Reading the 20th Century discussion
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The Adventures of Miss Barbara Pym
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The Adventures of Miss Barbara Pym by Paula Byrne (July 2023)
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Nigeyb wrote: "After a fairly good start, the Oxford university years is a tedious section. Far too detailed for my level of interest. The best sections are when life experiences relate to PB’s work. All too rare..."I think I'll wait for the general verdict before deciding whether or not to try this. Standard biographies can be a bit annoying, sometimes find wading through pages of things like family trees a bit too much, sounds as if there may be too much detail and not enough analysis/discussion in this one?
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Aw, Nigeyb, I don't know why people put themselves through so much stress about reading: I skip and skim, abandon, go straight to the last chapter if I'm bored to see if the journey is worth it (mostly for crime fiction) and generally break all the rules! Never forget, we're reading for fun and entertainment.
I see so many reviews saying that it's not fair to the author or book to not doggedly read every page... Nope, I think it's not fair to myself to slog on with something when there are better book relationships out there 😉
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I've read Byrne before on Waugh and Austen and have critiqued each book: she has a lively style but is more driven by telling *her* story than worrying about academic rigour.
I think she's not great at marshalling her material and I bet there's so much availability of information about Pym that she throws it all in without shaping it - I'm still looking forward to this but but will read it my way to get what I want from it.
Thanks that helps R. C., I think I've just never recovered from Hermione Lee's biography of Woolf, I've never come across another biography of anyone that I've enjoyed reading as much as Lee's.
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I think my best biography is Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath.
I’m not a great reader of literary biographies - I find the authors often try to use their research to sway the readers into following their own interpretation of the subject’s work. I prefer to enjoy a book on its own merits without being told what to think about it e.g. “Well, x has a disastrous relationship in the 1950s so Mary is clearly a depiction of the cruelty of his wife and he is using her to complain about the divorce laws” . Maybe x has moved on and Mary could just be an interesting character?Having said that, I’m going to read this one!
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We probably were - plus the world was a more innocent place, in some ways, before the horrors of the twentieth century: not just the Holocaust but also Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Good to hear this has picked up.
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One author who BP and her good friend Robert Liddell (aka Jock Liddell) adored was Ivy Compton-Burnett
I'm interested to find out more about her - anyone read her work?
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Amery
It's another level of weirdness and surprise on top of what Paula Byrne divulges about him in this book
More positively the period about Julian Amery was a lovely interlude in BP's life.
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Now war is declared, it's all change on the home front.
Also pleased to mention that she is full of regret and remorse now that Nazi attrocities are starting to be understood (this, incidentally, at the very start of the war and pre-death camps).
Does she discuss what led her to misjudgment of the Nazis. Was it simply love?
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BP still unpublished however remarkable how much of BP’s life finds its way into her novels
Her immediate post war life forms a large part of the plot of Excellent Women
Still enjoying this biography
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https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/20...
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A very timely and persuasive article
I’m all in with the skimmers 🏄🏽
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In this section Byrne rattles through the later novels, indeed I’ve now reached the wilderness years.
Some here will enjoy BP’s encounters with Elizabeth Bowen and Elizabeth Taylor (the writer), amongst others. She had a lifelong friendship with Larkin, mainly conducted by letter.
I’m glad to be reading this one
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Maybe that's why Pym, Bowen and Taylor are sometimes spoken of together even though I'd say they're very different writers stylistically and in terms of their concerns?
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Looking forward to your reaction to this one
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That said, it seems my destination is a hotbed of romance so may meet a Brighton Beau and have a little Brighton Flirtation ... till Mr RC finds out and then it's Brighton in an Uproar, Vol. 1 😉
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Keep an eye out for a tall 61 year old engrossed The Adventures of Miss Barbara Pym by Paula Byrne, especially if you're in the Hove part of our fine city
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I just picked this up, and read the prologue. Think I'm going to love it! The description of Pym having her novel rejected at age 59, looking around and seeing she doesn't fit in anymore, and thinking "If only someone would have the courage to be unfashionable" ... this rings SO true to me. I'm a few years past that age now, but seems like it was late 50's when, as they say, I realized it wasn't my world anymore. I'm looking forward to learning from and about Miss Pym!
