The articles in the first section, “Reading in Barbara Pym’s Novels”, explore the subject of reading in Pym’s work from a range of perspectives. Three of the essays take an autobiographical approach: Anthony Kaufman proceeds from a reading of Pym’s early journals to argue that it the novels she “was able to transform her feelings of rejection, anger, and depression into brilliant social comedy” (89); Orphia Jane Allen finds the later novels to be both metaphor and vehicle for Pym’s developing self-identity, and particularly her gradual acceptance of illness, aging, and impending death; and Ellie Wymard discerns in the novels Pym’s own disappointment in the degree of comfort and solace offered by formal religion to those who suffer in private. She observes that for Pym “writing is itself a ceremonial act” (116) and the novelist has a clearer and more immediate understanding of the reality of everyday human existence than does the church. Barbara Everett reads Pym in the context of the Modernist movement, and considers the claim of the various novels to be defined as “minor” or “major.” Frauke Elisabeth Lenckos finds that the novels themselves explore the position of the female reader, and ask the question “Is reading good for women?” Helen Clare Taylor and Katherine Anne Ackley would both respond in the affirmative: Taylor finds libraries to be instrumental in the development of the intellectual and emotional independence of Pym’s women characters, while Ackley observes that Pym’s characters depend on reading as a source of strength, comfort, and humour. Anne Pilgrim explores the demands made upon the reader by the allusiveness of Pym’s writing: she admires Pym’s courage in risking misunderstanding even as she offers deeply textured layers of meaning, and especially irony, to the reader who has command of the literary canon.

The nine essays in the second section, “Literary Encounters”, chart a wide range of ways in which Pym’s novels both derive from and provided a variety of literary connections. Barbara Dunlap suggests the work of Charlotte M. Yonge as a useful pre-text to Pym’s fiction; Dale Salwak reflects on the growth of Pym’s literary reputation; and Janice Rossen posits Philip Larkin as Pym’s most effective reader, based on the growth and importance of their friendship. Jan Fergus remembers affectionately a college class in which Pym surprised and delighted an eclectic group of students, and Jane Nardin takes her own introduction to Pym’s fiction as a starting point for some gently ironic observations on the literary critic both in and out of the novels. Paul de Angelis contributes thoughts and correspondence from his time as Pym’s publisher, while Ronald Blythe offers the reflections on the Oxfordshire seasons that Pym contributed to his anthology Places, commissioned by Oxfam, during the last months of her life. And on the most personal level, Hazel Holt remembers her years as Pym’s close friend and reader, while John Bayley writes movingly of the comfort he derived from reading Pym’s novels while nursing Iris Murdoch through her descent into Alzheimer’s disease.

Taken together these essays are a felicitous union of the scholarly and the personal. The wide range of materials and approaches ensures that the collection will be of interest to both scholars and lay readers, and the standard of writing and scholarship is uniformly high. The affection apparent in the writing in no way detracts from the scholarly rigour of the articles, and the tribute never descends into sentimentality. Mrs. Walton closes her foreword with a confident speculation on “how much they would have pleased her.” I’m sure she is right. It is an excellent collection.

--Heather Campbell, Associate Professor of English and Women’s Studies at York University

Canadian Woman Studies/Les Cahiers de la Femme, Vol. 24, no. 4, p. 181