Une Question purement académique

by Barbara Pym

A delightful comedy of manners with a touch of mystery, An Academic Question is prime Barbara Pym territory. In a provincial university town Caro Grimstone, a dissatisfied faculty wife, becomes the unwilling accomplice to her husband Alan's ambitions. When she volunteers as a reader to a blind, esteemed anthropologist, Alan seizes the opportunity to steal his papers - research that could both advance his reputation while refuting the findings of a respected colleague.

Genres: Fiction, British Literature, Classics, Novels, Literary Fiction, Academia, 20th Century

180 pages, Paperback

First published September 4, 1986

About the author

People know British writer Barbara Pym for her comic novels, such as Excellent Women (1952), of English life.

After studying English at St Hilda's College, Oxford, Barbara Pym served in the Women's Royal Naval Service during World War II. From 1950 to 1961, she published six novels, but her 7th was declined by the publisher due to a change in the reading public's tastes.

The turning point for Pym came with a famous article in the 1975 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 over a period of many years. Her comeback novel, Quartet in Autumn, was nominated for the Booker Prize. Another novel, The Sweet Dove Died, previously rejected by many publishers, was subsequently published to critical acclaim, and several of her previously unpublished novels were published after her death.

Pym worked at the International African Institute in London for some years, and played a large part in the editing of its scholarly journal, Africa, hence the frequency with which anthropologists crop up in her novels. She never married, despite several close relationships with men, notably Henry Harvey, a fellow Oxford student, and the future politician, Julian Amery. After her retirement, she moved into Barn Cottage at Finstock in Oxfordshire with her younger sister, Hilary, who continued to live there until her death in February 2005. A blue plaque was placed on the cottage in 2006. The sisters played an active role in the social life of the village.

Several strong themes link the works in the Pym "canon", which are more notable for their style and characterisation than for their plots. A superficial reading gives the impression that they are sketches of village or suburban life, with excessive significance being attached to social activities connected with the Anglican church (in particular its Anglo-Catholic incarnation). However, the dialogue is often deeply ironic, and a tragic undercurrent runs through some of the later novels, especially Quartet in Autumn and The Sweet Dove Died.

Reviews

[Fiona MacDonald · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finished in one sitting! Another wonderful trip into Barbara Pym's cosy (i think she says the word "cosy" about 20 times). This time, we follow Caro and her husband Alan, a junior lecturer at the local University who is desperate to sort out a disagreement with his soon-to-retire professor regarding some source material that is kept in a box in an old people's home. Caro is dragged into this mess haphazardly as she volunteers to go to read to the old folks at the home, whilst also discovering her husband is having an affair with a younger woman and confiding in her a-sexual friend Coco. Pym is just a wonderful writer, she is so bright, witty and perceptive and this is my third book of hers that I've picked up and chuckled all the way through.

[Geevee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Published after Barbara Pym's death, An Academic Question is not a single book but rather one put together posthumously by Hazel Holt, Pym's biographer and friend, using notes and earlier drafts (written in both first-person and third). As such it isn't as well received as her books.

However, I enjoyed the book and the characters, who like others in Pym novels, are constructed with life complications, personalities and odd characteristics we all have or see in others.

The story develops through Caro (Caroline) who is married to a university lecturer. There's is a pedestrian middle class life of academia and domesticity that sees the wishes and wants of careers and lives played out by Caro, her husband Alan, and their relations, friends and colleagues. Central to this is the life of the academic lecturer and the world of published research, and as Caro connects to an elderly gentlemen, the comes an opportunity to move Alan's career and his research up a level.

Had Ms Pym finished this, I suspect the ending would have had some wider cause and effect for the central characters, and perhaps this is the difficulty with the book. But, I found, like her books, that I whiled away my time "with" Barbara Pym happily. And what mores does one want sometimes than a book that makes one feel enjoyment and contentment coupled with a few smiles and laughs.

My edition was a Virago Modern Classics paperback of 211 pages. Published 2012, with an introduction by Kate Saunders. The cover is a cracker and was illustrated by Katarzyna Klein.

[Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

For me, every Barbara Pym book starts with 5 stars. This is not my favorite Pym, but still delightful.

7/29/22: I just reread this. I'll keep it at five stars, but I can definitely see why I said it wasn't my favorite. I might say it is actually my *least* favorite Pym.

