My Porch

Bits and Bobs (the Jackie Schuman edition)

2013-06-19T06:56:00.002-04:00

More Jackie Schuman covers
One of my favorite parts of Barbara Pym Reading Week was finding out more about Pym cover designer Jackie Schuman and being able to share it on My Porch. I like the process of hunting down hard to find information, but I also like it when my efforts bring joy to others. After my post on the Dutton Pym covers, Gloria DeVidas Kirchheimer, one Jackie's friends (who had been alerted to the post by Jackie's daughter) wrote me a very nice email with examples of work that Jackie had done for her and her mother.

Don't you love the title of this short story collection? I also love how Schuman combined a wallpaper like background in the vein of her Pym covers and the line drawing style she used for her Colette covers.
(Cover design by Jackie Schuman)

(Cover design by Jackie Schuman)

Meeting bloggers in foreign lands
I have written before about meeting book bloggers in the UK and about meeting up with bloggers here in DC. During Pym week, as I was preparing for an unexpected, last minute trip to the Netherlands, Dutch blogger Anna van Gelderen contributed a Pym post. It struck me that most places in the Netherlands are day-trip material given the size of the country and the efficiency of the transit system. So I emailed Anna and asked her if she wanted to meet while I was in Den Haag. Since I was the one with all the time on my hands I hopped on a train and met Anna in the beautiful train station in her town in the northeastern part of the Netherlands.

She took me for a lovely lunch at a hotel that was once a friary. It was a beautiful spot. The weather was nice enough so that we could sit outside in the forecourt with a peaceful view of a churchyard (free of gravestones). I had delicious mushroom ravioli and we spent a lot of time forgetting to talk about books. We did, however, talk about books long enough to bond over a shared lack of interest in modernist writing and a certain amount of loathing of a couple of authors.

Now that I think of it, John and I also met up with a blogger when we visited Thailand in 2010. And of course I almost met JoAnn last month in Ithaca. Common wisdom says that the cyber world distances us from the real world. It certainly can, but I have had the opposite experience. Next time you travel, think of who you might meet along the way.

Books read recently

Angel Pavement by J.B. Priestley
I loved this book. When I bought an edition just like the one at left, I did so just because it had such a great cover and was about London. Had no idea if it would actually be enjoyable to read. It was. It painted such an interesting picture of life in a London office in the late 1920s. It could be a Persephone for boys. There is a lot of dry, subtle humor as well.

The Autobiography of the Queen by Emma Tennant
An interesting, though not necessarily original premise of the Queen walking away from her job. The first 20 or so pages were kind of delightful, but then it just became too implausible to be enjoyable. It made me want to write my own Queen abdicates fantasy.

An Unsuitable Attachment by Barbara Pym
Since I got on a plane halfway through Barbara Pym Reading week, it seemed appropriate to take along some Pym. Usually on a long flight I get distracted. Meals, in-flight entertainment, sleeping, other books, crosswords, and just general discomfort tucking my 6'2" frame into a doll's chair. But Pym made it all speed by. I read this cover to cover on the flight to the Netherlands. It was, not surprisingly, delightful.

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
I had seen the movie years ago but never read the book. If not for an online glossary of the made up words peppered throughout the book I never would have made it through the first two pages. After a while one no longer feels the need to look up every strange word, but sometimes my contextual guesses were wrong. I don't really get books that are so violent. Less graphic than American Psycho, but I just don't get this kind of violence. I know the whole point of ACO relates to violence, but I still don't feel like I need it described.

The Widower's Tale by Julia Glass
This is the first Glass novel I have read where I didn't feel the need to keep a running list of implausible or inaccurate details. This isn't to say there weren't any in this book, but it is the first time I found the plot and writing good enough to not notice the mistakes. Or maybe they were just far fewer and less egregious. I always enjoy a book where lives are transformed generally for the better.

Pym Week Giveaway Winners

2013-06-18T06:58:00.000-04:00

Except for the cover contest, the winners were chosen by random draw from all of the people who either commented on My Porch or Fig and Thistle during Pym week or who did a post on their own blog.

Winners, please email me with your mailing addresses. onmyporch [at] hotmail [dot] com

Cover Contest
We didn't have much of a response to our cover contest so I am especially pleased that the one person who entered made two really great covers. It would have been terrible to give a prize to a bad design. So a Barbara Pym tote bag will be going to Melwyk at The Indextrious Reader. Incidentally, I didn't read An Unsuitable Attachment until after she submitted her covers. I now know how appropriate the card catalog theme is for this novel.

(There should be an honorable mention for Simon from Stuck-in-a-Book. He made three covers for Some Tame Gazelle, but he submitted after the deadline.)

Barbara in the Bodleian by Yvonne Cocking
Mary at Mary's Library will be getting this wonderful newly published book.

The Barbara Pym Cookbook
Miss Bibliophile, whose post on Crampton Hodnet I seemed to have missed in my recaps. Sorry about that.

Tea Towels Times Three
I have three Barbara Pym tea towels to give away. They go to:

Brona Joy at Brona's Books

Non-blogger but big time commentor Susan from TX

Liz at Adventures in full-time self-employment

The Pymnal
This compilation of Pym-related hymns goes to Vicki at Bibliolathas.

Now with added Pym!

2013-06-09T05:16:00.003-04:00

Blogger works funny on my iPad which is all I have with me in the Netherlands. It won't let me scroll down in the draft form of my previous post so I can't add all the great last minute Pym posts. So I will try and post them here in a new entry.

Brona Joy reviews An Academic Question.

LyzzyBee posts not one, but two reviews. No Fond Return of Love and Quartet in Autumn.

Vicki at Biblioathas reads her first five (!) Pym's and finds a new favorite author.

Gaskella at Annabel's House of Books chose Pym's most serious novel as her first Pym read. Now she is looking forward to reading lighter Pym.

