical Pym- his one is darker and more cutting but still marked by her keen eye and wit. I honestly didn‘t like it at first, the main character is vain and manipulative and the love triangle she gets involved in wasn‘t especially interesting at first. Then the triangle becomes a square and as the players switch around and the winners become losers, it all became both comedic and tragic. Unexpected but still so good. #24in2024
#BookReport
Lots of comfort reading in June. It‘s hard to pick a favourite. The Sweet Dove Died or The Masqueraders, I think.
Barbara Pym joins the permissive society😳 No anthropologists, Anglicans or excellent women in this one, and the entanglements between the characters are as much sexual as romantic. Pym‘s wit is as entertaining as ever, but I have to take issue with her on one point. “Books as presents were somehow lacking in excitement and romance.” What rot!
Flying back (and leaving family behind) is always a little bittersweet. Fortunately, I picked up this Pym at a used bookstore last week and she did serve as a bit of a balm.
This is such a different book by Pym, although at the same time you can see the same elements in different proportions. It‘s almost told from the perspective of the “villain” with the main character the kind of fussy, egotistical, demanding dame who would be an antagonist in a different novel. Not what I expected and definitely of a different era, but I still enjoyed it.
I‘m 50 pages into this and it has (1) gay characters (2) racist comments (3) casual sex (4) not a curate in sight. Barbara is that you?! (The good news is that the racist comments do appear to be meant to show you that a character is “bad”!)