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Available
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Publication
Moyer Bell and its subsidiaries (1999), Paperback, 256 pages
Description
The author of Excellent Women explores female friendship and the quiet yearnings of British middle-class life-a literary delight for fans of Jane Austen. Jane Cleveland and Prudence Bates were close friends at Oxford University, but now live very different lives. Forty-one-year-old Jane lives in the country, is married to a vicar, has a daughter she adores, and lives a very proper life in a very proper English parish. Prudence, a year shy of thirty, lives in London, has an office job, and is self-sufficient and fiercely independent-until Jane decides her friend should be married. Jane has the perfect husband in mind for her former pupil: a widower named Fabian Driver. But there are other women vying for Fabian's attention. And Pru is nursing her own highly inappropriate desire for her older, married, and seemingly oblivious employer, Dr. Grampian. What follows is a witty, delightful, trenchant story of manners, morals, family, and female bonding that redefines the social novel for a new generation.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member Ganeshaka
I picked up this little dollop of Trollope last Saturday afternoon and went through it quicker than a bag of Tim's potato chips. Next thing I knew - I was licking the salt from my fingers - I heard "Live, from New York, it's Saturday night" in the other room. Talk about a seamless transition from
This was my first Barbara Pym, and what a delight! A trans-Atlantic trip on a time machine to post war England and a small English village. There to follow the daily meanderings of Jane Cleveland, a daffy vicar's wife who doesn't quite fit the solemnity of her distaff role. A woman who is always a tad distracted in a "...hello, Lucy?" kind of way. Not a woman you would entrust with the high office of...preparing, without burning, dinner? We wonder "was she ever serious about her university day aspiration of authoring a book on 17th century poets?" Rather, her true passion seems to be to find a match for her youngish friend, Prudence.
Prue, age 29, is a working girl/office assistant/researcher who lives a train ride away in London. She's a touch vain and lost in a limbo of a social life. As the story opens, she's vaguely pining for the attentions of her middle-aged and married mentor/employer. But only dreamily. And daydreaming of her college conquests, an honor roll of fading romeos. But only vaguely.
Enter the recently widowed Fabian, the village Lothario. Curiously, Fabian has a benign reputation for he usually had the discretion to conduct his extra-marital affairs in London. And, sufficient grace, in local entanglements, to end an amour while at the same time finding his wife a new knitting partner.
Pym's writing sparkles with the detail and dialogue that make those English so ummm.... English! It's a wry twist of girly book, and not just for the ladies. Though more than once, it's observed with a bit of eye-rolling that "A man must have his meat, you know!" And, that men are just interested in the mysterious "main thing". I say, gents and ladies, just relax, have an Ovaltine and some oyster patties, put your feet up, and let the skilled hand of Barbara Pym adjust your pillow. This is a better escape bargain than any you'll find on Orbitz.
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light comedy to light comedy.This was my first Barbara Pym, and what a delight! A trans-Atlantic trip on a time machine to post war England and a small English village. There to follow the daily meanderings of Jane Cleveland, a daffy vicar's wife who doesn't quite fit the solemnity of her distaff role. A woman who is always a tad distracted in a "...hello, Lucy?" kind of way. Not a woman you would entrust with the high office of...preparing, without burning, dinner? We wonder "was she ever serious about her university day aspiration of authoring a book on 17th century poets?" Rather, her true passion seems to be to find a match for her youngish friend, Prudence.
Prue, age 29, is a working girl/office assistant/researcher who lives a train ride away in London. She's a touch vain and lost in a limbo of a social life. As the story opens, she's vaguely pining for the attentions of her middle-aged and married mentor/employer. But only dreamily. And daydreaming of her college conquests, an honor roll of fading romeos. But only vaguely.
Enter the recently widowed Fabian, the village Lothario. Curiously, Fabian has a benign reputation for he usually had the discretion to conduct his extra-marital affairs in London. And, sufficient grace, in local entanglements, to end an amour while at the same time finding his wife a new knitting partner.
Pym's writing sparkles with the detail and dialogue that make those English so ummm.... English! It's a wry twist of girly book, and not just for the ladies. Though more than once, it's observed with a bit of eye-rolling that "A man must have his meat, you know!" And, that men are just interested in the mysterious "main thing". I say, gents and ladies, just relax, have an Ovaltine and some oyster patties, put your feet up, and let the skilled hand of Barbara Pym adjust your pillow. This is a better escape bargain than any you'll find on Orbitz.
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LibraryThing member thorold
Another delightful glimpse of 1950s England, full of Pym's gentle but subversive little insights into the way the world (or at least this very middle-English bit of it) works. There ought to be a timeless quality about this story of vicars, spinsters and tea-parties on the lawn, but we are forever
Above all, it's a women's world. Men exist only on the fringes of the community. They are vain, impractical, in constant need of food and reassurance, and mostly have no very clear occupation (Dr Grampian is "some kind of economist or historian"; Fabian does something or other in the City). They can be ornamental and nice to have around the place, but on the whole they are a bit of a nuisance. Women are focussed, competent and organised, and are the only people in the book we ever see doing anything useful. The exception to this rule is Jane, who is clever, a whizz when it comes to 17th century poetry, but hilariously absent-minded when it comes to her adopted role in life. She can imagine very clearly, in terms of Trollope, Jane Austen, and Miss Charlotte M. Yonge what a clergyman's wife should be, but she always somehow loses track of what she means to do about it herself. Fortunately, Mrs Glaze (who obliges at the vicarage) and Jane's teenage daughter are on hand to treat her as a sort of honorary male to be fed and tidied-up-after, and her husband is a new man avant la lettre who doesn't complain about the non-appearance of food at mealtimes.
The text teams with little in-jokes: it's much more literary in its references than most of Pym's other books. References to John Donne, Coventry Patmore, and Keats abound (some of them slightly more risqué than the tone of the book would suggest), Jane Austen's Emma is mentioned several times (Prudence's name was obviously picked to allow her to be annoyed by colleagues calling her "Miss Bates"), and there are jokey mentions in passing of literary figures who must be intended as thinly-disguised versions of Pym's friends Lord David Cecil and Philip Larkin. And there are some lovely lines - not least concerning the old battleaxe, Miss Doggett, who looks as though she "had heard that men only want one thing, but had forgotten for the moment what it was."