Simon at Stuck-in-a-Book reads Some Tame Gazelle and designs a few covers.

Bibliographic Manifestations reads and likes her first Pym. This is what I love about reading weeks, it was another reading week post that prompted her to pick up a Pym. yay!

Hayley at Desperate Reader "finally finished" Excellent Women.

JoAnn at Lakeside Musing is giving away a copy of Some Tame Gazelle.

Pym Week comes to a close

2013-06-08T03:26:00.000-04:00

No clever way to end our week of all things Pym. It’s been wonderful seeing so many different people share their Pym experiences. Some of you were old friends with Barbara and some of you had never even heard of her before. For me, my interest in Pym has increased exponentially. Late last fall when Amanda suggested we do something to recognize Pym for her centenary, it seemed like a great idea, but to be honest, my interest in Pym and her work was just slightly more than average. As I looked around the Internet for more information on Pym, I soon came across the website for the Barbara Pym Society and was particularly intrigued by notice for their March 2013 annual conference in Boston. Once I made the decision to go to the conference, things really started to snowball.

In preparation for the conference I reread Crampton Hodnet, Jane and Prudence, and A Glass of Blessings. What I discovered was that rereading Pym is almost better than reading her for the first time. Without wondering where the plot is going, one can really focus on Pym’s amazing ability to paint a scene and create wonderful characters. My fascination with Pym leaped forward considerably. Then I got to the Pym conference in March and was delighted to meet so many friendly people with so much in common and to do nothing for 48 hours except talk about Pym. I am not sure at what point over the weekend that my interest leaned toward the fanatic. Since then I read No Fond Return of Love for the first time which only increased my devotion. And I have never looked forward to a trans-Atlantic flight as much as I did earlier this week. Not just because I was going to visit good friends in the Netherlands, but because I would have almost 8-hours of uninterrupted reading time. Now normally, sleep, inflight entertainment, and general discomfort and ennui can keep me from reading on a flight as much as I want to. But this time, with An Unsuitable Attachment in my hand, the flight literally flew by and I read the whole thing cover to cover.

Thanks to everyone who participated. It was a lot of fun interacting with all of you over our common interest.

I am particularly happy that through Twitter and all the different bloggers who posted this week, we have introduced Pym to a lot of folks who might not otherwise have ever come across her work.

I have lots of prizes to give away. A couple of books, tea towels, a tote bag, etc. I am going to wait to announce winners until the upcoming week when I have better Internet access and I have a chance to confer with Amanda.

In the meantime, here is a recap of Pym posts over the past three days. If I missed yours, as usual, please let me know.

Harriet Devine reviews No Fond Return of Love

Lyn at I Prefer Reading writes about food in Pym novels and the Barbara Pym Cookbook

Sunday Taylor at the beautiful Ciao Domenica gives us a great overview of Barbara and her career

The Indextrious Reader comes up with two great Pym covers

For a look at A Very Private Eye, Barbara's autobiography, check out Heavenali

Alex in Leeds is giving a way a copy of A Very Private Eye, make sure you sign up by tomorrow

Virago posts a piece by Hazel Holt about her friendship with Barbara

Less than Angels made a fan of first time reader She Reads Novels

Stuart Aken reviews Excellent Women

Author Harrison Solow writes about her introduction to Pym

Clothes in Books covers No Fond Return of Love and takes on Excellent Women as well

Geranium Cat answers An Academic Question

JoAnn at Lakeside Musing makes cauliflower cheese! (and reviews Some Tame Gazelle)

The Indextrious Reader pours some tea

Bioengineering a new Barbara Pym

2013-06-07T00:37:00.000-04:00

Recently @chaosbogey tweeted asking if there were any 21st-century descendants of Barbara Pym. I read so little new fiction that I am not one to come up with much of an answer. What do you think? Are there any authors currently being published that make you think of Barbara Pym? Or what 20th-century authors who came after Pym or may have been influenced by Pym?

The question got me to thinking like an Amazon algorithm "If you liked Barbara Pym you should try..." Could we clone Barbara? If you had to describe Pym by naming authors who would you name?

My thoughts run along these lines:

Jane Austen: I think the critics are right. Pym is like a 20th-century Austen. Pym's style, while contemporary to her time, is not unlike Austen's and her observational skills and her attention to detail and nuance are certainly Austenesque.

Anthony Trollope: Pym's witty descriptions of ecclesiastical comings and and goings is more than a little evocative of Trollope's Barchester series.

Iris Murdoch: Pym's work has more humor and her characters are less serious than Murdoch's. Not to mention the fact that Pym's characters, while not necessarily prudish, don't engage in endless rounds of adulterous bed hopping as they seem to in Murdoch's books.

Anita Brookner: The academic interests of many of Pym's female characters makes one think of similar characters in Brookner. Except Brookner's heroines, who were all written after Pym's death, lead far bleaker lives than any Pym character that I have so far come across. And although Brookner is infinitely more serious, her characters share an introspectiveness (introspection?) that is not uncommon in Pym.

What say you?

In a BBC radio broadcast from April 1978 Pym herself discussed some authors who may have had an influence on her writing. At the age of 16 she was convinced she wanted to write a book just like Aldous Huxley's Crome Yellow. After studying at Oxford Pym discovered Elizabeth von Arnim and recognized that her work might be more a more appropriate model for her own efforts than Huxley's. Not long after that she encountered Ivy Compton-Burnett's fiction and for a time took to writing letters to a friend in ICB's distinctive dialogue heavy manner. She also gives a nod to Austen and Trollope and notes that many compare her work to theirs. But she is a little sheepish about agreeing.

But what novelist of today would dare to claim that she was influenced by such masters of our craft? Certainly all who read and love Jane Austen may try to write with the same economy of language, even try to look at their characters with her kind of detachment, but that is as far as any "influence" could go.