[Wealhtheow · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was edited together from two of her drafts, and Pym apparently never considered it ready for publication. It should have stayed buried, as it is the worst Pym I have ever read. What sets Pym, like Austen, apart from her contemporaries is not just the razor-sharp social commentary and witty phrasing, but also the underlying sympathy. Even when she has torn a hole through hypocrisies, there is still an understanding of *how* those betrayals came about. This story has found many clever ways to cut deeply into the consciousnesses of academics, but instead of empathy there is only cruelty. There is not a single sympathetic character in the whole novel, and it put me in a bad mood.

[Lady Clementina ffinch-ffarowmore · Rating 4 out of 5]

Light-hearted and delightful, yet with that tiny stand of melancholy (not as pronounced as in some of her others) that one finds in her books, An Academic Question by Barbara Pym was published posthumously in 1986, with Pym’s literary executor (and novelist in her own right) Hazel Holt actually putting the book together from an initial and a later draft that Pym wrote but abandoned in favour of completing other books. The resulting effort is quite perfect, reading like a full novel with no indications of breaks or stitching.

An Academic Question takes us to a somewhat nondescript little town, once a spa place (its pump house still in place though no longer used), and now a university town, though not top grade, with its polytechnic having now become a full-fledged university. Her lives our protagonist and narrator, similar to, yet different from Pym’s others. Caroline Grimstone or Caro as she likes to be called (at one time she fancied herself to be something of a Lady Caroline Lamb) is married to academic Alan Grimstone, a lecturer in anthropology (and working on Africa, of course!) at the university. Unlike typical Pym heroines though, Alan doesn’t delegate any of his typing or proofreading to her and so she pretty much has nothing to do. She isn’t particularly maternal even though she loves her daughter, nor much of a homebody and while she has her friends, among them the stylish Kitty Jeffries and her son Coco (who works in sociology), and is Caro’s friend and Dolly Arbotfield, Kitty’s older sister who runs an old second-hand book (and junk) shop and looks after the local hedgehogs, socialises with others in the university, and toys with the idea of a job, there is a dissatisfaction in her life for nothing really ever happens.

Then she decides at Dolly’s bidding to volunteer to read to old people at Normanhurst, a home for the elderly (in comfortable financial circumstances), and among them finds herself reading to a Rev. Stillingfeet, formerly an anthropologist himself and rumoured to have written a significant but unpublished work on Africa. It turns out that Alan’s colleague (and head of his department) Crispin Maynard is trying to get his hands on it, and Alan who in a sense is competing with him (at least for publications and to rise in the ranks of the academic world, even if the former is on the verge of retirement) wouldn’t mind having it himself. Stillingfeet will let none touch his papers though Caro is permitted to read to him from academic journals he picks. But Caro, though unwilling, agrees to help Alan get access to the manuscript (or to put it more bluntly, steal it!)

While Alan starts to work on a paper which will challenge what Crispin Maynard has done in the field so far, alongside, ordinary life in the little town continues with lunches, lectures and seminars (followed by dinners) at the university, evening socialising, and what we’d call ‘play dates’ today for the children (Alan and Caro have a little girl, Kate). But as the paper is completed and submitted for publication, the drama starts to build. Will it be published? How will Crispin react? And amidst all this, does Caro find something that satisfies her?

As with many Pym books, An Academic Question takes us right in midst of the academic world, with battles for publications in reputed journals, offprints handed out to build one’s reputation, the dreaded/famous Wednesday seminars (I hadn’t realised until reading Less than Angels that Wednesday was the usual day to have these elsewhere too—we did back in the university), lectures and now also television appearances! While I enjoy her stories with her ‘excellent women’ the academic ones are more special since there’s so much I can relate to and laugh at, even if the field is very different. Pym used to work with an academic journal Africa, so a lot of what she witnessed in real life reflected in the books, lending them both authenticity and plenty of humour. Also in some of the characters one can see those she met or had friendships or relationships with in real life reflected (These aspects were highlighted in Paula Byrne’s wonderful biography of Pym).