Great fun, and as usual in Pym there is no neatly contrived ending to force closure on the characters: a few little rearrangements, everyone capable of doing so has learned a little bit about themselves, but not much has really changed.
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being reminded that this is a changing world. The village is on the fringe of the city; the local tradesmen are as involved in running the church as the more middle-class residents; everyone is affected by post-war shortages; there are no servants any more, but women from the village "oblige" with cooking and cleaning. Above all, it's a women's world. Men exist only on the fringes of the community. They are vain, impractical, in constant need of food and reassurance, and mostly have no very clear occupation (Dr Grampian is "some kind of economist or historian"; Fabian does something or other in the City). They can be ornamental and nice to have around the place, but on the whole they are a bit of a nuisance. Women are focussed, competent and organised, and are the only people in the book we ever see doing anything useful. The exception to this rule is Jane, who is clever, a whizz when it comes to 17th century poetry, but hilariously absent-minded when it comes to her adopted role in life. She can imagine very clearly, in terms of Trollope, Jane Austen, and Miss Charlotte M. Yonge what a clergyman's wife should be, but she always somehow loses track of what she means to do about it herself. Fortunately, Mrs Glaze (who obliges at the vicarage) and Jane's teenage daughter are on hand to treat her as a sort of honorary male to be fed and tidied-up-after, and her husband is a new man avant la lettre who doesn't complain about the non-appearance of food at mealtimes.
The text teams with little in-jokes: it's much more literary in its references than most of Pym's other books. References to John Donne, Coventry Patmore, and Keats abound (some of them slightly more risqué than the tone of the book would suggest), Jane Austen's Emma is mentioned several times (Prudence's name was obviously picked to allow her to be annoyed by colleagues calling her "Miss Bates"), and there are jokey mentions in passing of literary figures who must be intended as thinly-disguised versions of Pym's friends Lord David Cecil and Philip Larkin. And there are some lovely lines - not least concerning the old battleaxe, Miss Doggett, who looks as though she "had heard that men only want one thing, but had forgotten for the moment what it was."
Great fun, and as usual in Pym there is no neatly contrived ending to force closure on the characters: a few little rearrangements, everyone capable of doing so has learned a little bit about themselves, but not much has really changed.
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LibraryThing member alana_leigh
There's something quietly lovely about a Barbara Pym novel. It's a perfect rainy day read, as you imagine yourself in England... if you have a large chintz armchair, all the better. And while I don't think you need to adore Jane Austen in order to enjoy Barbara Pym, it probably helps, though
Jane and Prudence unsurprisingly deals with two Englishwomen named Jane and Prudence. (As a result, I was singing "Dear Prudence" over the three or four days where I was reading this.) Jane is a minister's wife who is a bit older than Prudence; the two met when Jane was her tutor at Oxford and their unlikely friendship stuck. Jane's husband has just taken over a country parish and Jane is more than usually aware of the fact that she's not a particularly good clergyman's wife. Nevertheless, they move into this parish with their eighteen-year-old daughter, Flora (who is about to head up to Oxford herself), and settle in to meet the locals and navigate the intricacies of a small country town. Prudence, meanwhile, lives in London; she's unmarried and while she is employed, she is not absorbed in academic work, which often leads the older women of their college back at Oxford to be at a loss for fitting Prudence into a particularly neat category, though Jane might say that she might not have her work, but "Prudence has her love affairs." And for the time, it does seem that Prudence has such a romantic nature as to be enjoying the attention of a man or fancying herself in love with another. Prudence's latest focus is her employer, a middle-aged man that does not seem particularly interested in her, beyond one day a while back when he used her Christian name and took her hand as they looked out a window. Jane (in a not-quite-focused way) tries to think of who might be suitable for Prudence in this new town.
Aside from scenes set at Prudence's office (where her spinster coworkers pay close attention to what time the tea should be brought in, and mild chatter about the two men in the office), the majority of the book is set in the country parish, where you have the usual assemblage of busybodies and village VIPs. As with all Pym novels, you're presented with women in a rather narrow life, struggling to find their niche or at least muddle through without one. It's highly representative of the post-war feeling of confusion that women of the age must have experienced as they balanced the desire to have work of their own just as they're expected to marry and start families. The intriguing thing, of course, is that it might not be exactly the same today, but it's easy to relate to the unsettled feelings as one tries to find a place in the world that feels like it fits.
It's easy to see why one might suggest Pym to those who enjoy Austen. Pym novels are, on the surface, easily summed up as novels about Englishwomen in the middle of the 20th century, often too smart for their surroundings, but without a means of focusing that intelligence as they become wives, mothers, or settle into their role as spinsters (for indeed, there is no real place for a single woman unless it is that of a spinster).
If you're looking for a quiet, lovely novel with some subtle social commentary and quite good character insight, then I suggest you try reading a Pym novel. The rainy afternoon and a tray with tea and scones are not required, but they certainly help set the scene.
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there's something a little darker and more melancholy in Pym.Jane and Prudence unsurprisingly deals with two Englishwomen named Jane and Prudence. (As a result, I was singing "Dear Prudence" over the three or four days where I was reading this.) Jane is a minister's wife who is a bit older than Prudence; the two met when Jane was her tutor at Oxford and their unlikely friendship stuck. Jane's husband has just taken over a country parish and Jane is more than usually aware of the fact that she's not a particularly good clergyman's wife. Nevertheless, they move into this parish with their eighteen-year-old daughter, Flora (who is about to head up to Oxford herself), and settle in to meet the locals and navigate the intricacies of a small country town. Prudence, meanwhile, lives in London; she's unmarried and while she is employed, she is not absorbed in academic work, which often leads the older women of their college back at Oxford to be at a loss for fitting Prudence into a particularly neat category, though Jane might say that she might not have her work, but "Prudence has her love affairs." And for the time, it does seem that Prudence has such a romantic nature as to be enjoying the attention of a man or fancying herself in love with another. Prudence's latest focus is her employer, a middle-aged man that does not seem particularly interested in her, beyond one day a while back when he used her Christian name and took her hand as they looked out a window. Jane (in a not-quite-focused way) tries to think of who might be suitable for Prudence in this new town.