Bringing Barbara to the small screen

2013-06-06T01:27:00.000-04:00

Long time readers of My Porch will remember a few years ago when I fantasized about seeing a Pym novel adapted to the big screen. I even included a wish list of actors I thought would make great Pym characters (Fiona Shaw, Fenella Woolgar, Imelda Staunton, etc.). As I was looking for a picture of Sophie Thompson, I stumbled across her sister Emma. In addition to Sophie, it seemed natural that Emma would also make a good Pym character so I included her as well. Incidentally, I also included a few pictures of the incredibly handsome Mr. Emma Thompson, Gregory Wise just because, well, just because he is incredibly handsome. But now, having just read No Fond Return of Love for the first time, it occurs to me that Wise would make a great Aylwin Forbes.

But, I digress.

It is quite amazing to me that there hasn't been any adaptations of Pym's work to the big or small screens. Not likely to be blockbusters sure, but certainly exactly the kind of thing for those that like that kind of thing. Rather than just fantasize about bring Pym to life on screen, television producer Linda McDougall decided to do something about it.

McDougall is a British TV producer who has made many well received documentaries with subjects as diverse as Margaret Thatcher and Cot Death. She has twice won awards from the Royal Television Society and is the author of Cherie, the perfect life of Mrs Blair and Westminster Women. McDougall also writes for The Times (London) and the Daily Mail.

What she did and how it ended up is best left to her own words. So I turn over today's Pym post to guest blogger Linda McDougall.

In 1982 my husband and I bought number 9 Brooksville Avenue in Queen’s Park in northwest London. I was then a very busy producer/director on This Week, a much watched British current affairs show which could sometimes score nine million viewers. Work was stressful and I was away a great deal. When I was home the demands of four mouthy teenagers kept me firmly focused on the goings on inside number nine. It was quite a few weeks, or even months, before I noticed a blue plaque nestling under the first floor bay window on number 42 on the other side of the street.

Barbara Pym, novelist, 1913-1980 lived here 1960-72

Ours seemed such a modest collection of Edwardian semi- detached brick houses that I couldn’t believe anyone famous had come anywhere near it.

I had never heard of Barbara Pym but I had been a passionate reader of novels since my childhood in New Zealand. My mother and grandmother changed their library books every week, and I scored my own library card when I was five. The habit had lasted so I chose a couple of Pym novels from the Queen’s Park library and took them with me on my next shoot. Television production in the 1980s was still very much a male preserve, especially in news and current affairs, accompanied so a bit of female company was very necessary. I was delighted by Pym from the first page. I think it was Jane and Prudence. I felt as if I had taken a huge box of chocolates on location and I was going to be able to keep them all to myself.

Thirty years have gone by and wherever I go, I still make sure I have a Pym novel tucked in my bag. I’ve changed, Pym hasn’t. But these days rather than a chocolate feast she provides me with a glass of my favourite New Zealand sauvignon blanc: dry, cold, sophisticated and delicious. How I love the irony and the wry eye.

In 2009 when I’d given up working abroad all the time, I discovered the English arm of the Barbara Pym Society based at St Hilda’s College Oxford. For the first couple of years of my membership I was unusually quiet but very admiring as I watched many excellent women enjoying and honouring Barbara and her work at the annual UK conference. There was some discussion in 2011 about Barbara’s centenary, then only two years ahead. Without thinking it through I jumped to my feet, confessed I was a TV producer, and suggested that Barbara needed at the very least a scripted comedy series with accompanying documentary at prime time on the BBC to celebrate her centenary. “Oh yes!” cried around two hundred Pymsters in unison and I promised I would do what I could to persuade the BBC to commission a series to remember Barbara Pym.

Now, as we mark Barbara’s 100^th birthday, I have to admit to humiliating failure. I tried and tried and tried again, but my every attempt was met with the same sort of rejection Barbara had suffered for 17 years when her work went out of fashion in the early nineteen sixties. I started out with high hopes. I fixed a meeting with a good friend who is a talented producer of scripted comedy series. I had employed him to produce a satirical political awards show when he was still in his twenties. He went on to become a commissioning editor at the BBC, and is now the managing director of one of the most powerful and successful production companies in the UK. Together we developed an idea for a six-part series around the Oxford based humour in Jane and Prudence and Crampton Hodnet. We would hire a brilliant script-writer. All the best comedy writers were discussed. We even whispered behind our hands about Alan Bennett. I dreamed all the time of Miranda Hart playing Barbara in the documentary/ biopic.

I had offered myself to make the documentary. Much grander folk would put the scripted comedy series together. It took weeks to write the pitch. I was certain we would succeed but I got nervous. For the first time in my life I started filming before anyone agreed to broadcast the programme. I was terrified that in a documentary where all the important characters were in their eighties or nineties we could wake up one morning and find that some of them had gone to join Barbara.

I became friendly with Hazel Holt. Fifteen years younger than Barbara, Hazel is a Cambridge English graduate and had been one of her close friends. Unable to find meaningful work in journalism, Hazel ended up sharing a sharing a room with Barbara and becoming her deputy at the Africa Institute. The two spent their working days together until Barbara’s retirement. After Barbara’s early death, Hazel began her writing career co-editing A Very Private Eye, an annotated volume of Pym’s letters and papers, with Barbara’s sister Hilary Pym Walton. Hazel also went on to complete, edit, and tidy Pym’s unfinished work. She also wrote A Lot to Ask, a marvelous biography of her best friend. In her sixties she wrote her first novel about Sheila Malory, a West Country investigator with Pym’s eager curiosity put to use solving crimes. Since the early 1990s she has been turning out one a year and they are published and enjoyed on both sides of the Atlantic.

