First, a disclaimer: I typically do not care to review an entire series at a stretch. Yet when a series flows into each other and there are enough similarities that warrant talking about a series as a unit, then it makes sense to complete a joint review. I’m a picky fantasy reader, as you all know by now. But my sister had reviewed A Natural History of Dragons and called it a novel of manners. Um, yes please. If something warrants a novel of manners […]
The dangers of cauliflower gratin and other lessons from Barbara Pym
Apparently, the last novel of Pym’s I have to read was also the first novel she published in the UK. I basically have jumped around her “canon” and am now reading the first novel last. I was interested to see how her first novel would shape her career, and it’s filled with what would be considered her “trademark” in her novels. Some Tame Gazelle focuses on Belinda and Harriet, two fifty-something sisters who live together, unmarried. Belinda has languished in love–the object of 30 years’ […]
Humanity: less than angels.
I’m winding down to the last Pym novels in my library stack (and that she wrote) and feeling sort of melancholy that I can’t read her again for the first time. Ah, well. It’s the danger of binge-reading a new favorite author. I’m just glad I get to share her here on CBR (and hooray to those of you who are reading her!!!) Pym tackles anthropologists and academics again in Less Than Angels. Here, a love triangle emerges between Tom, a dissertating anthropologist, Catherine, a […]
Love and academia: two subjects ripe for examination
Yay! More Barbara Pym! Aren’t you all excited? [on a serious note, this was a delightful experiment, and I am *so* glad I was determined to “collect” her] This time, the “excellent woman” makes a reappearance and Dulcie Mainwaring (don’t you love the name?) is the protagonist. Shortly after her engagement ends, Dulcie attends an academic conference. There, she meets the wary and reserved Viola Dace, and becomes tangentially acquainted with scholar and presenter Aylwin Forbes. We learn that Viola had once had an affair […]