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I loved it. The redemptive ending is fabulous. This is a splendid biography. I now realise that the university sections I found tedious at the time are important as they inform so much of what happens later
Like many novelists, Pym's own life informs her fiction, which is partly what makes this biography so rich and satisfying
I come away really enthused to read more of her books, and also find out more about Philip Larkin who was a good friend and champion of BP
I can't wait to discover what the rest of you make of this one
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Charming it is too
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The Nazi affair is 'interesting' and Byrne isn't really letting her off the hook here, especially given what her friends and family thought about the regime.
I like Pym (and Sandra!) and could imagine having cocktails and a good gossip with her 😉.
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If I were to criticise, I'd say that there are places where this is a little lightweight for a Pym aficionado which I, of course, am not! I can't help comparing it to some of the books on, say, Woolf where there is more psychological depth. Byrne skims over Pym's almost masochistic penchant for unavailable men and turns it almost into something to laugh about.
That said, it's perfect for me as a Pym newbie. And isn't it glorious when we find a new author with a back catalogue we want to read?
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Going on the extracts from IC-B, I'm not sure a whole book written in that style is for me either but I've enjoyed the quotations.
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'As with The Oppermanns, it is clear that Pym was familiar with novels exposing Nazi brutality and anti-Semitism. But there is only silence... It is clear that her pro-German sensibilities were causing concerns at home'
It's especially chilling that her SS lover is said to be close to Hitler.
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"I can't help comparing it to some of the books on, say, Woolf where there is more psychological depth. Byrne skims over Pym's almost masochistic penchant for unavailable men and turns it almost into something to laugh about"
That's a good point. On the flipside, we don't get a speculative psychological analysis, so the reader is left to draw their own conclusions.
"Going on the extracts from IC-B, I'm not sure a whole book written in that style is for me either but I've enjoyed the quotations"
I've come to a similar conclusion. Then again BP has great taste in authors and ICB made a huge impression on her
"That said, it's perfect for me as a Pym newbie. And isn't it glorious when we find a new author with a back catalogue we want to read?"
Abso-blimmin-lutely
This biog fired me up to read more Pym and gave me a thorough appreciation of her life and personality, and how it informed her writing.
I couldn't ask for any more
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I think we mentioned the importance of clothes and food in Excellent Women and so it's gratifying to see that BP loved both. I lapped up all the stuff about the black lace dress when Henry got married and the scarlet skirt for her alter ego, Sandra!
I'd have liked more on how BP felt about having such an active love life in the 1930s given that her family were involved with the church. This was all quite sparse, similarly the way her sister was so anti-fascist yet BP had that love affair with both Nazi Germany and the SS officer. And going off to Germany alone must have been bold in the run-up to the war.
Going back to Alwynne's comment near the top, there's hardly any analysis or discussion, more a transcription from the diaries/letters etc. Which was fine as I knew nothing about Pym. The whole thing is sunny and bright, despite painful episodes.
Fascinating too to see that Pym was reading Woolf and Plath - I tired a little of all the repeated allusions to Austen.
A fun, light and informative read ... and I want to read the other Pym novels as a result :))
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I listened to the Oxford sections with Mrs B as we had a long car journey and she was up for a shared listen. She had the same reaction as me to the Oxford sections. I thought she might have found them more interesting as she went to Oxford too, albeit in different circumstance as she went to a comp so felt less at home there.
Given that plots are incidental to Pym's books I was not worried about spoilers which were pretty broad brush in any event. Plus I know I won't retain the information by the time I come to read the novels.
I agree it's a sunny and bright account despite a life which contained more than its fair share of pain and suffering however I think that reflects her attitude and personality. She was very resilient, which is just as well eh?
I saw you again raise, in your review, the lack of psychological depth re her track record of having relationships with unavailable men. I feel this is a strength. That sort of analysis will only ever be speculation. We humans love to overlay events with a neat narrative but I'm not convinced there is necessarily some deep psychological reason behind her choices. She encountered lots of possible partners but only connected with some of them. Perhaps that's all there is to it? I also suspect that she valued her independence too highly to commit half heartedly. Doubtless she could have married someone but it's to her credit that she didn't succumb to whatever pressures she faced. It's not like her sister, or Honor, or Henry's wives fared any better.
As I mention above, for me it's a strength that Paula Byrne restricts herself to what is known and doesn't try to psycho-analyse her subject.