Aside from scenes set at Prudence's office (where her spinster coworkers pay close attention to what time the tea should be brought in, and mild chatter about the two men in the office), the majority of the book is set in the country parish, where you have the usual assemblage of busybodies and village VIPs. As with all Pym novels, you're presented with women in a rather narrow life, struggling to find their niche or at least muddle through without one. It's highly representative of the post-war feeling of confusion that women of the age must have experienced as they balanced the desire to have work of their own just as they're expected to marry and start families. The intriguing thing, of course, is that it might not be exactly the same today, but it's easy to relate to the unsettled feelings as one tries to find a place in the world that feels like it fits.
It's easy to see why one might suggest Pym to those who enjoy Austen. Pym novels are, on the surface, easily summed up as novels about Englishwomen in the middle of the 20th century, often too smart for their surroundings, but without a means of focusing that intelligence as they become wives, mothers, or settle into their role as spinsters (for indeed, there is no real place for a single woman unless it is that of a spinster).
If you're looking for a quiet, lovely novel with some subtle social commentary and quite good character insight, then I suggest you try reading a Pym novel. The rainy afternoon and a tray with tea and scones are not required, but they certainly help set the scene.
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LibraryThing member Kasthu
Jane and Prudence is the story of two friends—Jane is a middle-aged clergyman’s wife, and Prudence is a spinster at the age of 29, “an age that is often rather desperate for a woman who has not yet married.” When Jane and her husband move to a small parish, they meet a widower named Fabian
Jane and Prudence’s friendship is an unlikely one, and it’s hard to see why, exactly, they’re friends (beyond the fact that they met at Oxford). In addition, I kept wondering why Jane would want to set up her good friend with someone who’s a known womanizer. Still, she means well. I think the interplay between the two main characters is well done. Of the two, I think I prefer Jane with her hapless housekeeping over Prudence, who seems a bit arrogant at times. I think in a different age (say, ours), Prudence would be just anther career woman living in London (and she’d have a much better job). If she lived today, though, there would still be a focus on getting her set up with a boyfriend or husband, so not much has changed there.
I did also like Nicholas, Jane’s husband, who puts up with Jane’s flaws with an admirable amount of patience. There’s a lot of humor in this book, but some of it is downright mean at times.
Still, Barbara Pym is at her best when she’s talking about the relationships between men and women. She has some very interesting things to say about the state of being married, or not. I think the reason why Barbara Pym’s novels appeal to people even today is that her themes are so wide-ranging and timeless.
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Driver, with whom Jane wants to set Prudence up. This novel is a very quiet satire of love and romance and the constant search for them.Jane and Prudence’s friendship is an unlikely one, and it’s hard to see why, exactly, they’re friends (beyond the fact that they met at Oxford). In addition, I kept wondering why Jane would want to set up her good friend with someone who’s a known womanizer. Still, she means well. I think the interplay between the two main characters is well done. Of the two, I think I prefer Jane with her hapless housekeeping over Prudence, who seems a bit arrogant at times. I think in a different age (say, ours), Prudence would be just anther career woman living in London (and she’d have a much better job). If she lived today, though, there would still be a focus on getting her set up with a boyfriend or husband, so not much has changed there.
I did also like Nicholas, Jane’s husband, who puts up with Jane’s flaws with an admirable amount of patience. There’s a lot of humor in this book, but some of it is downright mean at times.
Still, Barbara Pym is at her best when she’s talking about the relationships between men and women. She has some very interesting things to say about the state of being married, or not. I think the reason why Barbara Pym’s novels appeal to people even today is that her themes are so wide-ranging and timeless.
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LibraryThing member rainpebble
Jane, 41 and Prudence,29 are friends from school days at Oxford, Jane being the teacher and Prudence having been her pupil. They have remained friends these many years. Jane is married to a Vicar, Nicholas and they have a daughter, Flora who is ready to attend University. Prudence has remained a
And though one would expect that of the two women Jane would be the one with common sense this does not prove out. Poor Jane goes through her life with very humorous vague thoughts, actions and conversation. In fact she is most inappropriate in the funniest of ways and at the strangest of times. In reading her I sometimes felt like a curtain just plop, dropped over her eyes and mouth. On the other hand Prudence has common sense even though she lives in a world of make believe love.
When Nicholas is transferred from his London Parish to a village Parish Jane and Prudence continue their friendship through letters and train trips back and forth to visit one another.
The women of the Parish often raise an eyebrow at Jane for she is definitely not your ordinary Vicar's wife plus the previous Vicar was unmarried though he was (**gasp**) engaged to a woman whom his parishioners had never met. And as with any Pym novel, there is much matchmaking by the ladies of the church.
I enjoyed this one as I do all of Barbara Pym's work but have waited to long to give a review of much content. For as Pym's works are all similar in the way of the nice middle aged spinster women doing their good deeds, working for the local Parish, caring for the Parish Curate or Vicar and spending time gossiping and matchmaking, if I don't write the review right away her books all run together in my head. But that is something I have come to love and depend on from her.
Like all of her other books that I have read, I recommend Jane and Prudence. I giggled and laughed my way merrily through this one. I do remember thinking that it is the funniest one of hers I have read yet. I rated it 4 stars.
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spinster though she has an imaginary crush on her married boss at work.And though one would expect that of the two women Jane would be the one with common sense this does not prove out. Poor Jane goes through her life with very humorous vague thoughts, actions and conversation. In fact she is most inappropriate in the funniest of ways and at the strangest of times. In reading her I sometimes felt like a curtain just plop, dropped over her eyes and mouth. On the other hand Prudence has common sense even though she lives in a world of make believe love.
When Nicholas is transferred from his London Parish to a village Parish Jane and Prudence continue their friendship through letters and train trips back and forth to visit one another.
The women of the Parish often raise an eyebrow at Jane for she is definitely not your ordinary Vicar's wife plus the previous Vicar was unmarried though he was (**gasp**) engaged to a woman whom his parishioners had never met. And as with any Pym novel, there is much matchmaking by the ladies of the church.
I enjoyed this one as I do all of Barbara Pym's work but have waited to long to give a review of much content. For as Pym's works are all similar in the way of the nice middle aged spinster women doing their good deeds, working for the local Parish, caring for the Parish Curate or Vicar and spending time gossiping and matchmaking, if I don't write the review right away her books all run together in my head. But that is something I have come to love and depend on from her.
Like all of her other books that I have read, I recommend Jane and Prudence. I giggled and laughed my way merrily through this one. I do remember thinking that it is the funniest one of hers I have read yet. I rated it 4 stars.