When I first met Hazel in 2011 she was recently widowed and had moved into a small modern bungalow in Taunton, Somerset with her beloved cat Flip, to be near her son the novelist Tom Holt and his family. At the time her health and Flip’s were a cause for concern. Looking back I can see that she was still grieving for her husband and getting used to living alone on a soulless estate after a happy marriage in a seventeenth century country house with grounds. So I persuaded my son Jonathan Mitchell, an experienced documentary maker, to film a long chat between Hazel and me about her life with her friend Barbara.

Back at the BBC things were moving slowly, and mostly backwards. I was told an executive at BBC2 was a Pym fan, but she liked the later, more serious novels rather than the early comedy of Jane and Prudence and Crampton Hodnet. Still, we had high hopes at her promise to ponder for a while on the project. The result, however, was that the project was moved from scripted comedy to the drama department where my producer friend and I had no contacts. The idea for a Pym project still hanging on, but our proposal, thousands of words with just the right photographs, and a star cast list dropped out of the front line and probably now lies behind some virtual filing cabinet ready to be digitally rediscovered in time for Barbara’s bicentenary.

Undeterred, I began writing to senior people I knew across the BBC and literary London to see if I could get the documentary off the ground. Total failure. Don’t get me wrong. There may well be Pym fans out there but it seems my passion for Pym was not shared by industry movers and shakers. A high profile documentary boss said Pym did nothing for him and maybe I should talk to a friend of his who had just published a popular love story about an old couple. I wasn’t smart enough to work out why.

I once made a documentary with a British novelist who is grand enough to publish pieces in the New York Review of Books and sits on the board of the London Review of Books. I emailed him and suggested I might write a piece for the London Review which might spark some interest in Barbara for her anniversary and get the documentary off the ground.

“I'm not very up on Barbara Pym. I'm just gay enough to want to read them, but not gay enough to have! But I'll mention your story to the LRB and see if they bite. “

Of course they didn’t.

By now I had become so determined to make the documentary and found so many wonderful reminiscences about Barbara that I started filming again.

There’s Frances Kendrick in her mid nineties, a former prison governor who was a life-long friend of Barbara. The two met in the Wrens when they were both posted to Whitehall after World War II. She has intriguing stories of her life with Barbara. Frances didn’t marry until she was in her forties so she shared a lot of female single life with Barbara and Hilary.

There’s Julian Glover the actor. He’s in Game of Thrones. He was a boy when his father C.Gordon Glover had a brief fling with Barbara. Glover’s mother Honor Wyatt, a BBC producer and another lifelong friend of Barbara, was furious with her ex husband. How dare he misuse her dearest friend? Julian remembers it all.

And finally, and most intriguing of all there’s Skipper, the last love of Barbara’s life. A gay man, now 84, he lives on a remote island in the Bahamas. “Why do so many women fall in love with homosexuals?” He sighed, and began to tell me the story of his relationship with Barbara.

For the first time in my fifty year career I have filmed a documentary which won’t be broadcast, but somehow I feel I owe it to Barbara. It will have its first showing at the British Pym Conference on August 31st and then it will be available on DVD.

Pym Post for Days 3 and 4

2013-06-05T06:22:00.001-04:00

Today marks the beginning of the second half of Barbara Pym Reading Week so I thought I would take a minute to make a few housekeeping announcements.

First up is that Amanda is having the week from hell with two of her children coming down with acute maladies that required trips to the emergency room. I believe they are both on the mend and are expected to be fine, but the result is that Amanda's busy world suddenly got much busier. So we may not hear too much from her over the next few days.

Second, I have to move the entire Barbara Pym Reading Week office to the Netherlands today. I am taking advantage of some frequent flyer miles to visit friends in the Hague so the remainder of the reading week will be administered from Dutch soil. The only real consequence is that I am not doing a real post today and the mailing of the prizes will have to wait until I am back in the U.S. But hey, winners can't be choosers.

Third, don't forget there is a make your own Pym cover art contest. Submit via email or link in a comment by 6 AM U.S. Eastern Daylight Time on June 7th. Get creative and make a cover image for a Pym novel. Extra points go to those who make it thematic to a specific novel. Multiple entries are acceptable. Paint, draw, sculpt, do a collage, manipulate a photo, you name it, just make sure you put some creativity and originality into your entry.
And finally, if I have missed any of your Pym posts from June 3 or 4, please let me know.

Blog Posts

I am not sure Barbara would approve of my choice of expressions, but I have to say it: OMG. I just came across the blog Optimal Indexing. The most amazing thing is not that it references Pym, but that the blog exists at all. It is like the characters in No Fond Return of Love have entered the digital age. I wonder if that means they limit themselves to cyberstalking or if they still do it the old fashioned Pym way.

Somehow I missed the Indextrious Reader's TWO posts on Pym. Post the first is Mel's story of how she met Miss Pym and post the second features some really delicious looking cucumber sandwiches.

I also missed Adventures in full-time self-employment's post about putting on a Pym-like frock and cardy and heading to Heavenali's tea party.

I am not sure if this blogger knows about Barbara Pym Reading Week but she has a great blog that accompanies her class Miss Charlotte Bronte Meets Miss Barbara Pym.

Read the Gamut prepares for her entry into the world of Pym.

Indextrious Reader reads An Unsuitable Attachment and may have found her new favorite Pym.

Lyn at I Prefer Reading also gives us her take on An Unsuitable Attachment and has an edition I have never seen before.

Mary convinces me I need to get my hands on a copy of Felicity and Barbara Pym by Harrison Solow.

At least one literary soul has been saved. Barbara Pym Reading Week has made a convert out of Brona Joy.

Alex in Leeds takes her Folio Society edition of Excellent Women (with color illustrations!) for a spin.

Elisabeth at The Dirigible Plum, a long time fan discovers an early Pym she hadn't read before.

After a five-year hiatus, Lizzy's Literary Life returns to Pym by reading Excellent Women.

JoAnn at Lakeside Musing, unsuspectingly drawn in to reading another Pym this week, entices her readers to do the same with A Few Green Leaves.