Even otherwise than the academic battles, there is much to delight in the book, especially its eccentric but real characters, whether it is Dolly (in whom I could see a few shades of myself), the gossipy Coco, the sophisticated Kitty who yearns after the grand life she led in the Caribbean, where her husband was from, and even Alan’s new colleague Iris Horniblow who is also working towards academic advancement while managing two (unruly) children, and looking for love. Caro herself is living a life she finds uneventful and dissatisfying—she was earlier in love with a Byronic future politician, but after it broke off met and fell in love with Alan and though she does love him in her way, life feels lacking—but the episode of the stolen manuscript does inject a little excitement! In these adventures we also (as is usual in Pym’s books) run into/hear about characters we’ve encountered previously—in this case for me it was Esther Clovis.

Amidst all these adventures, socialising and interactions, age is an element that seems constantly referred to (which had me wondering whether this was unique to this book or something I never noticed in others). We have Caro herself who is 28 but doesn’t think herself young though at Normanhurst, she finds she is considered so; Crispin Maynard on the verge of retirement is perhaps ‘old’ in Alan’s eyes (who is in the initial stages of his career), but who when putting together objections to a radio programme thinks views of people at the old age home would be of ‘the slightest importance or interest’, and yet it is one at that very home, Mr Stillingfeet whose work both Alana and Crispin are out to get; habits of older people are commented on (‘old people are like that’; or how Dolly chooses to use her pension); and there are in one conversation comments on ‘uselessness’ and the idea of ‘dispatching’ such people. Yet the older among the characters still have active and fulfilling lives. While age wasn’t a specific theme of the book, the reflection certainly had me thinking of age and ageist perceptions (even self-directed) that continue to persist, making life that little less satisfying (or more anxiety inducing) than it need be. Likewise, race too comes up for Kitty and Coco are from the colonies and have relations of colour—and one can see both them and even the ‘enlightened’ among the rest ostensibly displaying acceptance that doesn’t quite hide that tinge of contempt or superciliousness.

But these threads remain largely in the background, with the humour of the academic battles, and personal dramas (there are plenty of those too with Caro suspecting Alan of an affair which turns out to have a surprising outcome), and a range of characters (of whom I’ve barely mentioned a few—there are also Caro’s mother and sister, her sister’s partner, Alan’s mother; their au pair, plenty others of the faculty, and also Caro’s old love who appear), giving us a charming and wonderful read.

[Tania · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whisky drinking academics rather than sherry with the vicar, but otherwise typical Barbara Pym.

[Dominika]

Different from all the other Pym novels I've read. The 70s academic atmosphere felt colder than her earlier novels set in the hub of village life, though there were many witty, entertaining moments throughout.

It's helpful to know this was published posthumously based on two unfinished manuscripts. It's not the first book of hers I'd recommend someone to start out with. But it was interesting to me as someone already invested in her life and work. She was working on this novel during her years of rejection from publishers, and I wonder if her desire for publication accounts for the edgier content in this novel that she may have hoped would be more relevant and palatable to readers of the time. I found that the glib and restrained emotional treatment over situations like abortion and adultery contributed to the colder, more cynical narrative within a typically 'cosy' Pym novel.

I'm sure a case can be made that she really wanted to write about those topics regardless of the pressure of trending reading tastes, but I read (or heard in a podcast) somewhere that she found younger generations strange and off-putting. There's a moment where an elderly woman tells the protagonist how filthy contemporary plays are and the protagonist inwardly responds: "But they're not meant for you...you pathetic old creature... Nothing's meant for you now". I wonder if she was ironically directing that at herself a bit, feeling obsolete in the literary landscape of the 70s.

Anyway, I found the more explicit topics awkwardly incorporated while I still thought she was in top form in such traditionally Pym-ian scenes where she places her characters at a dinner party and simply skewers and plays with them.

It's also sad and noteworthy that she would have been working on this novel after her initial breast cancer diagnosis. For a campus novel, little is said about student life, and far more is said about ageing, death, the chasm between younger and older generations, work/retirement, and the potential futility of work. Two funerals and an old folks home figure in this story!

But I appreciated that aspect of the story as I'm get further away from those formative college days and feeling how quickly life moves.