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LibraryThing member alexdaw
Jane is a vicar's wife and completely batty. Don't get me wrong....I like her and all that - it's just that she is hilariously ineffectual. She has deep thoughts about poetry and beauty and cares deeply for all those around her...but is of no help at all. Jane's latest project is to secure a
Prue is a sophisticated young woman who has reached the age of twenty-nine. As Barbara Pym intones "an age that is often rather desperate for a woman who has not yet married."
Will Jane succeed in her mission? If you like to read books where the characters speak alternately:
"rather complacently"
"scornfully"
"derisively"
"rather acidly"
"anxiously"
"sensibly"
"fatuously"
and
"rather hysterically"
all in the space of two pages..then this is the book for you.....Have I mentioned that I adore Barbara Pym's writing with an unbridled passion? Often rather hysterically in fact.
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husband for her friend Prudence. She and Prudence are an unusual friendship as there is a generation gap but they share a love of literature. Jane was in fact Prue's tutor before they became friends.Prue is a sophisticated young woman who has reached the age of twenty-nine. As Barbara Pym intones "an age that is often rather desperate for a woman who has not yet married."
Will Jane succeed in her mission? If you like to read books where the characters speak alternately:
"rather complacently"
"scornfully"
"derisively"
"rather acidly"
"anxiously"
"sensibly"
"fatuously"
and
"rather hysterically"
all in the space of two pages..then this is the book for you.....Have I mentioned that I adore Barbara Pym's writing with an unbridled passion? Often rather hysterically in fact.
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LibraryThing member lisalouhoo
This book had many of the same characters and the same setting as Crampton Hodnet. The story and characters were just as witty and real, however, I found it didn't have so many of the great little asides and observations as Crampton Hodnet, and the ending left me a bit unsatisfied. I could so
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relate to one of the main characters, Jane. She is a clegymans wife who was a literary major in college, wrote a book about 17th century poetry, and had no idea how to deal with a household, cooking, cleaning, etc. She felt herself a failure in her position and of no support to her husband's calling. I think that Miss Pym may be showing one of the first generations of this problem that we still see today; women's focus being on education, and then finding themselves thrust back into the traditional womens role with no skills and no idea of what they are doing. Show Less
LibraryThing member cbl_tn
Jane and Prudence begins at a reunion at the Oxford college where the women met when Prudence was a student and Jane was her tutor. Jane was already married to a clergyman at that time. Prudence has a string of spurned suitors dating back to her college days. Jane thinks it is time for Prudence, at
This is a book of contrasts -- women and men; married, widowed, and single; urban and rural; educated and uneducated; High church, Low church, and Roman Catholic; attractive and plain; young, middle aged, and somewhere in between. The reader sees how the characters affect each other through everyday activities like a church meeting, a village whist drive, a neighborhood tea party, and a day at the office. Most of the characters seem resigned to fate; they react to the situations they find themselves in rather than taking the initiative to change their circumstances. The exceptions are Jane and Jessie Morrow, a companion to her comfortably wealthy spinster cousin. Jane and Jessie are rather plain but very observant women who are underestimated by those around them, and thus they each find opportunities to influence others' choices of action.
I've recently discovered Barbara Pym through Library Thing. I started with Excellent Women, and this is the second of her books I've read. I'm glad I read them in that order since there is a brief reference to the main character of Excellent Women in this book. I'm looking forward to reading more of Pym's works.
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age 29, to settle down, and she fancies herself as Emma Woodhouse to Prudence's Harriet Smith.This is a book of contrasts -- women and men; married, widowed, and single; urban and rural; educated and uneducated; High church, Low church, and Roman Catholic; attractive and plain; young, middle aged, and somewhere in between. The reader sees how the characters affect each other through everyday activities like a church meeting, a village whist drive, a neighborhood tea party, and a day at the office. Most of the characters seem resigned to fate; they react to the situations they find themselves in rather than taking the initiative to change their circumstances. The exceptions are Jane and Jessie Morrow, a companion to her comfortably wealthy spinster cousin. Jane and Jessie are rather plain but very observant women who are underestimated by those around them, and thus they each find opportunities to influence others' choices of action.
I've recently discovered Barbara Pym through Library Thing. I started with Excellent Women, and this is the second of her books I've read. I'm glad I read them in that order since there is a brief reference to the main character of Excellent Women in this book. I'm looking forward to reading more of Pym's works.
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LibraryThing member laytonwoman3rd
Endless cups of tea, and jumble sales, and speculations about eligible bachelors and in-fighting among the members of the church council (with the odd defection to the High side, or even *gasp* to ROME) all making for a delightful glimpse of parish life, this time from the perspective of poor Jane
2013
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Cleveland, who tries with very little success to be a proper vicar's wife though her talents are terribly unequal to the job. Once or twice she sent me into a complete fit of giggles. Pym can seem so mild and harmless at first, and then she sticks the dagger in.2013
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LibraryThing member lauralkeet
Husbands took friends away, she thought, though Jane had retained her independence more than most of her married friends. And yet even she seemed to have missed something in life; her research, her studies of obscure seventeenth-century poets, had all come to nothing, and here she was, trying,
Jane and Prudence first met at Oxford, where Jane was Prudence's tutor. The two have been friends for years. Prudence, 12 years younger, is unmarried and living in London. At 41, Jane is married to a vicar and has just left London to join her husband in his new country parish. Jane cannot resist attempts at matchmaking on Prudence's behalf, and so invites her to visit and meet a local bachelor. Much of this novel is a comedy of manners focused on the gossip and personalities that are typical of any church community.
Barbara Pym's writing uses quite subtle wit to poke fun at everyday life. And while I enjoy her writing, this book was less interesting, the plot more predictable, than others I have read. Short, enjoyable, respectable ... but in the end, just kind of average.
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though not very hard, to be an efficient clergyman's wife, and with only very moderate success. Compared with Jane's life, Prudence's seemed rich and full of promise ... She had her work, her independence, her life in London ... Lines of eligible and delightful men seemed to stretch before her ... (p. 83)Jane and Prudence first met at Oxford, where Jane was Prudence's tutor. The two have been friends for years. Prudence, 12 years younger, is unmarried and living in London. At 41, Jane is married to a vicar and has just left London to join her husband in his new country parish. Jane cannot resist attempts at matchmaking on Prudence's behalf, and so invites her to visit and meet a local bachelor. Much of this novel is a comedy of manners focused on the gossip and personalities that are typical of any church community.