Karen K. at Books and Chocolates reviews No Fond Return of Love.

Lisa May at TBR313 reviews Quartet in Autumn.

Anbolyn at Gudrun's Tights also gives us a review of Quartet in Autumn.

New mom Melanie at Meli-Mello walks to the store to lay in some Pym but finds herself distracted by life.

Cosy Books has a link to the wonderful 1978 Desert Island Discs broadcast with Pym.

Yours truly reviews No Fond Return of Love.

I must say, I am particularly proud of my efforts to expand the digital footprint of the late Jackie Schuman, cover artist for Pym's U.S. editions.

My new favorite Barbara Pym novel

2013-06-04T11:50:00.001-04:00

Out of the six Pym novels I have read, Some Tame Gazelle has been my hands down favorite since I read it in 2009. But now that I have read seven Pym novels, I must say that No Fond Return of Love has replaced STG in the number one spot. I should add, however, that NFRL's primacy could be short lived. I have a feeling if I reread STG it might climb back to number one. But for now, I will let No Fond Return of Love enjoy its well earned spot at the top.

Published in 1961, No Fond Return of Love was the last Pym novel published before the dark ages descended and Jonathan Cape and other publishers deemed Pym's work not commercially viable. Maybe it was the incongruity of Pym's world and the swinging sixties. Indeed while reading NFRL I found Pym's occasional descriptions of beehives and short skirts to be a little jarring. Mind you, not poorly written, or inauthentic, but just out of place against my perception of the Pymsian universe I have made up in my head. Given that I am inclined toward sensible ladies drinking tea rather than the visual and cultural chaos of Carnaby Street, this is hardly surprising.

After meeting at an academic conference, Dulcie Mainwaring and Viola Dace, two educated but underemployed single women find themselves stalking the strikingly handsome Aylwin Forbes, one of the learned authors who spoke (and fainted) at the conference. We discover almost immediately that Viola has had some sort of romantic entanglement with Aylwin and is still carrying a torch for him, but it isn't until later that we find out that Viola is the reason Aylwin's wife has recently left him. If we believe Viola, there was someting meaningful between them. If we believe Aylwin, he merely meant to thank Viola with a kiss for creating the index for one of his books. (No doubt the truth likes somewhere in the middle.)

The two women stalking Aylwin unfolds rather subtley and in a way that is somewhat surprising given their sensible, decorous personalities. And watching that happen is one of the great pleasures of this novel. It is easy to see why some refer to Pym as a 20th century Jane Austen, No Fond Return of Love has its share of vicars, gossip, and even a trip to the seaside town where folks bump into each other.

Many of the things that so endear Pym's fans to her work are present here: incredibly precise and concise attention to manners, food, clothing, and emotions; witty, trenchant observations of the social and professional workings of the worlds of literature, scholarship, and the Church of England; and women. We read about and believe in her well drawn male characters, but ultimately Pym's is a woman's world. They may be weak or strong or somewhere in between, but they are always authentic. While Pym may lean towards making her female characters more independent minded one rarely feels she is judging any of her women--or men for that matter. Pym's preference for observation rather than judgment may be a result of her years working for anthropology related organizations, just as the other characteristics common in her work were no doubt drawn from her own milieu.

If you haven't read any Pym yet, I think No Fond Return of Love is a wonderful place to start.

[Incidentally, the copy of NFRL I read was the new reissue of the novel from Open Road Media who also publish e-versions of the work. I'm so glad I bought a copy when I was at the Pym Society Conference in March because I only just found another edition of this title which are a little hard to find on this side of the Atlantic. But more importantly, the Open Road paperback editions are quite lovely. The covers and the paper feel good to the touch, the type is clear and fresh, and the covers don't try and make Pym look like chick-lit.]

Uncovering the cover artist

2013-06-03T05:06:00.000-04:00

Long before I knew who Barbara Pym was, I knew what her books looked like. The American hardcover editions were all published by E.P. Dutton and featured distinctive cover art with repeating patterns evocative of wallpaper. I remember shelving those Duttons in high school in the late 1980s when I worked at the local library in my small hometown in central Minnesota. Over the years I would bump into them at other libraries as I browsed for reading material. When I decided to give Pym a go in 2002, I remember thinking to myself that I was finally going to read one of those books with the memorable covers. Happily, the rather shabby West End Library here in DC had a shelf of them just waiting for me.

As I began buying copies of Pym novels over the past few years, I purchased whatever was at hand so that I could read them. But as the mishmash of different editions started to pile up I was drawn to the Dutton covers. Not just because their uniform style appealed to my mild OCD, but I felt graphic artist Jacqueline Schuman best captured the spirit of Pym. Michael Adams at Open Letters Monthly has mused that, at least for those of us in the U.S., Schuman's work made becoming a Pym fan "not only emotionally satisfying, but aesthetically pleasing, too."

I've recently managed to collect all of Pym's novels in the Dutton editions.

Intrigued by those Dutton covers I went on a Google hunt to find out more about their creator Jacqueline "Jackie" Schuman. The Googs came up with quite a few credits for these Pyms and other book covers designed by Schuman. Most notable is the wonderful Colette series published under the Noonday imprint by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. It was a delight to find out that the old copy of The Ripening Seed sitting on my shelf was one of Schuman's designs..

But beyond those artwork credits, there was no information about Schuman anywhere. Assuming she lived in the New York area and assuming she was of a certain age I called a Jackie Schuman I found in the white pages but she turned out not to be the Jackie Schuman I was looking for. I called Penguin USA (Dutton's publishing overlord) and much to my chagrin they don't have an archivist who could help me out. (By the way, wouldn't that be a fantastic job, and a rather Pymisan one: archivist at a giant publishing house with lots of legacy imprints? The actual primary resources may not even exist anymore, but one can fantasize...) I then spoke with a very helpful reference librarian at the Rhode Island School of Design who couldn't find anything. I also emailed a reference librarian at the Library of Congress who did find a reference to her in a directory of women in advertising. (I haven't made it over there yet to read the entry for Schuman.)

