Welcome to Litsy!

A Pym published posthumously. Pym wrote two editions of this novel, & her literary executor & friend, Hazel Holt, tried her best to make it into a novel, & boy did she succeed. All of Pym‘s wit and sarcasm is here

Caro‘s married to Alan & they‘ve a kid. Alan works at a newer university. Alan‘s focused on his career & Caro‘s looking for something to spend all her time on

Alan‘s probably the most unlikable “nice” guy character I‘ve ever read

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

A lovely story with some interesting characters.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6842995044

#vintage
#oxford
#midcentury
#england
#fiction
#historicalfiction

#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!

How could I resist adding this bag to my #bookhaul?

https://youtu.be/S6mUjBFrZBk

RIP, Tina

Happy 80th, Mom!

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Weekly Highlights

Tainna: The Unseen Ones, Short Stories by Norma Dunning

Prancing Novelist: In Praise Of Ronald Firbank by Brigid Brophy

Crampton Hodnet by Barbara Pym

Pymworld seems to consist almost exclusively of anthropologists, librarians and functionaries of the Anglican Church and I am so here for the delightful ways in which she puts them through their paces. Near the end an anthropologist suggests (facetiously) a study called “The Wiles of Nice Women in Civilized Society” which would fit this story nicely if we added “and the Self-Absorption of Men”.