Barbara Pym's writing uses quite subtle wit to poke fun at everyday life. And while I enjoy her writing, this book was less interesting, the plot more predictable, than others I have read. Short, enjoyable, respectable ... but in the end, just kind of average.
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LibraryThing member astrologerjenny
I enjoyed this book. The main character, Jane Cleveland, is a hopelessly inefficient vicar’s wife, who goes through life with snatches of poetry resounding in her head. She provides support and suggests romantic possibilities for her elegant, unmarried friend Prudence. This book as a Wildean
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flavor, as people are always saying or thinking witty things which gently expose the hypocrisy around them. Show Less
LibraryThing member ParadisePorch
Jane (age 41) and Prudence (age 29) have been friends since their days at Oxford , where Jane tutored Prudence. Jane is now married to a clergyman, recently assigned to a country parish, to the delight of Jane’s Victorian-novel-fueled imagination; Prudence is a career woman in London.
As with the
At first , I didn’t like this book as much as Excellent Women, for example, because I didn’t like either of the protagonists. But they grew on me and I ended enjoying Jane & Prudence just as much as Some Tame Gazelle.
Read this if: you enjoy Angela Thirkell novels; or you like sly mid-century British humour. 4 stars
As with the
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others of Pym’s I’ve read, the plot meanders while poking gentle, often sly, fun at church & society, gender roles, and love affairs in 1950s Britain.At first , I didn’t like this book as much as Excellent Women, for example, because I didn’t like either of the protagonists. But they grew on me and I ended enjoying Jane & Prudence just as much as Some Tame Gazelle.
Read this if: you enjoy Angela Thirkell novels; or you like sly mid-century British humour. 4 stars
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LibraryThing member Rayaowen
Pleasant enough but didn't hold my interest.
LibraryThing member AnneBrooke
Nothing vast or terribly important happens in this book, but it's done so charmingly and so subtly that I can't help but love it. And it's very true how the little things count far more than great events in people's lives. A classic indeed. And definitely a woman's novel.
LibraryThing member neverlistless
Another delightful book from Pym. This one also featured Miss Jessie Morrow and Miss Doggett, as did my previous Pym, [Crampton Hodnet]. This one dealt with the proper English courting rules (love was definitely a major theme) and how people navigated them. It also, of course, had a delightful cast
Again - quite fun and enjoyable. I would recommend it to anyone who likes cozy English novels and wants a good laugh - and of course, wants to make fun of English courtship.
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of characters, most prominent (to me) was Jane Cleveland. She was the bumbling, fumbling new curate's wife that could just never quite add up to her predecessor. Again - quite fun and enjoyable. I would recommend it to anyone who likes cozy English novels and wants a good laugh - and of course, wants to make fun of English courtship.
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LibraryThing member skwoodiwis
The Barbara Pym Society of North America will focus their meeting this year in March (2012) on Jane and Prudence. If you can make it, sign up and I’d love to meet you at Harvard, Cambridge, MA.
The one thing I know about this work and all of Ms Pym’s work is that I’ve missed bucket loads of
A clergyman’s wife who worries about match making and not necessarily about her husband’s parish. A very independent friend and a grown daughter who moves in and out of the story, very much more apt than her mother.
And then of course the men.
I enjoy Ms Pym because of her ability to create believable men. Some tired, some scoundrels, some wonderfully placid and loving (such as Jane’s husband) yet devoted to his calling.
But of course it is the women, their relationship with each other where Ms Pym shines. Women know and ought to acknowledge that there is no one more hard on a woman than – well another woman.
“They had thought to creep round the back and peer in at the windows to surprise her in the kitchen, perhaps catch her in the very act of stubbing out a cigarette in the tea leaves in the sink basket. She felt almost triumphant that they should have failed.”
“She had been feeling that things were pretty desperate if one found oneself talking about and almost quoting Matthew Arnold to comparative strangers, though anything was better than having to pretend you had winter and summer curtains when you had just curtains.”
Yes, that’s the genius of Barbara Pym the mundane, the simple social hiccups we feel, cringe over and now have to stop and laugh over because it’s true – why bother?
And so the story continues. Love affairs maneuvered by well-intended women who make lives miserable for more well-intended women – and in the end and what I love about Jane and Prudence – it’s the women who stay loyal to one another and the men who stay at arm’s length; not a poor relationship with the women they love but a different - a sort of outsiders’ respect.
“‘It seems sometimes that we must hurt people we love,’ said Fabian, stroking her hair. ‘Oscar Wilde said, didn’t he…?’
Let’s not bother about him,’ said Jessie. ‘I always think he must have been such a bore, saying those witty things all the time. Just imagine seeing him open his mouth to speak and then waiting for it to come out. I couldn’t have endured it.’”
The one thing I know about this work and all of Ms Pym’s work is that I’ve missed bucket loads of
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information. Books such as this one and all that I’ve read so far of Ms Pym cry out for group readings. Women need to gather round and well-rounded men, who love women, need to pick up these books. A clergyman’s wife who worries about match making and not necessarily about her husband’s parish. A very independent friend and a grown daughter who moves in and out of the story, very much more apt than her mother.
And then of course the men.
I enjoy Ms Pym because of her ability to create believable men. Some tired, some scoundrels, some wonderfully placid and loving (such as Jane’s husband) yet devoted to his calling.
But of course it is the women, their relationship with each other where Ms Pym shines. Women know and ought to acknowledge that there is no one more hard on a woman than – well another woman.
“They had thought to creep round the back and peer in at the windows to surprise her in the kitchen, perhaps catch her in the very act of stubbing out a cigarette in the tea leaves in the sink basket. She felt almost triumphant that they should have failed.”
“She had been feeling that things were pretty desperate if one found oneself talking about and almost quoting Matthew Arnold to comparative strangers, though anything was better than having to pretend you had winter and summer curtains when you had just curtains.”
Yes, that’s the genius of Barbara Pym the mundane, the simple social hiccups we feel, cringe over and now have to stop and laugh over because it’s true – why bother?
And so the story continues. Love affairs maneuvered by well-intended women who make lives miserable for more well-intended women – and in the end and what I love about Jane and Prudence – it’s the women who stay loyal to one another and the men who stay at arm’s length; not a poor relationship with the women they love but a different - a sort of outsiders’ respect.
