Excellent Women by Barbara Pym - oh, why have I never read any Barbara Pym before? This was an absolute hoot! There is a plot, but the plot really doesn't matter as, like Jane Austen, it is the charactisation and the humour that draw you in. Excellent Women centres on the lot of Mildred Lathbury who, as a spinster in her thirties and a vicar's daughter too boot, spends her time being indispensable in a particularly female way.The arrival of an anthropologist and her naval officer husband in the neighbouring flat show Mildred that not all women live as she does. Pym's work though is not destined to rock boats but merely to show the world as it was and to be very funny in the doing of it. If this is indicative of the quality of Pym's work I think she will become a new favourite for reading to wind down. An excellent present for anyone who loves Austen-style quiet satire.
I read Excellent Women in the new Virago edition with an introduction by Alexander McCall Smith, courtesy of Dovegreyreader from whose giveaway I benefited. Thank you Lynne!
The New House by Lettice Cooper is a very different book, and I suspect that in the wrong mood one might find its detailed psychoanalytic style over-indulgent and humourless, but it caught me in the right mood and actually I couldn't put it down. It was a great companion read to the Barbara Pym as, though set and written slightly earlier (the 1930s not the 1950s), it details the inner life of another "excellent woman" and the mental turmoil caused by the marriage of her sister Delia and of herself and the move of herself and her mother to a new house. The story takes place over one day and we start with each of the characters waking up and end with their last thoughts before sleep. The once very comfortably off Powell family are having to retrench. They still remain comfortably middle class but with her husband dead, son married and young daughter engaged, Natalie Powell has been persuaded that she must move house as money is not quite what it was for them. The new house is smaller and not what she is used to at all; horror of horrors, it overlooks a housing estate. Her eldest daughter Rhoda, on whom all the work falls, is like Mildred Lathbury - the one on whom everything falls. As a single woman with no job she is a doer of good works, a doting auntie, and a very faithful and uncomplaining daughter. As the day goes on she watches her aunt Ellen, a spinster of the previous generation, and realises what she will become if she does not shake her inertia and fear, and think about breaking free.
Rhoda is the main focus of the book as we will her to escape the suffocating family life and take a chance on her own. She is not the only character drawn in detail however. We see the doings and thoughts of her brother Maurice and sister-in-law as they move from the romantic stage of early marriage into the shakier years immediately after starting a family. We hear aunt Ellen's thoughts, and those of the mother Natalie. We hear liberated Delia's thoughts and her desire to free her sister. We also hear, interestingly, the thoughts of the maid Ivy, as she moves with the family.
The New House is very of its time, with its interest in psychology and in the social changes and liberation of the working class. The Powell siblings are very liberal and this is contrasted with sister-in-law Evelyn whose views are much more conservative. The constant stress upon the inner life of the characters makes for interesting reading as we see two or more character's views of the same conversation. What is most delightful about The New House is the delicate drawing of a family. The inner monologues show us how close but also how far apart people actually are. This really is a beautiful ensemble piece. It is a read to have when you are in the right mood though, to listen to all these voices you need an alert and uncluttered mind.
I read The New House in the lovely Persephone edition with the introduction by Jilly Cooper who is married to Lettice Cooper's nephew. It is otherwise out of print but you might find old copies of a Virago edition or the Orange penguin kicking about on UKbookworld or Ibooknet.
The Dead Secret by Wilkie Collins. I do love a Wilkie Collins now and then. Too many and I feel ill as though I'd over-indulged in Sherbet Dabs as I did as a kid, but now and then he's just the thing. This is not as well known as The Moonstone and The Woman in White, and with good reason: it is not quite as good. The whole secret thing is a bit preposterous and when unearthed it is not as shattering to the modern mind as it would have been to the Victorians. So to enjoy this book you need to set that aside and just enjoy it for what it is, a very good, ghostly sensation novel. I like being led up the garden path and watching the author spin as many twists and turns as possible of the melodrama. This is Victoriania in finely spooky form.
Ah, you mention two of my favourite books, and the third,the Wilkie Collins, is one that I really want to read as part of my Cornish reading season! Wonderful :)
Posted by: Verity | February 09, 2010 at 07:44 AM
Barbara Pym is one of those authors I have meant to get to for years but still have not. Maybe this is the reminder I needed. Glad you enjoyed it.
Posted by: Frances | February 10, 2010 at 12:16 AM
Verity - the Wilkie Collins is fun, and as you say is partially set in Cornwall. My favourite bit is the London home of the miser and his curmudgeonly servant; a lovely Dickens' style piece of portraiture.
Hi Frances, I have been saying the same for eyars and it took this giveaway copy to gallvanise me. I so wish I started on her earlier. We've been really missing out!
Posted by: Juxtabook | February 11, 2010 at 02:33 PM
This is the year that I will finally read Barbara Pym (and Iris Murdoch and Nancy Mitford); I know that I'm going to love her as I love Jane Austen.
A Persephone that I don't yet own but will at some point ;).
I also love Wilkie Collins.
Posted by: Paperback_Reader | February 14, 2010 at 04:28 PM
Paperback Reader - Nancy Mitford is on my to-do list this year too. Did you hear The Radio4 programme The Write Stuff which had her the featured author? http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00qpq1x/The_Write_Stuff_Series_9_Nancy_Mitford/
Posted by: Juxtabook | February 20, 2010 at 01:33 PM