Les romans de Barbara Pym sont célébrés pour leur subtile ironie et leur style exquis, offrant des aperçus profonds dans la danse complexe des coutumes sociales et des relations humaines. Sous la surface de la vie apparemment ordinaire des villages et des banlieues, Pym découvre habilement les désirs cachés et les désespoirs silencieux de ses personnages. Son travail adopte souvent le déguisement d'une comédie douce, mais il est imprégné d'un courant sous-jacent profond, souvent tragique, qui explore les motivations qui animent nos vies. La voix distinctive de Pym capture les nuances de la connexion humaine avec une précision et un esprit remarquables.
"Ianthe, la demoiselle comme il faut, travaille dans une bibliothèque et le rythme routinier sera rompu par un beau jeune homme qui semble s'intéresser beaucoup à elle. Leur "affaire" constitue l'intrigue étonnante de ce roman où les personnages, célibataires endurcis ou amoureux transis, sont décrits avec la plus grande minutie.
A unique autobiography of Barbara Pym, celebrated author of Quartet in Autumn, includes an introduction by Jilly Cooper
A classic comedy of manners from Barbara Pym, the acclaimed author of Quartet in Autumn, Jane and Prudence and Excellent Women
Here, Barbara Mary Crampton Pym sails off into a wickedly comedic farce, focusing on the unsuitable romantic entanglements of a curate and a pretty young girl, both of whom live in the same rooming house, and a starry-eyed university professor and his female student.
It is surely appropriate that anthropologists, who spend their time studying life and behavior in various societies, should be studied in their turn, says Barbara Pym. In a wonderful twist on her subjects, she has written a book inspecting the behavior o
Wilmet Forsyth is well dressed, well looked after, suitably husbanded, good looking and fairly young - but very bored. Her husband Rodney, a handsome army major, is slightly balder and fatter than he once was. Wilmet would like to think she has changed rather less. Her interest wanders to the nearby Anglo-catholic church, where at last she can neglect her comfortable household in the more serious-minded company of three unmarried priests, and, of course, Piers Longridge, a man of an unfathomably different character altogether.
A charming and funny tale of parish life by an author whose many fans include Philip Larkin, Alexander McCall Smith and Jilly Cooper.
Quartet in autumn is the story of four people in late middle-age who work in the same office and who all suffer from loneliness. Poignantly and with humour, Pym takes us through their small lives and the facades they erect to defend themselves against the outside world.
Dulcie Mainwearing is always helping others, but never looks out for herself - especially in the realm of love. Her friend Viola is besotted by the alluring Dr Aylwin Forbes, so surely it isn't prying if Dulcie helps things along? Aylwin, however, is smitten by Dulcie's pretty young niece. And perhaps Dulcie herself, however ridiculous it may be, is falling, just a little, for Aylwin. Once life's little humiliations are played out, maybe love will be returned, and fondly, after all.
This volume includes an early novel and three novellas, which were discovered and published after Barbara Pym's death in 1980.
