Jane and Prudence

Rating:
Summary: "I never read anything my mother reads."
Review: "I never read anything my mother reads," said my best friend Tom when we were college students. Although that was a long time ago, I still remember his response when I offered him a copy of a Barbara Pym novel. Such is the far-reaching reputation of this very entertaining writer. However, I vouch for the fact that Pym's novels appeal to a much wider public than our mothers.

Take Jane and Prudence. Jane is a frumpy but bright vicar's wife who would, in another age and novel, enjoy a profitable career in Human Resources Management. Prudence, her close friend from schoolgirl days, is a single woman living in a modest flat in London and working in a dreary office but whose life is anything but dull. She likes fine things, makes up her face artfully and fantasizes about her married employer. Jane and her husband the vicar have recently relocated to a village vicarage where the locals are hard pressed to accept their new neighbors. Prudence comes to visit and is courted by the local Lothario who is ultimately swept up by his rich neighbor's hired companion, leaving Prudence slightly bereft and impelled to dally with her pale, lean co-worker who enjoys hiking.

That's the plot as best as I can describe it, leaving out the small but pretty byroads of church decorating parties, council meetings and office lunches.

Within this precious story is great high comedy, full of irony and wit. The office scenes are hilarious, depicting an inpenetrable hierachy that had me laughing away. The village characters are all distinct and never reduced to stock rustic characters, therefore I was fascinated. The very industrious woman who lands the local but lazy Lothario gives a firm example of "setting one's cap" to winning a mate. Pym likes to depict characters who study anthropology and it's fitting that her people in this story are quite a tribal study in themselves.

Rating:
Summary: "I notice the things one shouldn't."
Review: "Jane and Prudence" are the two main female characters in this delightful Barbara Pym novel. Unworldly, and vaguely distracted Jane is the 41 year-old, well-meaning wife of a country clergyman. Jane is Prudence's former tutor at Oxford, but those days are long gone. Both Jane and Prudence recall--somewhat longingly--their old Oxford days. Prudence, now 29, recalls all her carelessly cast-off suitors, and Jane daydreams of the career she never had. Jane, who has recently transplanted to the country, has visions of herself as some sort of Trollopean character. Jane is happily married, and "yet in a way she's missed something." Jane is constantly trying to control and adjust her imagination as she fumbles her way through whist drives, church and literary society meetings, and afternoons trying to entertain stuffy, snobby church officials.

Jane also compares herself to Jane Austen's Emma, and the comparison is not without merit. Jane attempts to play matchmaker between Prudence and Fabian Driver--a widower who lives in the village. Fabian is handsome "in a rather used-up Byronic way", and Prudence is not the only woman who tries to console the far-from-lonely widower.

This cosy novel of manners is full of the sort of marvelous characters I always find in Pym novels. There's Miss Doggett--a local spinster whose conversation with Jane on the topic of men is very amusing. Miss Doggett does not have a high opinion of the male species--"it was as if she'd heard that men only want one thing, but had forgotten for the moment what it was." There's Miss Bird--a novelist who hogs an entire plate of sandwiches, and the supremely exhausted and repetitive Edward Lyall (Member of Parliament) who never leaves his mother's side. I return to Pym novels again and again, and I never tire of the characters, as they have become old friends. Barbara Pym novels are consistently delightful, and if you enjoy Jane Austen novels, then chances are that you will like Barbara Pym--displacedhuman

Rating:
Summary: "I notice the things one shouldn't."
Review: "Jane and Prudence" are the two main female characters in this delightful Barbara Pym novel. Unworldly, and vaguely distracted Jane is the 41 year-old, well-meaning wife of a country clergyman. Jane is Prudence's former tutor at Oxford, but those days are long gone. Both Jane and Prudence recall--somewhat longingly--their old Oxford days. Prudence, now 29, recalls all her carelessly cast-off suitors, and Jane daydreams of the career she never had. Jane, who has recently transplanted to the country, has visions of herself as some sort of Trollopean character. Jane is happily married, and "yet in a way she's missed something." Jane is constantly trying to control and adjust her imagination as she fumbles her way through whist drives, church and literary society meetings, and afternoons trying to entertain stuffy, snobby church officials.

Jane also compares herself to Jane Austen's Emma, and the comparison is not without merit. Jane attempts to play matchmaker between Prudence and Fabian Driver--a widower who lives in the village. Fabian is handsome "in a rather used-up Byronic way", and Prudence is not the only woman who tries to console the far-from-lonely widower.

This cosy novel of manners is full of the sort of marvelous characters I always find in Pym novels. There's Miss Doggett--a local spinster whose conversation with Jane on the topic of men is very amusing. Miss Doggett does not have a high opinion of the male species--"it was as if she'd heard that men only want one thing, but had forgotten for the moment what it was." There's Miss Bird--a novelist who hogs an entire plate of sandwiches, and the supremely exhausted and repetitive Edward Lyall (Member of Parliament) who never leaves his mother's side. I return to Pym novels again and again, and I never tire of the characters, as they have become old friends. Barbara Pym novels are consistently delightful, and if you enjoy Jane Austen novels, then chances are that you will like Barbara Pym--displacedhuman

Rating:
Summary: a novel of quiet complexity
Review: 'Jane and Prudence' is what I would call a 'universe' novel, rather than a 'things happen' one. Pym draws one into the quietly complex world of her characters. Jane is a charmingly dithery clergyman's wife, deep in her own literary world and consequently always saying and doing not quite the right thing. There is much irony in this novel, especially in the way characters relate to each other. Pym exposes the petty prejudices and selfish scheming manouvres of ordinary people. Although this is not what you'd call a nail-biter, I found 'Jane and Prudence' very engaging, and a pleasure to read.

Rating:
Summary: Sheer bliss, even the 10th time around
Review: What a joy it is to sink into a Barbara Pym novel, especially this one, which is one of my favorites. The eye for detail, the wit, the ability to sketch a character with just a sentence or two, that this author possesses, never fail to delight. I return to her novels every couple of years, and find them to be balm for the soul.

This trip into the English countryside of 50 years ago, with its vicars, teas, and rationing, is a gentle and wondrous escape from current realities. Yet, like all great literature, its insights into human nature is timeless.

Rating:
Summary: Sheer bliss, even the 10th time around
Review: What a joy it is to sink into a Barbara Pym novel, especially this one, which is one of my favorites. The eye for detail, the wit, the ability to sketch a character with just a sentence or two, that this author possesses, never fail to delight. I return to her novels every couple of years, and find them to be balm for the soul.

This trip into the English countryside of 50 years ago, with its vicars, teas, and rationing, is a gentle and wondrous escape from current realities. Yet, like all great literature, its insights into human nature is timeless.

Rating:
Summary: Jane and Prudence is a hilarious novel of British manners.
Review: You need not be an Anglophile to enjoy Jane, the vicar's wife whose literary past has her quoting odd lines of seventeenth century poetry at inappropriate moments, startling her visitors and making her readers giggle. Jane's friend Prudence is all propriety and green eye shadow, but can't seem to find a suitable husband among many suitors, some more colorful than others. A brief but pleasing little novel, sharply written and finely shaped. If you're not already a Pym fan, you'll become one.