There is something succulent in the late novels of Barbara Pym, like deliberately over-ripened fruit, or a haunch of game hung for an extended period. One feels that Pym knows her characters almost too well, and that she may not particularly like them. Yet she spends time with them, and invites us to do the same: slightly distasteful women, ambiguous and calculating men, vapid gentlewomen, and the ever-charming clergyman (here occurring only as a brief fellow train traveller sharing a table for tea). So how does Pym take a character one doesn’t particularly like, such as Leonora Eyre, and in the space of a single short chapter render her entirely sympathetic, even pitiable? Only exquisite mastery of her craft could explain Pym’s remarkable affect upon her reader.
The elegant Leonora is ageing more or less gracefully. She enjoys the attentions of men, both older and younger, whilst knowing how to keep restrictive commitment at bay. She may always know the right word or gesture, but like Henry James’ prose, which is alluded to, she can come across as cold. Of course that suits some English men perfectly, especially those who would be somewhat overwhelmed by a real passionate relation with a woman. Sexual relations, which are subtext in the early Pym novels, are rendered explicit here. However, they remain curiously unreal, no doubt because they were never Pym’s object. And that raises the question, what really is Pym’s object in this novel? The answer lies in the reading, and I suspect will change as you read it again and again. As I will. Always recommended.