“‘It seems sometimes that we must hurt people we love,’ said Fabian, stroking her hair. ‘Oscar Wilde said, didn’t he…?’
Let’s not bother about him,’ said Jessie. ‘I always think he must have been such a bore, saying those witty things all the time. Just imagine seeing him open his mouth to speak and then waiting for it to come out. I couldn’t have endured it.’”
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LibraryThing member cappybear
Beautifully observed, and very funny. One minor quibble - I didn't care for the chick lit cover.
LibraryThing member oldblack
"Womens fiction" the publisher proclaims. I'm not averse to this genre, but I really don't get much out of reading about the slightly foolish antics of the British upper-middle classes. I suppose we're meant to be amused by Pym's exposé of this bunch of rather silly people, but really, from a 21st
" 'The Jane Austen de nos jours' A.L.Rowse"
(Who the hell is A.L.Rowse?) I have never read any Austen . . . and now I think I'll be happy to go to the grave in that state.
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century standpoint, the stupidity of their sub-culture is so self-evident I doubt that it's worth devoting 250 pages to the analysis. The back cover quotes include this one about Barbara Pym: " 'The Jane Austen de nos jours' A.L.Rowse"
(Who the hell is A.L.Rowse?) I have never read any Austen . . . and now I think I'll be happy to go to the grave in that state.
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LibraryThing member Cariola
Another charming novel set mostly in rural England, ca. 1930's. Jane and Prudence became friends at Oxford, despite a difference of about 10 years in their ages, and have kept up their friendship through the years. Now Jane has just settled into a new parish with her husband Nicholas while
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Prudence, still attractive but pushing thirty, wonders if she will ever find true love. The novel centers around Jane--her difficulty fitting in to the new town, her efforts at matchmaking for Prudence, her reminiscences of working on the seventeenth-century poets at Oxford, etc. She is quite the character--bright and independent-minded, a modern woman but concerned that she isn't fitting properly into the role of a vicar's wife. Several characters from [Crampton Hodnet] reappear, including the domineering Miss Doggett and her delighfully understated but sly companion, Miss Jessie Morrow. Show Less
LibraryThing member mmyoung
Sometimes when I finish a book I feel that there is nothing much to say beyond “good,” “bad,” “the type of thing I think you would like”, or “how did this ever get published?”
Sometimes when I finish a book I feel that any book review that did it justice would have to be at least as
Jane and Prudence falls into that second category of book.
So, to begin by getting some of the business done before moving on to the meat of the review.
This is an excellent book. I feel that on technical points the writing itself falls short of the standard set by Pym in Excellent Women but it surpasses that book in terms of the nuanced exploration of character and the entwined exploration of the themes of class and religion in England in the 1950s and class, gender and food rationing in England in the 1950s.
Warning the first: For those who have yet to read Excellent Women -- one scene in this book containers spoilers about characters in that book.
Warning the second: This is one of those books which should be read without first reading the publisher’s description. For example, that of the Chivers Press edition of the book contains no information that cannot be gleaned without in the first few minutes of reading and mischaracterizes both the major characters, their interactions and what happens to each of them over the course of the story.
Jane and Prudence is set in the post WWII England when much of life still revolves around the problems and irritations that arose from the rationing of food. Rationing began January 8 1940 and continued even after the end of the war. Gradually, over the years, restrictions were dropped on various items such as clothes, chocolates, flour and soap but some items, particularly meat, were still rationed until July 4, 1954. These forced food shortages had the unintended consequence of making people much more consciously aware of how class, gender and social networks impacted who had access to which items.
The importance of meat is signaled early in the story, “people in these days do rather tend to worship meat for its own sake,’ said Jane, as they sat down to supper. ‘When people go abroad for a holiday they seem to bring back with them such a memory of meat.’” [1] (22)
Men, we learn as we read, can not be expected to endure the same dietary hardships as the women around them. For example, Jane and her husband Nicholas are having a meal at a local tea shop.
[quote]
at last Mrs. Crampton emerged from behind the velvet curtain carrying two plates on a tray. She put in front of Jane a plate containing an egg, a rasher of bacon and some fried potatoes cut in fancy shapes, and in front of Nicholas a plate with two eggs and rather more potatoes.
Nicholas exclaimed with pleasure.
‘Oh, a man needs eggs! said Mrs. Crampton, also looking pleased
This insistence on a man’s needs amused Jane. Men needed meat and eggs--well, yes, that might be allowed; but surely not more than women did? Perhaps Mrs. Crampton’s widowhood had something to do with it; possibly she made up for having no man to feed at home by ministering to the needs of those who frequented her café.
Nicholas accepted his two eggs and bacon and the implication that his needs were more important than his wife’s with a certain amount of complacency, Jane thought. But then as a clergyman he had had to get used to accepting flattery and gifts gracefully.. (p. 65)
[/quote]
But, the reader soon learns, Nicholas wasn't getting extra meat just because he was a clergyman:
[quote]
Mrs. Crampton now returned and set down before Mr. Oliver a plate laden with roast chicken and all the proper accompaniments. He accepted it with quite as much complacency as Nicholas had accepted his eggs and bacon and began to eat.
Jane turned away, to save his embarrassment. Man needs bird, she thought. Just the very best, that is what man needs. (67)
[/quote]
Jane isn't the only woman who is consciously (and sardonically) aware that society seemed to feel that it was vitally important that men have their meat:
[quote]
‘Mr. Driver! Mr. Driver!’ Mrs. Arkright came out on to the lawn calling. ‘Your steak’s ready!”
‘Ah, my steak.’ Fabian smiled. ‘You will excuse me, Miss Morrow?’
‘Of course. I should’t like to keep you from your steak. A man needs meat, as Mrs. Crampton and Mrs. Mayhew are always saying.’ She waved her hand in dismissal.
Fabian hurried away, conscious of his need for meat and of the faintly derisive tone of Miss Morrow’s remark, as if there were something comic about a man needing meat. (73, 74)
[/quote]
Pym is also clear-eyed and politely but firmly aware of the class presumptions that underline the religious habits of the British gentry.