Then it occurred to me to see if the New York Times online had any items that referenced Schuman. Within about an hour of doing that New York Times search, I was on the phone with Jackie's daughter Kathy Schuman who was happy to talk about her mother's life and work.

Jackie was born Jacqueline Wilsdon on May 3, 1935 in Windsor, England and lived with her parents at 19 Worple Close in Harrow. During World War II, she was sent out of London to live in the country away from the dangers of the Blitz. Not long after the war Jackie and her mother emigrated to the U.S. arriving in New York on February 8, 1947 on an American Overseas Airlines flight. Kathy says that her mother was teased for her English accent and quickly went about adopting an American accent that would last the rest of her life. Jackie attended the High School of Music and Art, better known in New York simply as Music and Art. At age 16 in 1951--around the time Pym was working on Excellent Women and Jane and Prudence,--Jackie spent two months in England visiting her father.

After high school Jackie attended Cooper Union at night while working during the day. In her early career she was on the staff at the advertising firm Ogilvy and Mather, and then later worked at Doubleday and Co., Harper and Row, Viking Press, and Grossman Publishers. Jackie was married to oboist Henry Schuman but the couple divorced when Kathy, their only child, was still young.

In 1972 she struck out on her own and did freelance work for most of the major New York publishing houses until her death in 2001. Kathy says her mother always did her work the old fashioned way, drawing and lettering by hand and cutting and pasting by literally cutting and pasting. By the time computers were in widespread use in graphic design Jackie felt she was old enough and advanced enough in her career that it she didn't need to learn the technology.

Jacqueline "Jackie" Schuman in the 1970s in front of one of her paintings.
(photo courtesy of Kathy Schuman)

When she wasn't working, Jackie was an avid reader, a music and opera fan (and a friend of New York Times music critic Anthony Tommasini), sewed, made non-traditional patchwork quilts, and took and developed photographs. In the 1970s she did some abstract paintings but later decided she didn't like them and destroyed all but three of her pieces.

Jackie died of cancer on July 20, 2001 at the age of 66 (incidentally the same age as Pym when she died of breast cancer in 1980). Given that Schuman died at a time when the Internet was not quite the catch-all that it is today, it was easy to understand why she didn't leave much of a digital footprint. It seems appropriate that as we celebrate the work of Pym, an artist whose work almost disappeared, that we recognize another artist whose work shouldn't disappear.

1978 (written 1949-51, published UK 1952)

1978 (written 1973-76, published UK 1977)

1979 (written 1963-69, first published UK 1978)

1980 (written 1953-54, first published UK 1955)

1980 (written 1955-56, first published UK 1958)

1980 (written 1977-79, first published UK 1980)

1981 (written 1950-52, first published UK 1953)

1982 (written 1957-60, first published UK 1961)

1982 (written 1960-65, first published UK 1982)

1983 (written 1935-50, first published UK 1950)

1985 (written 1939-40, first published UK 1985)

1986 (written 1970-71, published UK 1986)

1987 (written 1936-38, published UK 1987)

The covers for the Moyer Bell editions and the recently issued Open Road Media editions of Pym's novels seem like a nod to Schuman's work.

Moyer Bell. If anyone has this book leave a comment and let me know who designed the cover.

Open Road Media has paperback and electronic editions with covers designed by Mimi Bark.

Virago's reissue. Appealing to a younger audience?
Cover art by Jessie Ford.

Harper and Row Perennial Library edition cover design by Fred Marcellino

The original UK first edition.
(photo: John Atkinson Fine and Rare Books)

1984 Jackie Schuman

Jackie Schuman designed the background art, Neil Stuart designed the jacket, Christine Rodin hand tinted the photograph.

I think this may be my favorite Pym cover by Schuman.

More Schuman covers can be seen here.

Design your own Pym cover art!
Don't forget about our cover contest. Submit via email or link in a comment by 6 AM U.S. Eastern Daylight Time on June 7th. Get creative and make a cover image for a Pym novel. Extra points go to those who make it thematic to a specific novel. Multiple entries are acceptable. Paint, draw, sculpt, do a collage, manipulate a photo, you name it, just make sure you put some creativity and originality into your entry.

Pym Post for Days 1 and 2

2013-06-02T21:08:00.000-04:00

So many fun things going on today. Here is a recap of all the Pym posts that have popped up over the past two days. If I missed yours please leave a comment or email me at onmyporch [at] hotmail [dot] come.

Blog Posts

Amanda at Fig and Thistle describes getting over her own cool self and letting Pym into her life.

Audrey at Books as Food mentions the restorative/healing power of a Pym novel and she gives us lots of wonderful background behind the writing of Some Tame Gazelle before she comments on her own experience with the novel.

MarysLibrary introduces us to Pym and mentions a Yahoo literature group (a spin-off of a Trollope group!) that has been focusing on Pym.

Leticia at Spectrum of Perspectives paints a lovely picture of her friendship with Barbara Pym.

Claire the Captive Reader shows us a fantastic 1990s cover for Quartet in Autumn, that looks like it could have been a presentation board for a 1970s campaign to raise funds for a new library.

Lyn at I Prefer Reading provides links to three of her reviews (Excellent Women, Jane and Prudence, and Less than Angels), but she also mentions listening to Pym books...tell us more about that, Lyn.

Harriet Devine posts a review of Jane and Prudence.

Anna van Gelderen spreads the Pym gospel to the Netherlands and other parts of the Dutch-speaking world.

Alex in Leeds writes about her first date with Pym and Some Tame Gazelle.

Elecrtric Witch declares The Sweet Dove Died as "THE greatest camp work in history".