[Ali · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written mainly in the early 1970’s An Academic Question was put together posthumously by Barbara Pym’s biographer and friend Hazel Holt. Maybe because of the way it was essentially compiled - by someone else – from Barbara Pym’s drafts and notes the novel has a very different feel to it. The novel has a light, bright freshness to it and I actually enjoyed it a lot – but it is possibly the least Pymish of her novels. Certainly this novel is more rooted in academia than the Anglican Church, where so many others books are rooted, set among the various inhabitants of a small unnamed University town (although I felt it must be Bath).
“Just as our green Triumph Herald was no longer quite big enough, so the position of lecturer did not give him all the scope he needed. He knew that he was looked on as able and promising, but he was like a card in a game of patience, his moves blocked by cards of higher suit. The one most in his way was Crispin Maynard and, although Alan could not, of course, hope to get his chair when he retired, he felt that once Crispin had gone, his own upward path to progress would be easier. My mother, much addicted to patience (Alan’s mother never had time), would so often wail in a despairing tone, ‘But I can’t get the two – there’s a Black king in the way!”, which exactly expressed Alan’s feelings.”
Caro Grimstone a sometimes bored faculty wife married to the dull slightly ambitious Alan becomes an unwitting accomplice in her husband’s machinations, when she volunteers to read to an elderly man in a care home. The Reverend Stillingfleet has a manuscript – well known about in academic circles – hidden in a box in his room at the nursing home, he has so far not allowed anyone to see it. As the Stillingfleet papers concern the very subject that ethno-historian Alan Grimstone is interested – he takes the opportunity to accompany Caro on one of her visits so he can help himself to the manuscript. Alan intends to use Stillingfleet‘s work in a paper he himself is writing. Alan is tremendously excited about the paper and what it might mean for him. Caro is instantly a little uneasy about her complicity in Alan’s theft – and later takes a part time library job in order to secrete the manuscript away with other Stillingfleet papers. The data that Alan has access to gives him a huge advantage over his academic rivals and in the run up to his paper’s publication Alan finds he has to defend his position as his rivals start to suspect the origin of his information.
“Dolly had remained single, though she had always given me to understand that her life had not been without love. But now, in her sixties, she had grown away from human beings and only kept in touch with her former lovers for practical and material advantages; she was more moved by the sight of a hedgehog’s little leg raised to scratch itself than by any memory of a past love. These same hedgehogs were one of the reasons Dolly never went away. The habit of staying at home had its origin, she told me in a quarrel with a neighbour who had refused to put food out for the hedgehogs during Dolly’s absence.”
An Academic Question is set in a more modern world than many of her earlier novels. The world in which these characters exist feels more real, and although definitely less Pymish there are still examples of Pym’s wit, the absurdities of life which Barbara Pym always highlights so beautifully. The meshing of the modern world and the Pymish world is slightly uneasy to some Pym fans perhaps, there is an extra marital affaire; talk of abortion alongside the petty jealousies of academics, an elderly woman who keeps hedgehogs and the endless question of what to wear to dinner parties. I always love Pym’s characters – and in An Academic Question there several characters of a Pymish bent to enjoy – including the wonderful Sister Dew – who we first meet in An Unsuitable Attachment, and Dolly – the keeper of hedgehogs, and Caro’s friend Coco and his mother kitty (Dolly’s sister), constantly reminiscing about their days on “the island” – in the Caribbean from where they originally come. An Academic Question is an enjoyable novel, the difference in tone – it feels lighter as well as more modern – surely makes it interesting enough to Pym fans – however it is an enjoyable novel too. I really liked the gentle ending of this novel, the feeling of things carrying on –in a seasonal kind of way – not unlike an academic year I suppose.

[Miles Edwin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have heard nothing but adoration and praise for Barbara Pym, and every time I came across one of the novels, I would pick them up without any real hesitation. I want to preface this by saying that this hasn't soured my view of Pym or put me off reading any more of her work. I think I just chose the wrong book to start with.
Out of the three books I own of hers, An Academic Question seemed the most interesting to me. A bored, unhappy faculty wife begins reading to a blind, elderly anthropologist in a nursing home, and her husband uses this to steal his very secret papers--research that can advance his reputation as well as dispute the work of a fellow colleague who he is in competition with.
I was hooked by this blurb; I was desperate to read it and so, when the time came around to read a Pym novel, this was the one I picked up. Alarm bells started to tinkle once I read the introduction (Kate Saunders), which stated that Pym had written two versions of this book: in first person, which she abandoned mid-way for being 'too cosy', and in third, which seemed to lose its charm. An Academic Question was published post-humously, and is acknowledged as being not one of her finest works.
The novel was just very brisk to me. I didn't feel engaged with any of the characters, even though some showed some flair and eccentricity, offering moments of charm and humour. The theft of the papers happened approximately three to five chapters in, and nothing more was really said of it. There were no real emotions in the characters about what they had done, and the tension of returning the manuscript was meek with barely any pulse. The comedy wasn't really there for me, either, and this may be because this is my first Pym read.
I do want to return to this book after I've read some of her other works, because maybe I will appreciate it a lot more then but for now, I found this very underwhelming and I didn't particularly enjoy reading it.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars, I flew through this! The first person narration made it easy to read. I liked the story more as it went along though I didn’t love it the way I do Excellent Women or A Glass of Blessings. This was published posthumously and from two separate drafts, so that surely adds to the quality some. I’m more used to reading Pym’s novels from earlier in her career so I am always surprised to come across a novel of hers from the 70s. It feels more like a foreign world than her 50s era novels. 😆

