Reading Barbara Pym

By closely reading the text of four of Pym’s novels, Some Tame Gazelle, Quartet in Autumn, Excellent Women, and Jane and Prudence, with a unique sensitivity and respect, this book demonstrates at the level of narrative the deceptive power of Pym’s art, which engages issues of loneliness and love and futility and significance and despair and joy, without the ponderousness of so much modern literature.