Kaggsysbookishramblings is listening to Barbara on Desert Island Discs and reveiwed A Glass of Blessings.

Victoria Corby discovers Barabara Pym's books.

Frances at Nonsuch Book reviews Jane and Prudence.

Heavenali gives us her thougths on No Fond Return of Love.

Amanda and her kids bake up a birthday treat for Barbara.

Pym fan Kerry at Pickle Me This (I love that blog title) bakes Barbara a cake and reviews Excellent Women.

Pym sends Hayley at Desparate Reader to church.

Valerie buys all Pym's e-books in one fell swoop.

Other links

There was a wonderful piece in The Awl on Pym's centenary.

A nice, if a bit shallow, shout out in The Guardian.

Open Road Media have done a mini video documentary on Pym's centenary.

Philip Hensher toasts Barbara Pym in The Telegraph.

Raina Lipsitz write about Patron Saint of Quiet Lives at Ploughshares.

orna B Raz writes that archival material suggests that Pym was a Nazi sympathizer. (Yikes.)

Here, the same orna B Raz explains why she Pym is worth writing about.

Having Tea With Miss Pym (and a Birthday giveaway)

2013-06-02T00:03:00.000-04:00

[Later this evening, I will post a recap of Pym links from Days 1 and 2 of Barbara Pym Reading Week.]

Today Heavenali is hosting a virtual tea to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Barbara Pym's birth. Folks from around the world are sitting down to a special tea today to honor the life and work of Miss Pym. Amanda had a great idea to bake something from The Barbara Pym Cookbook to mark the occasion, this seemed like a fantastic idea (like her idea for the reading week in the first place) so I am following suit.

Not being English, I have always been fascinated by English cakes. You know, the kind that one often sees in films that are eaten with the hand and not a fork. Solid looking wedges kept in tins for god knows how long. Many in this country would think of the holiday fruitcake as being an example of this, but there are many other kinds that have popped up over the years in my Anglophilic reading and viewing frenzy. One of my favorite movie scenes of all time is from Howard's End where Margaret and Helen Schlegel ply Leonard Bast with cake in their drawing room. There is one round cake in that scene that always fascinates me. And of course there are years of Mrs. Bridges' various cakes--especially her cherry cake--that I have always wanted to try. In reality I don't like nuts in cakes so there are probably many English cakes that I would not like. But that doesn't stop me from being fascinated.

The Barbara Pym Cookbook

I wanted to choose something from the Pym cookbook that would be one of those cakes that gets pulled out of a tin to be served to an unexpected guest. The one from the cookbook that stood out for that purpose was the Parkin cake. One thing you need to understand about this cookbook is that it is more of a literary gift than a serious cookbook. After Pym's death her sister Hilary and Honor Wyatt seemingly decided to capitalize on Barbara's popularity by producing a cookbook that featured recipes for food featured in her novels. To give you an example, the lead up to the Parkin cake recipe is an extended quote from Crampton Hodnet in which, on a wet July afternoon, Mrs Cleveland frets about what to serve old Mrs. Killigrew who she feels obligated to invite in out of the cold for tea. She asks Anthea "Is there any cake in the house?" The cookbook goes on to say "If someone had thought to make a parkin, that is a very good cake for keeping." In other words, this cake was never mentioned in any Pym book and Pym never necessarily made such a cake.

At the Pym conference in Boston in March, the food historian Laura Shapiro gave a wonderful paper on food in Pym's novels. (What is it about food writers that make them so enthusiastic about life? Laura's energy made me think of Ruth Reichl's wonderful books.) Part of the discussion after her paper focused on the Pym cookbook. No one who spoke had really put the cookbook to practical use and many were dubious about its value as a source of recipes. With that knowledge, I thought it might be best if I compared the Pym recipe to other recipes for Parkin cake that others online had actually tried making. I soon discovered the different types of Parkin cake (oats in the north, no oats in the south), the fact that it was often made to be eaten on Bonfire Night, that it gets better and stickier with age, and that every recipe called for ground ginger and/or mixed spice. The Pym cookbook recipe called for no spice. The Pym cookbook is also short on direction. No mention of what size pan for this recipe. I ended up going off recipe a bit by adding ginger, a pinch of salt, and baking it for only 45 minutes (45 minutes fewer than the recipe called for). I also made it yesterday so it would have at least 24 hours to groovify and get some of the stickiness. Essentially the cake is a ginger or spice cake with dark treacle (or molasses) and dark sugar, and, since I wanted to go the more traditional Yorkshire route, oatmeal.

The Parkin Cake in progress.

I also wanted to test the cookbook's version of Victoria Sandwich, one of my all time favorite treats when I am in England. For those who have never had this glorious cake, it is two layers of sponge with raspberry jam in between the layers and a dusting of sugar on top. I normally make a version that is in the cookbook from the Tea and Sympathy tea shop in New York City which calls for a layer of butter cream frosting on top of the jam, which is delicious. And I have had versions in England that have a what seems to be a sort of non-sweetened dairy cream. Like clotted cream in taste but lighter. In this instance I wanted to go with the basic version and the Pym recipe could not have been more basic. My main qualm about the Pym version is that it calls for a much hotter oven than other recipes I have used or seen.

The Result

So how did the The Pym Cookbook fare? Way better than expected. For a new baker it might be a little too short on information. And both recipes needed slight adjustments, but I am by no means a scientific baker and I managed those adjustments quite successfully. Neither recipe called for any salt. I added a pinch to each because I think everything benefits from a pinch of salt.

And the taste? Dee-licious. The Parkin cake was dense and moist and had a hearty, malty, gingery kind of taste with a bit of chew from the oats--my oatmeal may have been slightly thicker than the medium oats that most recipes call for. It is perfect for tea. Especially, as the cookbook alludes, for those off the cuff teas where something needs to be pulled out of the larder for an unexpected guest. The Victoria Sandwich was really lovely and light and flavorful. And the batter was delicious as well. I probably could have taken it out of the oven a tiny bit earlier, but still really good.

