This novel is a comedy of manners set in post-war London. Mildred Lathbury’s predictable routine is disrupted when a glamorous, somewhat chaotic couple moves into the flat below hers. Helena Napier is an anthropologist, and her handsome husband, Rockingham (Rocky) Napier, is a recently demobilised naval officer. Mildred quickly finds herself drawn into their messy domestic lives and marital discord, developing a quiet infatuation with Rocky.
Simultaneously, Mildred navigates the social circle of her close friends, the vicar Julian Malory and his sister Winifred. When a calculating widow named Allegra Gray moves into the vicarage as a lodger and becomes engaged to Julian, she systematically pushes Winifred out and disrupts the parish. Mildred is called upon to support the displaced Winifred and, later, Julian himself when the engagement inevitably falls apart.
Through Helena, Mildred is also introduced to another anthropologist, the aloof and challenging Everard Bone. After Helena temporarily leaves Rocky for Everard, Mildred acts as a mediator to help repair the Napiers’ marriage. By the end of the novel, the status quo is largely restored: the Napiers move away, and Julian returns to his bachelor life. However, Mildred’s own future subtly shifts as she agrees to help Everard Bone index his academic manuscripts, leaving open the quiet possibility of a future partnership.
Barbara Pym employs deadpan wit and self-deprecation. Her character Mildred is a reliable narrator regarding external facts but repressed regarding her own feelings. The humour is never loud; it is found in the juxtaposition of human drama with mundane domesticity (e.g., pondering the etiquette of sharing a bathroom with messy neighbours or making tea during a marital crisis).
The author’s mockery of the male characters – particularly the self-absorbed anthropologists and the naive clergy – is sharp and effective.
Barbara Pym (1913-1980) was born in Oswestry, Shropshire. She was educated at Huyton College, Liverpool, and St Hilda’s College, Oxford, where she gained an Honours Degree in English Language and Literature. From 1958-1974, she worked as an editorial secretary at the International African Institute. Her first novel, Some Tame Gazelle, was published in 1950, and was followed by Excellent Women (1952), Jane and Prudence (1953), Less than Angels (1955), A Glass of Blessings (1958) and No Fond Return of Love (1961). During the sixties and early seventies her writing suffered a partial eclipse and, discouraged, she concentrated on her work for the Institute. She retired in 1974 to live in Oxfordshire. A renaissance in her fortunes came in 1977, when both Philip Larkin and Lord David Cecil chose her as one of the most underrated novelists of the century. After sixteen years of obscurity Pym emerged to instant fame and recognition. Quartet in Autumn was published in 1977 and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. The Sweet Dove Died followed in 1978, and A Few Green Leaves was published posthumously. Barbara Pym died in January 1980.
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304 pages in Virago
First published 1952
ISBN-13 : 978-0349016078
Barbara Pym