One may wonder when Pym allows the reader into the shallow and self-centered “musings” of Fabian Driver if that sharp eye is trained only a particular type of person--someone who is facile and in the end desires social approval more than the approval of God:
[quote]
He walked slowly down the main street, past the collection of old and new buildings that lined it. The Parish Church and the vicarage were at the other end of the village. Here he came to the large Methodist Chapel, but of course one couldn’t go there; none of the people one knew went to chapel, unless out of a kind of amused curiosity. Even if truth were to be found there. A little further on, though, as was fitting, on the opposite side of the road, was the little tin hut which served as a place of worship for the Roman Catholics. Fabian knew Father Kinsella, a good-looking Irishman, who often came into the bar of the Golden Lion for a drink. He had even though of going to his church once or twice, but somehow it had never come to anything. The makeshift character of the building, the certain discomfort that he would find within, the plaster images in execrable taste, the simplicity of Father Kinsella’s sermons intended only for a congregation of Irish labourers and servant-girls--all these kept him away. The glamour of Rome was obviously not there.(70, 71)
[/quote]
Yet Pym later reveals not dissimilar thoughts in the mind of one of the more sympathetic characters, the sophisticated and educated Prudence
[quote]
But then she imagined herself sitting on a hard, uncomfortable chair after a day’s work, listening to a lecture by a raw Irish peasant that was phrased for people less intelligent than herself. Better, surely, to go along Farm Street and be instructed by a calm pale Jesuit who would know the answers to all one’s doubts. Then, in the street where she did her shopping there was the Chapel, with a notice outside which said: ALL WELCOME. The minister, the Rev. Bernard Tabb, had the letters B.D.; B.Sc. after his name. The fact that he was a Bachelor of Science might give particular authority to his sermons, Prudence always felt; he might quite possibly know all the answers, grapple boldly with doubt and overcome it because he knew the best and worst of both worlds. He might even tackle evolution and the atomic bomb and make sense of it all. But of course, she thought, echoing Fabian’s sentiments as he walked in the village one just couldn’t go to Chapel; one just didn’t. Not even to those exotic religious meetings advertised on back of the New Statesman, which always seemed to take place in Bayswater.(284,285)
[/quote]
Reading Pym makes this reader wonder if the petty and long lasting nature of the privations after the Second World War played a major role in breaking down (some) of the class structure and gender relations in England. People learned new skills during the war and they called on their bravery to withstand the dangers and the rigours of that time. After the war people were expected to return to their old jobs and their old ways of life as if they had not learned or experienced anything. Women who had held down jobs were expected to get married and settle done. But there weren't enough men around to marry even if the women wanted to do so. And the pettiness of the privations without actual physical danger to ameliorate their sting made people edgy and more likely to be critical and cynical.
The peace, even more than the war, was undermining in the old England much more than threats from foreign country. Men had gone off to fight a war to preserve the England in which they had grown up leaving behind women who were called to do things they never would have done in that old England. England was not conquered but nonetheless the old England was no longer there to return to and many of the women, if not the men, were questioning if they wanted to go back to the way things were before:
[1] All quotations are from Pym, Barbara (1986:1953) Jane and Prudence. Bath, UK: Chivers Press
Sometimes when I finish a book I feel that any book review that did it justice would have to be at least as
Show More
long as the original book.Jane and Prudence falls into that second category of book.
So, to begin by getting some of the business done before moving on to the meat of the review.
This is an excellent book. I feel that on technical points the writing itself falls short of the standard set by Pym in Excellent Women but it surpasses that book in terms of the nuanced exploration of character and the entwined exploration of the themes of class and religion in England in the 1950s and class, gender and food rationing in England in the 1950s.
Warning the first: For those who have yet to read Excellent Women -- one scene in this book containers spoilers about characters in that book.
Warning the second: This is one of those books which should be read without first reading the publisher’s description. For example, that of the Chivers Press edition of the book contains no information that cannot be gleaned without in the first few minutes of reading and mischaracterizes both the major characters, their interactions and what happens to each of them over the course of the story.
Jane and Prudence is set in the post WWII England when much of life still revolves around the problems and irritations that arose from the rationing of food. Rationing began January 8 1940 and continued even after the end of the war. Gradually, over the years, restrictions were dropped on various items such as clothes, chocolates, flour and soap but some items, particularly meat, were still rationed until July 4, 1954. These forced food shortages had the unintended consequence of making people much more consciously aware of how class, gender and social networks impacted who had access to which items.
The importance of meat is signaled early in the story, “people in these days do rather tend to worship meat for its own sake,’ said Jane, as they sat down to supper. ‘When people go abroad for a holiday they seem to bring back with them such a memory of meat.’” [1] (22)
Men, we learn as we read, can not be expected to endure the same dietary hardships as the women around them. For example, Jane and her husband Nicholas are having a meal at a local tea shop.
[quote]
at last Mrs. Crampton emerged from behind the velvet curtain carrying two plates on a tray. She put in front of Jane a plate containing an egg, a rasher of bacon and some fried potatoes cut in fancy shapes, and in front of Nicholas a plate with two eggs and rather more potatoes.
Nicholas exclaimed with pleasure.
‘Oh, a man needs eggs! said Mrs. Crampton, also looking pleased
This insistence on a man’s needs amused Jane. Men needed meat and eggs--well, yes, that might be allowed; but surely not more than women did? Perhaps Mrs. Crampton’s widowhood had something to do with it; possibly she made up for having no man to feed at home by ministering to the needs of those who frequented her café.
Nicholas accepted his two eggs and bacon and the implication that his needs were more important than his wife’s with a certain amount of complacency, Jane thought. But then as a clergyman he had had to get used to accepting flattery and gifts gracefully.. (p. 65)
[/quote]
But, the reader soon learns, Nicholas wasn't getting extra meat just because he was a clergyman:
[quote]
Mrs. Crampton now returned and set down before Mr. Oliver a plate laden with roast chicken and all the proper accompaniments. He accepted it with quite as much complacency as Nicholas had accepted his eggs and bacon and began to eat.
Jane turned away, to save his embarrassment. Man needs bird, she thought. Just the very best, that is what man needs. (67)
[/quote]
Jane isn't the only woman who is consciously (and sardonically) aware that society seemed to feel that it was vitally important that men have their meat:
[quote]
‘Mr. Driver! Mr. Driver!’ Mrs. Arkright came out on to the lawn calling. ‘Your steak’s ready!”
