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A Few Green Leaves
by
Barbara Pym
In A FEW GREEN LEAVES the author combines the rural settings of her earliest novels with many of the themes- and even some of the characters- of her later ones. Switching points of view among many characters, she builds with accumulating effect the picture of life in a town forgotten by time yet affected dramatically by it. Historical time- represented by Druid ruins, the ...more
Paperback, 256 pages
Published
May 28th 1999
by Moyer Bell
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This is Barbara Pym at her best. Emma Howick, an anthropologist in her thirties, is spending some time at her mother’s cottage in a small English village. Although she is supposed to be writing up her notes, she is sidetracked by village and church activities. It’s the 1970s but woman’s emancipation has been slow to arrive. The village’s inhabitants include the requisite rector and his spinster sister as well as a few doctors and a host of “excellent women”. An old flame of Emma’s, separated fro...more
Barbara Pym is one of my favorite authors for the quiet way she writes and her wry wit. A Few Green Leaves contains all Pym's main themes. She deals with personal crises and life changes in a dignified, undramatic manner, the way many people live their lives. Decisions are made,lives area ltered but it continues without emotional scenes. A Few Green Leaves is not Pym's best book. It does move more slowly than her other works, the wit is less apparent and the characters are less well drawn. I ga...more
Rereading this as I await the 3rd Calzi. Not unhappy to meet the spirit again, a quiet way to doze off, and it is interesting enough not to fall asleep right away.
Slow it has been for a short novel, certainly, but it fits the preoccupations of our lives as much as theirs, even to the level of whether those required to be buried in wool really were, and how many today--besides Miss Lickerish's hedgehodge--use it or not. Oddly I must admit it consumes more of our day, this level, than d...more
Slow it has been for a short novel, certainly, but it fits the preoccupations of our lives as much as theirs, even to the level of whether those required to be buried in wool really were, and how many today--besides Miss Lickerish's hedgehodge--use it or not. Oddly I must admit it consumes more of our day, this level, than d...more
A gentle enjoyable read - as always with Barbara Pym. I did feel sorry for "poor Tom" the rector - everyone wondering about him, and that rather pathetic little letter in the parish newsletter asking to be invited to the occaisonal family meal. In this quiet little unremarkable corner of England life is punctuated by cofee mornings, flower festivals and starvation lunches. It is through the eyes of Emma - the newest arrival in the village - a thirty something anthropologist that we see...more
I was really excited to pick up this book; the author is often hailed as having a knack for creating characters with charm in a similar vein as Jane Austen. I agree that she is gifted in that way, but I found the plot even less believable than your typical book of this type and the ending very unsatisfying and abrupt. Plot-wise, I wanted to give it two stars, but her characters are so fun and her writing so good that I gave it three and think I'll give one more of her books a try before I writ...more
Pym is a favorite drug. Every few years I go on a bender and re-read a bunch of her books. This one I picked up after reading One Fine Day by Mollie Panter-Downes. It was not One Fine Book, but reminded me of Pym in the setting and the cast--so I had to get the taste of it out of my brain with the real Pym. Success. Never was there a lighter, defter touch than Pym's. She was a master of dark, gentle, comic irony. Her writing looks simple--but it isn't. Why aren't there movies of her books?
Just read this again. Pym is always comforting and homey -- an easy read for just after Thanksgiving. Good for lolling on the couch with lots of tea and a warm cat. Her stories are transportive (if that's a word) -- taking you into the drawing rooms and lounges of mid-20th century suburban England where it was important to have the right cake for tea and plenty of sherry. Always fun and the detail is rich enough to bring each character and scene into sharp focus.
This one is less plot-driven than some of her other novels, which I like, but it does not have the same sense of comic timing. As her last novel, written in 1980, and she refers to topics such as sex and homosexuality outright, which is quite a contrast to her earlier works, but maybe not an important one. I liked this book because it feels very much like real life, with constant ambivalence, detachment, and absurdity (but is still kind of romantic).
Barbara Pym is among my favorite writers and it appears that many consider this later work one of her finest. That is not the case with me. It could simply be that this book, completed in 1980, is just more "modern" than her other novels and, therefore, less "novel" to me. The constant in her books is English village life and the mundane challenges of day-to-day living, but in A Few Green Leaves there is a wider range of central characters and yet not one that really engaged...more
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This kind of understated style of writing always really appeals to me, where I feel like reading between the lines and the reader's intuition is very important. I'll be reading all of her books I can find- thanks for this book Mom!
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I am almost done. This is (to my remembrance) my first B. Pym book, and have, for someone who is mostly a non-fiction reader, enjoyed it thoroughly.
Its descriptions of English village life fits very well with my life in a small town, and puts me in mind of my mummy and relatives. Good for a rainy weekend in bed.
Its descriptions of English village life fits very well with my life in a small town, and puts me in mind of my mummy and relatives. Good for a rainy weekend in bed.
I must simply quote others because they say it best: "A view of life at once shrewd, cunning and compassionate." (Lynne Schwartz) "That edgy glance of hers..." (Ronald Blythe).
Barbara Pym is my favorite writer ever ever ever and this is a fine example of why she has claimed the #1 spot in my heart. This book, her last, centers around an out of date English village populated by all the typical Pym characters: the dopey vicar who's more comfortable talking about history than personal matters, the dowdy 30-ish "excellent woman" anthropologist, the eccentric old lady who buries her dead hedgehog in a wool sweater. Not much happens and yet there is nary a slow mo...more
A delightful English Country Village novel. Nothing much happens, as in most Barbara Pym novels. And the ending, again like much of Pym, feels less like an ending than a chapter or two before a traditional ending--Pym lets you see where characters are heading but not where they will end up. (Fortunately, she often lets you figure out if you were right with cameo appearances by characters from one novel in another.)
A Few Green Leaves is a gentle story about the silliness and sweetn...more
A Few Green Leaves is a gentle story about the silliness and sweetn...more
A very gentle read. There is depth in those still waters.
A Few Green Leaves by Barbara Pym (1981)
Exquisitely written. Warm and funny and sharp. Very Pym.
Have to reread the Pyms, this one is a distant memory at best.
I loved the novel. Her style of writing, her characterization are all near perfection. Her movement within the pages, very conservative, allowing the reader a mind. You are simply not lead around as if on a leash, you are within village life.
a very understated British tale
I wanted to read this because I've heard Pym compared to Laurie Colwin a lot. I enjoyed it. But it didn't have half the whimsy or style of a Colwin novel. Having said that, I might keep her in mind for airplane reading. The novel was subtle, humane, and clever.
Slow start, and I wasn't in the mood.
Pym is the most cold of cold pricklies. Romance takes quiet seasons to develop.
Nan
added it
I reread my way through Barbara Pym's novels on a pretty steady basis. This is the one I reread most recently.
depressing but with a hopeful ending.
More tea, Vicar?
Yawn.
Yawn.
Isabel
marked it as to-read
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After studying English at St Hilda's College, Oxford, she served in the Women's Royal Naval Service during World War II.
The turning point for Pym came with a famous article in the Times Literary Supplement in which two prominent names, Lord David Cecil and Philip Larkin, nominated her as the most underrated writer of the century. Pym and Larkin had kept up a private correspondence ove...more
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The turning point for Pym came with a famous article in the Times Literary Supplement in which two prominent names, Lord David Cecil and Philip Larkin, nominated her as the most underrated writer of the century. Pym and Larkin had kept up a private correspondence ove...more
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