[Ellen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three stars because it is Barbara Pym - but not sure if she would have liked it published like this.

[Georgiana 1792 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un romanzo dolceamaro, come nella migliore tradizione di Barbara Pym. L'ambiente universitario ristretto di vedute, soprattutto nei confronti di una donna che, pur laureata, può al massimo ambire a fare la bibliotecaria part-time, incollando etichette, oppure - ambizione delle ambizioni - a scrivere la bibliografia del proprio marito. Il tutto mentre gli uomini - che pretendono solo questo dalle mogli - guardano con occhi adoranti Iris Horniblow, la nuova affascinante docente del dipartimento, considerata da tutti molto in gamba.
Caro si troverà coinvolta negli intrighi di suo marito Alan, che si comporta in modo poco corretto, impadronendosi di carte private a cui nessuno aveva mai potuto accedere, per poter scrivere un articolo da pubblicare su una rivista accademica, e che poi la tradisce come se nulla fosse con la prima che capita. La cosa triste è che Caro, dopo essere stata per una settimana da sua madre e da sua sorella per attutire il colpo, è costretta a rientrare a casa dal marito perché non sembra avere altra alternativa, coprendo ancora una volta il marito con i suoi superiori riguardo alle carte trafugate.

[Anmiryam · Rating 4 out of 5]

A slight, though pointed, romp that highlights the snobbery, classicism, petty rivalries and sexism of British academia in the 1960s. Caro is a highly intelligent, well educated woman who has married an up-and-coming lecturer at a provincial university, though who would really say that a former technical college is truly a university? Restless, bored with her life, her marriage and the narrow scope of opportunities available, we follow Caro through a fateful six months that provide her with a different, if only a bit, perspective on life.

This was my first Barbara Pym novel, though I have been aware of her work since the early '80s, and it whetted my appetite to tackle her more widely praised work. Altogether a thought provoking and enjoyable short novel.

[Judy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoy books set in a university setting. I mean, the academic jealousy, the backbiting, the scramble for tenure and promotion--it makes my heart sing. This book is set in a university that was once a technical school--makes you long to go there doesn't it? A young lecturer's wife, Caro, who is bored and resentful of her husband's focus on his research, begins volunteering at an old folk's home--of the very highest sort, of course--and stumbles across a retired professor who has some unpublished manuscripts which would help her husband in his work. Yes, and there the fun begins. Her description of parties and dinners in the academic world took me straight back to my graduate school days. Well played, Ms. Pym.

[Chimene Bateman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this book due to its great character vignettes and its mocking portrayal of the pompousness of academia. On the other hand, the story seemed to peter out a little rather than coming to a satisfying conclusion. I presume this is because the published novel as we have it is an editor's compilation of multiple drafts and notes by Pym (the novel wasn't published during Pym's lifetime). Still, well worth the read.

Reread for a book group in 2023.

[Hannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was humorous and poked fun at the world of academia a little bit. It felt different than Pym's other books since the main character was younger, cynical, and not involved with the church. I liked this one and am really coming to enjoy Pym's work.

[Seawitch · Rating 3 out of 5]

A posthumous publication - the ending is abrupt and a major issue seems unresolved. Otherwise an enjoyable read set in 1970 and about a group of academics and one particular wife’s musings.

[Nihlah Assegaf · Rating 4 out of 5]

I always love a campus novel and this one is made more interesting by its slightly unconventional perspective… maybe 4.5?

