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Title: Jane and Prudence by Barbara Pym ISBN: 0-06-080594-3 Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Pub. Date: October, 1982 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $3.50 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.5 (4 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: "I notice the things one shouldn't."
Comment: "Jane and Prudence" are the two main female characters in this delightful Barbara Pym novel. Unworldly, and vaguely distracted Jane is the 41 year-old, well-meaning wife of a country clergyman. Jane is Prudence's former tutor at Oxford, but those days are long gone. Both Jane and Prudence recall--somewhat longingly--their old Oxford days. Prudence, now 29, recalls all her carelessly cast-off suitors, and Jane daydreams of the career she never had. Jane, who has recently transplanted to the country, has visions of herself as some sort of Trollopean character. Jane is happily married, and "yet in a way she's missed something." Jane is constantly trying to control and adjust her imagination as she fumbles her way through whist drives, church and literary society meetings, and afternoons trying to entertain stuffy, snobby church officials.
Jane also compares herself to Jane Austen's Emma, and the comparison is not without merit. Jane attempts to play matchmaker between Prudence and Fabian Driver--a widower who lives in the village. Fabian is handsome "in a rather used-up Byronic way", and Prudence is not the only woman who tries to console the far-from-lonely widower.
This cosy novel of manners is full of the sort of marvelous characters I always find in Pym novels. There's Miss Doggett--a local spinster whose conversation with Jane on the topic of men is very amusing. Miss Doggett does not have a high opinion of the male species--"it was as if she'd heard that men only want one thing, but had forgotten for the moment what it was." There's Miss Bird--a novelist who hogs an entire plate of sandwiches, and the supremely exhausted and repetitive Edward Lyall (Member of Parliament) who never leaves his mother's side. I return to Pym novels again and again, and I never tire of the characters, as they have become old friends. Barbara Pym novels are consistently delightful, and if you enjoy Jane Austen novels, then chances are that you will like Barbara Pym--displacedhuman
Rating: 5
Summary: Sheer bliss, even the 10th time around
Comment: What a joy it is to sink into a Barbara Pym novel, especially this one, which is one of my favorites. The eye for detail, the wit, the ability to sketch a character with just a sentence or two, that this author possesses, never fail to delight. I return to her novels every couple of years, and find them to be balm for the soul.
This trip into the English countryside of 50 years ago, with its vicars, teas, and rationing, is a gentle and wondrous escape from current realities. Yet, like all great literature, its insights into human nature is timeless.
Rating: 4
Summary: Jane and Prudence is a hilarious novel of British manners.
Comment: You need not be an Anglophile to enjoy Jane, the vicar's wife whose literary past has her quoting odd lines of seventeenth century poetry at inappropriate moments, startling her visitors and making her readers giggle. Jane's friend Prudence is all propriety and green eye shadow, but can't seem to find a suitable husband among many suitors, some more colorful than others. A brief but pleasing little novel, sharply written and finely shaped. If you're not already a Pym fan, you'll become one.
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Title: No Fond Return of Love by Barbara Pym ISBN: 155921306X Publisher: Moyer Bell Ltd. Pub. Date: 01 December, 2002 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Less Than Angels by Barbara Pym ISBN: 0060805641 Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Pub. Date: March, 1982 List Price(USD): $3.50 |
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Title: Sweet Dove Died by Barbara Pym ISBN: 1559213019 Publisher: Moyer Bell Ltd. Pub. Date: 30 March, 2002 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: An unsuitable attachment (Perennial library) by Barbara Pym ISBN: 0060806532 Publisher: Harper & Row Pub. Date: 1983 List Price(USD): $3.50 |
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Title: Some Tame Gazelle by Barbara Pym ISBN: 1559212640 Publisher: Moyer Bell Ltd. Pub. Date: 01 March, 1999 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
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