‘Ah, my steak.’ Fabian smiled. ‘You will excuse me, Miss Morrow?’
‘Of course. I should’t like to keep you from your steak. A man needs meat, as Mrs. Crampton and Mrs. Mayhew are always saying.’ She waved her hand in dismissal.
Fabian hurried away, conscious of his need for meat and of the faintly derisive tone of Miss Morrow’s remark, as if there were something comic about a man needing meat. (73, 74)
[/quote]
Pym is also clear-eyed and politely but firmly aware of the class presumptions that underline the religious habits of the British gentry.
One may wonder when Pym allows the reader into the shallow and self-centered “musings” of Fabian Driver if that sharp eye is trained only a particular type of person--someone who is facile and in the end desires social approval more than the approval of God:
[quote]
He walked slowly down the main street, past the collection of old and new buildings that lined it. The Parish Church and the vicarage were at the other end of the village. Here he came to the large Methodist Chapel, but of course one couldn’t go there; none of the people one knew went to chapel, unless out of a kind of amused curiosity. Even if truth were to be found there. A little further on, though, as was fitting, on the opposite side of the road, was the little tin hut which served as a place of worship for the Roman Catholics. Fabian knew Father Kinsella, a good-looking Irishman, who often came into the bar of the Golden Lion for a drink. He had even though of going to his church once or twice, but somehow it had never come to anything. The makeshift character of the building, the certain discomfort that he would find within, the plaster images in execrable taste, the simplicity of Father Kinsella’s sermons intended only for a congregation of Irish labourers and servant-girls--all these kept him away. The glamour of Rome was obviously not there.(70, 71)
[/quote]
Yet Pym later reveals not dissimilar thoughts in the mind of one of the more sympathetic characters, the sophisticated and educated Prudence
[quote]
But then she imagined herself sitting on a hard, uncomfortable chair after a day’s work, listening to a lecture by a raw Irish peasant that was phrased for people less intelligent than herself. Better, surely, to go along Farm Street and be instructed by a calm pale Jesuit who would know the answers to all one’s doubts. Then, in the street where she did her shopping there was the Chapel, with a notice outside which said: ALL WELCOME. The minister, the Rev. Bernard Tabb, had the letters B.D.; B.Sc. after his name. The fact that he was a Bachelor of Science might give particular authority to his sermons, Prudence always felt; he might quite possibly know all the answers, grapple boldly with doubt and overcome it because he knew the best and worst of both worlds. He might even tackle evolution and the atomic bomb and make sense of it all. But of course, she thought, echoing Fabian’s sentiments as he walked in the village one just couldn’t go to Chapel; one just didn’t. Not even to those exotic religious meetings advertised on back of the New Statesman, which always seemed to take place in Bayswater.(284,285)
[/quote]
Reading Pym makes this reader wonder if the petty and long lasting nature of the privations after the Second World War played a major role in breaking down (some) of the class structure and gender relations in England. People learned new skills during the war and they called on their bravery to withstand the dangers and the rigours of that time. After the war people were expected to return to their old jobs and their old ways of life as if they had not learned or experienced anything. Women who had held down jobs were expected to get married and settle done. But there weren't enough men around to marry even if the women wanted to do so. And the pettiness of the privations without actual physical danger to ameliorate their sting made people edgy and more likely to be critical and cynical.
The peace, even more than the war, was undermining in the old England much more than threats from foreign country. Men had gone off to fight a war to preserve the England in which they had grown up leaving behind women who were called to do things they never would have done in that old England. England was not conquered but nonetheless the old England was no longer there to return to and many of the women, if not the men, were questioning if they wanted to go back to the way things were before:
[1] All quotations are from Pym, Barbara (1986:1953) Jane and Prudence. Bath, UK: Chivers Press
Show Less
LibraryThing member PatsyMurray
Simply delightful! Jane and Prudence are such realistic characters, and as always, Pym is so amusing and touching about their foibles.
LibraryThing member nordie
Jane is the older woman in this story, married to a clergyman, who gets assigned to a country parish not far outside London. With her daughter Flora about to start university (Flora is a 2D character, with nary a speaking part, and much consigned to being in the kitchen making pots of tea for
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visitors). Jane is a forgetful woman, with sentences trailing off in the middle, and she's never quite sure she's doing what she should be doing in supporting her husband. However, she's on the lookout for a potential husband for her much younger and more glamorous friend Prudence.Prudence is 29, still single and always finding herself in inappropriate love affairs. She is currently pining after her much older (and very much married) boss, who ignores her potential until it's far too late. Prudence's friendship with Jane, and the regular visits to the parish, allows Prudence to enter in rather more appropriate love affairs.
I know people who *adore* Barbara Pym, and whilst I found it amusing, it was not in the same league as, say, a Dorothy Whipple or a Stevenson, both of whom publish similar books written and set around the same time.
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LibraryThing member wealhtheowwylfing
Pym writes loneliness, the urban/modern condition, and humanity’s oft mistaken attempts at communication and companionship very well. Given that her characters are generally overlooked middle-aged people clinging quietly but desperately to a pretense of gentility, one might assume her stories are
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unhappy. Of course parts of them are, but I get the feeling that her characters are happier by the end of her novels than at the start. They definitely progress, toward intimacy with another person(s) or toward an inner understanding. This book is no exception. Jane is the dreamy, highly educated wife of a vicar; her friend Prudence is an equally highly educated younger woman searching for love. I loved Jane dearly. She’s forever quoting ancient poetry and not setting up for tea and wearing the wrong kind of dress, and she isn’t unhappy about her lapses from femininity one bit. She’s just the sort of person who fuels her mind and heart and lets the rest of the world go to blazes through inattention. Show Less
LibraryThing member tloeffler
Middle-aged Jane, a vicar's wife, and Prudence, at twenty-nine heading toward spinsterhood, share an unlikely friendship based on a tutor/student experience at Oxford. Jane attempts matchmaking, while Prudence pines for her boss, and meanwhile, life goes on. A nice, gentle, easy book.
LibraryThing member leslie.98
Another charming book by Barbara Pym -- this one again deals with the relations between men and women but from the perpective of two friends, one married and one not. I thought that this book was more light-hearted and less satirical than Excellent Women or Less than Angels.
Subjects
Original publication date
1953
Physical description
256 p.
ISBN
1559212268 / 9781559212267