[Lil's Vintage World · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Kirsty · Rating 4 out of 5]

The introduction of An Academic Question, first published posthumously in 1986, has been written by novelist Kate Saunders, who believes the book to be ‘witty, sharp, light as a syllabub… and with a cast of typically Pym-like eccentrics’. She goes on to say that ‘no other novelist has celebrated our national silliness with such exuberance’.

An Academic Question is essentially an amalgamation of two different manuscripts which Pym wrote and was dissatisfied with. The novel tells the story of Caroline Grimstone, a ‘dissatisfied faculty wife’. Caro and Alan live in a neo-Georgian house in the ‘provincial’ university sprawled across a nameless town in which Alan lectures. They have a four-year-old daughter named Kate and a rather flippant Swedish au pair named Inge, both of whom Caro believes ‘in name and appearance, seemed very suitable, I thought, for a modern couple like Alan and me’.

The novel opens with the characters of Kitty Jeffreys and her middle-aged son Coco, both of whom left their home in the Caribbean ‘after the death of [Kitty’s] husband and, more importantly, the election of an all-black government’. Coco, having been awarded a fellowship at the university, works alongside Caro’s husband Alan.

Many secondary characters feature throughout the novel, the majority of them academics and lecturers at the university. Certainly the two most interesting and eccentric characters are hedgehog fanatic and local bookshop owner Dolly Arborfield who spends large chunks of her pension money on brandy, and Crispin Maynard, an ardent collector of Africana.

Caro’s first person perspective is used throughout. The narrative voice works relatively well with the story but Caro herself is not always a likeable character. She is a rather self-pitying woman who feels ���abandoned and neglected’. She sees her young daughter as a burden and tries to palm her off onto the au pair as much as possible.

She is rather disgruntled with what life has afforded her but she essentially lacks drive to change the elements which she is displeased with. The only thing which Caro does in order to give herself a sense of ‘self-worth’ is to begin to read to an elderly man named Reverend Stillingfleet, a resident at a local nursing home. This arrangement seems rather too convenient, as Alan and his colleague Crispin Maynard have been wanting to read Reverend Stillingfleet’s manuscripts for some time but have thus far been unable to get hold of them.

The novel does tend to be rather dark in places. The majority of the characters have secrets and shames which they try to keep from others, but it feels as though we, as readers, do not know the characters as well as we should. Even Caroline as a first person narrator seems aloof and elusive.

Pym’s writing shines above the storyline and characters which she has created. Throughout the novel, her descriptions are sometimes charming and always original. For example, the wife of the university’s assistant librarian ‘seemed never to have recovered from the worries of card indexes and bibliographies in the days when she too had worked in a library’, and Coco and Kitty ‘always made a point of arriving last at everything, like royalty’. Despite this, the prose does sometimes feel a little repetitive, which is a shame.

Whilst the writing style of the novel works well, the wit and amusement involved seems sparse and uncharacteristic of the author. Whilst the two manuscripts have been merged together relatively well, it feels as though An Academic Question is lacking in something – whether a more likeable narrator, a slightly more in-depth storyline or an ending that does not feel so rushed, it is unclear.

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chance put this little book into my hands, and I’m very glad it did!

Barbara Pym was a fantastic writer: clever, amusing, satirical, witty. She’s been likened to Jane Austen, and I can see why. She writes about all the “little” moments in life and manages to make them fascinating.

“An Academic Question” is my first venture into Pym’s world, and I am quite impressed by the power of her writing, her ability to say so much in so few words, and her ability to create a completely claustrophobic atmosphere. This book is about British academics, but it’s a different sort of academic world than the one I learned about in the late 80's and 90's. The book takes place in 1970, when female scholars were emerging, but a lot of women lived the lives of “lecturer’s wives.” They typed up their husband’s manuscripts, if asked; they brought up children, if they had any; they looked for part-time librarian jobs, if they were so inclined.

What a life! The heroine and first-person narrator, Caroline Grimstone, lives a very narrow, small life and Pym does a fabulous job of conveying the restrictions with which she is faced. She gets to visit neighbours, watch the live-in babysitter look after her child Kate (while she feels inadequate), and visit the neighbouring nursing home to “read” to the old people.

It sounds like a boring idea for a book, but Pym’s writing is so strong that we become very involved in these “small” lives.

This is my first experience of Pym, and I look forward to reading much more of her!