Out of interest does the biography inspire you to try again with Quartet in Autumn? I’m still reeling from your dismissal after a couple of pages and I'd be stunned if you don't find plenty to enjoy and appreciate. Having developed some familiarity with BP's earlier novels I was really struck by its melancholic tone, perceptiveness, super dark humour, and observations about ageing and mortality. It was also perfectly rooted in its 70s milieu too. I prefer BP in this mode than in the cheerier classic novels before the wilderness years - though based on my small sample size these too are more realistic and clear eyed than may first appear. I can't wait to sample 1978's The Sweet Dove Died when we buddy read it this September.
Thanks again. so glad we were able to share reactions to this biography and I am eagerly awaiting more reactions when others get to it.
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I think you're right in the case with the unavailable men: there may be no deep, dark reason and merely that BP enjoyed all the fantasising and drama of unfulfilled desires. Maybe she also couldn't commit given her literary ambitions and if she didn't want children (no mention of this) marriage might have been less appealing. As you say, she saw her sister's divorce and they seem to have lived happily together. And she had close friendships which filled her emotional needs. But when so much has been written, including by Byrne, about why Austen didn't marry, it's odd that there's no discussion here, however spurious we might find it.
On Quartet in Autumn, hearing Byrne on it and how the characters are different from the more usual clever, bright people of Pym's world, I'm not sure it's for me - at least, I'll read some of her other books first and maybe try again.
The other thing that I was surprised Byrne didn't touch on is BP's relationship to the church - I guess religion was more standard during her life and more part of secular life than it may be today but a character like Mildred revolves around the church, and vicars and curates seem such a Pym trope. Yet there was no mention of any of this.
I didn't mind that this was a sweep through Pym's life but there was no real sense of how she felt about being in the Wrens, for example.
But the important things are that I found this an enjoyable and entertaining read despite what I perceive as the gaps and I'm dying to read more Pym!
Reading the 20th Century
Books mentioned in this topic
Lincoln in the Bardo (other topics)little scratch (other topics)
Lincoln in the Bardo (other topics)
Cassandra at the Wedding (other topics)
Young Mungo (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Elizabeth von Arnim (other topics)Philip Larkin (other topics)
Robert Liddell (other topics)
Ivy Compton-Burnett (other topics)
Paula Byrne (other topics)
The Adventures of Miss Barbara Pym (2021)
by
Paula Byrne
All our welcome
Come one, come all
Please comment whenever you feel inspired
Readily available for Kindle, Audible and in local libraries
It sounds v interesting...
A brilliant, intimate biography of English writer Barbara Pym
Pym lived through extraordinary times. She attended Oxford in the '30s when women were the minority. She spent time in Nazi Germany, falling for a man who was close to Hitler. She made a career on the Home Front as a single working girl in London’s bedsit land. Through all of this, she wrote. Diaries, notes, letters, stories and more than a dozen novels - which as Byrne shows more often than not reflected the themes of Pym’s own experience: worlds of spinster sisters and academics in unrequited love, of powerful intimacies that pulled together seemingly humble lives.
Paula Byrne’s new biography is the first to make full use of Barbara Pym’s archive. Brimming with new extracts from Pym’s diaries, letters and novels, this book is a joyous introduction to a woman who was herself the very best of company.
Byrne brings Barbara Pym back to centre stage as one of the great English novelists: a generous, shrewdly perceptive writer and a brave woman, who only in the last years of her life was suddenly, resoundingly recognised for her genius.
She was Pym to friends. Miss Pym in her diaries. Sandra in seduction mode. Pymska at her most sophisticated.
English novelist Barbara Pym’s career was defined, in many senses, by rejection. Her first novel Some Tame Gazelle was turned down by every publisher she sent it out in 1935, finally published only fifteen years later. Though she picked up a publisher from there and received modest praise, the publishing industry grew restless and her sales spiralled downwards. By her seventh novel she had been dropped. She was deemed old-fashioned, telling stories of little English villages, unrequited love and the social dramas of vicars or academics.
This brilliant biography, brimming with Pym’s private diaries and intimate letters, offers a first full insight into Barbara Pym’s life and how it informed her writing. It gallops through her love affairs and lifelong relationships. It opens a door to the quick-draw humour which lives in her every written line. It shows how, with a little help from her most ardent fans and friends including Philip Larkin, her work eventually resurfaced, meeting new readers and bringing her sudden astounding, resounding love and acclaim – in the last years of her life.