Excellent Women (Penguin Classics)
by Barbara Pym
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 289)
Read in May, 2008
recommended to Mister Jones by:
a creative writing prof who thought it was a great workrecommends it for: euthanized literary derelicts
Holy Man of Jane Austen's pet terrier!
I read this one a few years ago for a grad school course, and for some aberrant reason, I liked it. Now, however, reading this again, I think I can unequivocally state it was B-O-R-I-N-G.
Mildred Lathbury is this self-conscious noisy ass spinster who devotes a great deal of her time with church functions and musing about herself and others in her circle of acquaintances and friends. After about page 50, I kept wondering if the pace of the book was go...more
I read this one a few years ago for a grad school course, and for some aberrant reason, I liked it. Now, however, reading this again, I think I can unequivocally state it was B-O-R-I-N-G.
Mildred Lathbury is this self-conscious noisy ass spinster who devotes a great deal of her time with church functions and musing about herself and others in her circle of acquaintances and friends. After about page 50, I kept wondering if the pace of the book was go...more
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Read in April, 2007
I deeply enjoyed this book, but it also hit too close to home. I just ended a relationship with someone who is studying to be a minister, and this novel is about a clergyman's daughter (as I am) who spends much of her time in her church (as I do) and lives vicariously through others' relationships. Everyone expects her to marry the vicar. There is a great deal of subtle, pointed wit about the clergy and the church, and about single women and their propensity to fall in love with clergymen. So......more
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Read in February, 2008
recommended to Nikki by:
Songbirdrecommends it for: Anglophiles, readers of Jane Austen
I decided to reread this book as it had been far too long since I entered the world of Barbara Pym. Of course I enjoyed it greatly. I shall probably reread all the books and then come back to edit my reviews. In this one, Mildred Lathbury, a spinster just over 30 years old, with a small private income, lives in London doing good works at her High Church parish. Some new people come into her life with interesting consequences. The book was published in 1952, and one of the things that struck me...more
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Aside from a few differences--living in the 1950s, being British, not being a teacher, being actively involved in church--Mildred Lathbury could easily be me. She's in her early 30s, she's unmarried, people keep telling her about their problems and expecting her to fix them, men think she's in love with them just because she's single, and she prefers living by herself because someone else would just mess everything up.
And here's another thing that I noticed: her friends and neighbors would ...more
And here's another thing that I noticed: her friends and neighbors would ...more
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recommends it for:
anyone who likes biting social commentary à la Jane Austen, one hundred and fifty years later
Highly enjoyable novel which I read in a day. Particularly loved the way in which Mildred Lathbury, the rather unfortunately spinsterish main character, slowly realizes how sad her own lonely life is as she gets dragged into the personal crises of her friends and neighbors without ever being emotionally invested in anything. One of her friends, upon whom Miss Pym bestowed the incredible name Rockingham Napier, defines Miss Lathbury as the friend who always makes a cup of tea when one is in a d...more
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Someone please explain what is meant by the ending? I thought it was open-ended. Then...
(Spoiler, if this might change your opinion of the story: in another Barbara Pym book, Crampton Hodnet, there is a very brief mention by the characters that Mildred Lathbury married Everard and they went to Africa to study anthropology, even though she was referred to as a very boring wife. The blurb threw me for a spin because I thought the point o...more
(Spoiler, if this might change your opinion of the story: in another Barbara Pym book, Crampton Hodnet, there is a very brief mention by the characters that Mildred Lathbury married Everard and they went to Africa to study anthropology, even though she was referred to as a very boring wife. The blurb threw me for a spin because I thought the point o...more
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recommends it for:
optimistic spinsters
I loved it. My favorite quote-"Then I went back to my flat and collected a great deal of washing to do. It was depressing the way the same old things turned up every week. Just the kind of underclothes a person like me might wear, I thought dejectedly, so there is no need to describe them"-very funny and a fast read. The author is compared to Jane Austen but, I enjoyed this so much more than her stuff. Now I need to read some more of Pym'S work to make sure she doesn't tell the sam...more
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Read in May, 2007
recommends it for:
Gentle Readers
This book was so boring for me! It killed me to get through it. It is a gentle read and for a short book took me weeks to read. I felt like little happened and nothing really caught or held my interest. I didn't care about the characters or what happened to them and really didn't take anything away from the book. If nothing else, I expect a book to entertain me, and this one didn't even do that.
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For a good dose of "dippy English spinster", you really, really can't beat Barbara Pym. I can't tell her books apart, nor her characters, but they make grand flu-reading, because you don't actually have to pay attention. (Ian Fleming is even better, though.) They're fascinating to me mostly because the mental universe they occupy is so utterly foreign to me.
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Read in January, 2008
I am always suspicious when authors are compared to Austen. It usually means they produce romances set in the early 19th century - but there is no connection when it comes to writing style or social commentary.
Barbara Pym's novels are different. Here is the gentle humor and cutting insight into the character of men and women that transcends time and place.
Barbara Pym's novels are different. Here is the gentle humor and cutting insight into the character of men and women that transcends time and place.
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Read in February, 2008
I'd definitely like to read more of Barbara Pym. Here's line: "The sight of Sister Blatt, splendid on her high old-fashioned bycicle like a ship in full sail, filled me with pleasure."
Anyone who loves a romance but has too much good sense to read through Wuthering Heights without giggling at all the wrong parts would love this story.
Anyone who loves a romance but has too much good sense to read through Wuthering Heights without giggling at all the wrong parts would love this story.
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recommends it for:
odd women
actually, i'm currently-re-reading this book. the cover says pym is like a 1950s jane austen... but now that i've studied austen, i don't really think i agree. pym is definitely not as subtle. the book is about a spinster-type high anglican who gets new neighbors--a charismatic naval officer and his cheating anthropologist wife.
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I really enjoyed this book. Mildred Lathbury the main character was very funny - she is over thirty and unmarried - considered an "excellent woman" by the vicar and others. Mildred manages to insert herself into other people's affairs and she lives to tell about. Very dry humor - I found myself laughing out loud during the book.
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This is the author's best known novel. It is hard to describe these books. They are novels about seemingly ordinary lives that entertain with subtle humor. Her subject matter is middle class England, in the form of spinsters, religious clergy, and academicians. If you are wondering how this could be entertaining, give it a try!
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I have read this book four times. It was one of the first two Barbara Pyms that I read when I discovered her in 1979 and I read it most recently in the summer of 2007. It didn't seem funny when I was 30 years old-- now I laugh my head off.
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This is a surprising novel. The protagonist seems like a rather dry British spinster, but as the novel progresses, she has quite a lively sense of self. It's very well written--the kind of book that deserves another read every few years.
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Hilarious and enormously comforting. Like a cup of scalding earl grey tea on a rainy afternoon, lying on the sofa with the phone unplugged. This might be my favourite of hers, but I haven't met a Barbara Pym novel I didn't like.
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Read in January, 2008
Delightful and lively look at restraint and duty through the eyes of a spunky spinster in the 1950s. I love books that aren't all about frippery. I also love the word frippery, but that's a story for another time.
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Someone compared this to a precursor to Bridget Jones's Diary - it is a bit, but a completely different era. When I think of this book, I remember Manda talking about "cooking joints" with a fake British accent.
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Read in February, 2002
When it gets cold and rainy I often enjoy curling up with Barbara Pym's sharply observed British charcaters. There's always a vicar, a spinster, and a confused young woman, and someone is always making tea.
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