[Mrsgaskell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This last Pym was published posthumously, two different manuscripts edited and combined by Hazel Holt. The story is set in 1970 in the academic world of a modern university that was formerly a technical college. Caroline (Caro) Grimstone is the wife of a lecturer and her life seems aimless. She's a university graduate but not employed and even the domestic duties and care of the couple's four-year-old daughter are mainly relegated to the Swedish au pair. She is treated with a condescending attitude by her husband and the academic circle to which they belong. She is somewhat jealous and suspicious of her husband's relationships with colleagues. In an attempt to find a role, she agrees to read to an elderly former missionary at a local nursing home and through this she and her husband are able to obtain access to papers that will be useful to her husband's research. The elderly man dies shortly thereafter and his papers are left to the university library. Caro obtains a part-time clerical position there in order to be able to return the purloined manuscript to the collection. I enjoyed this book but did not find it quite as witty and entertaining as those of her books concerning "excellent women" and their church-related activities.

[Bruno Bouchet · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading this made me feel like a heroin addict. I didn't know when I ordered it, that the glorious Ms Pym hadn't actually finished the book. It's one of the books from the "lost years" that was never fully edited and finished for publication – this shows. Like an addict who has become used pure good stuff, reading something that had been "cut up" with inferior ingredients was disappointing. I chased the Pym high: waiting for the blissful sentence that made the entire book fall into place and reveal the incredible depth hiding behind the banality of everyday life. It never quite came, but there was enough in there in meet my addiction: enough pages of the beautiful prose and sharply delicate humour to get me through and make it worthwhile. However there was a lot that just felt quite flat, like it hadn't been polished or crafted as much. I don't think this book adds much to cannon of works, no great new insights, however like all addicts, for me having cut up Pym is better than having no Pym at all.

The biggest academic question the book raises is whether a book should be published when the author clearly hadn't finished it and it is cobbled from sundry drafts (with considerable skill I have to admit) by an editor.

[Jean · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm afraid I did not enjoy this book nearly as much as I have enjoyed all the other Barbara Pym novels. It was edited by Hazel Holt after Barbara Pym's death. She drew on two drafts written by Barbara Pym in 1970. Apparently, BP hoped to emulate the successful writing of Margaret Drabble when she wrote this one. Perhaps because it was edited by someone else and drew material from both drafts it was a bit of a hotch-potch, quite unlike the other BP novels.

I managed to finish it but I'm glad I have done so and can now move on to "Quartet in Autumn" which was nominated for the Booker Prize.

I stand by what I said about it at the first reading. Barbara Pym did not consider this book good enough for publication and I agree with her opinion. The characters were flat and humourless. Even the "graduate wife" who narrated most of the book was not a sympathetic character. I'm glad I have reread it but I won't be reading it again when there are so many other books by Barbara Pym that are a joy to read.

[Joanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read for a book club. Parts of this book I really enjoyed, but then it just kind of ended...

There is some academic one upping going on and professors are trying to outdo each other with their manuscripts sometimes referenced with material that has come by devious means. Caro is one bored housewife who tries to please her unfaithful husband and has a nanny to raise her daughter. She gets a part time job in the university library and reads to a retired scholar in the nursing home. The various social functions she attends with her husband always have seem to have obligation and nicety attached. Taking place in the early 70's you do see the role of women trying to be more equal to their provider husbands. In the norm of the British flair there are hints of social status and marrying right.

[Martha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, starting a new year with Pym is never a mistake. This book, however, is somehow darker. Caro, the main character, doesn’t seem to question her theft of papers to help her husband in his academic career . It’s just odd. This certainly is not The Plot where “stealing” a plot causes all sorts of havoc. Maybe Pym sees the reality of how most of these types of things work in life. Skulduggery in academia is commonplace and basically not that important in the whole scheme of things?
Still, this novel was a patched up deal of an unfinished ms so….
Think the synopsis of this book is incorrect. Any Pym readers out there?

[Lynda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Perhaps not quite vintage Pym but nonetheless great fun and full of quirky characters. This time the setting is in a red brick university and the plot swirls around academic rivalries and skirmishes and the things people need to confirm their existence

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amusing look at academic life in the 70s; cobbled together after the author's death from 2 not-entirely-finished manuscripts. Taking that into account, still a good read.

[Joanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Charming, funny, and sly.

[Melanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I missed all of the church bazaars I usually associate with Barbara Pym, but the gently scathing take on the British academe was still fun.