The completed Parkin.

The completed Victoria Sandwich. The layers are different sizes because I had to use two types and sizes of cake tins, neither of them the 7" size the cookbook called for.

The most amazing thing about both of the recipes is how darn easy and quick both of them were. Very few ingredients and really easy to mix and assemble. I am really quite pleased with the results.

So, happy birthday Barbara. You may not have had anything to do with this cookbook, but the results brought your novels to life for me. Like J. L. Carr wrote in the wonderful novella A Month in the Country it was like eating disposable archaeology.

The Giveaway

I have a copy of the Open Road Media reissue of the cookbook to give away. Simply leave a comment or email me at onmyporch [at] hotmail [dot] com to enter the drawing by 6 AM eastern US time on June 7th to qualify for the draw.

Incidentally, Open Road also has a little mini video about Pym's centenary that includes comments from food historian Laura Shapiro.

The orange one is up for grabs.

Barbara Pym Reading Week

2013-06-01T00:03:00.000-04:00

Scroll down to the next post if you want to skip BPRW housekeeping and get right to the heart of the festivities.

The RULES for Barbara Pym Reading Week:

There are no rules.

Seriously, it's anything goes for the next eight days, but there are a few things to keep in mind:

Both Amanda at the Fig and Thistle and I will be posting Pym-related content all week.
Other bloggers from all over the world will be posting things as well which we will link to here and at Fig and Thistle.
If you are a blogger and have posted something about Pym please leave a comment with a link to your post.
If you aren't a blogger we want to know what you think send us an email or leave a comment.
We have lots of Pym PRIZES (books, bags, tea towels, tea bag parkers). Those who leave comments on either My Porch or Fig and Thistle will be entered into a random draw.
We are also having a Pym Cover CONTEST. Submit via email or link in a comment by 6 AM U.S. Eastern Daylight Time on June 7th. Get creative and make a cover image for a Pym novel. Extra points go to those who make it thematic to a specific novel. Multiple entries are acceptable. Paint, draw, sculpt, do a collage, manipulate a photo, you name it, just make sure you put some creativity and originality into your entry.
For a LIST OF PYM'S NOVELS and the story of how I met Miss Pym, scroll down to the next post.
Follow the fun on Twitter #PymReadingWeek and #BarbaraPym100

Have fun. We look forward to reading your comments and seeing your blog posts.

Meeting Miss Pym

2013-06-01T00:02:00.000-04:00

I first met Barbara Pym thanks to Nancy Pearl's Book Lust. At the time I was in my early 30s and hadn't really developed my penchant for the kind of fiction that I most like now. I was still a bit stuck in one of those typically late 20s kind of reading loops that relied on the "in" literary novel of the moment coupled with lots of canonical books that I had never read in college or grad school. And although I had already embarked on my love affair with Anita Brookner, it was still early days for me. I hadn't quite grown to fully appreciate the character-driven, plot-optional, novels that so permeate my reading life these days.

So I may have been a little too young for my first date with Barbara in 2002. I checked out Crampton Hodnet from the library, and while I enjoyed the experience, I really didn't remember too much about it. But there must have been something about it since I picked up A Glass of Blessing five months later. I followed up in 2004 with Jane and Prudence, but it really wasn't until I read Some Tame Gazelle while in the south of France in 2009 that I really began to appreciate just how brilliant Barbara Pym's novels are. Since then I have read Excellent Women and The Sweet Dove Died and reread CH, AGoB and JaP. But that is a story best left for later this week.

Since Pym's publishing history is a bit odd to say the least, I thought it might be helpful to provide a list of her fiction. She had six novels published in the UK between 1950 and 1961. But then her publisher Jonathan Cape declined to publish her next two novels and so did everyone else. It wasn't until 1977 when both Lord David Cecil and Philip Larkin cited Pym as the an underrated author in a piece in the Times Literary Supplement. Pym was the only author to be mentioned twice and it thrust her work back into the spotlight and provided new publishing opportunities not only in the UK, but she was also published in the US for the first time.

Pym's Fiction in the order it was written...
Since the information varies from place to place, I have relied here on the publishing history in Hazel Holt's wonderful biography of Pym A Lot to Ask. Publishing dates are for first issue. Note how long it took some of her work to find its way to America. Anything after 1980 was published posthumously.

Some Tame Gazelle (Written 1935-50 / first published UK 1950 / first published US 1983)
Civil to Strangers (1936-8 / 1987 / 1987)
Crampton Hodnet (1937-8 / 1987 / 1987)
Excellent Women (1949-51 / 1952 / 1978)
Jane and Prudence (1950-2 / 1953 / 1981)
Less Than Angels (1953-4 / 1955 / 1980)
A Glass of Blessing (1955-6 / 1958 / 1980)
No Fond Return of Love (1957-60 / 1961 / 1982)
An Unsuitable Attachment (1960-5 / 1982 / 1982)
The Sweet Dove Died (1963-9 / 1978 / 1979)
An Academic Question (1970-1 / 1986 / 1986)
Quartet in Autumn (1973-6 / 1977 / 1978)
A Few Green Leaves (1977-9 / 1980 / 1980)

Countdown

2013-05-31T00:08:00.000-04:00

Countdown

2013-05-30T15:54:00.000-04:00

Countdown

2013-05-29T11:41:00.000-04:00

John's garden interlude

2013-05-28T09:37:00.005-04:00

I tried to explain to John that a post filled with garden pictures would inerrupt the flow of my Pym countdown and that the countdown would be followed by eight days of Pym posts. He seemed to think that there is always room for garden pictures. So I am indulging him. Of course one imagines that Ms. Pym would approve.

The bulbs for the Love plant (oxalis) to the left was given to us by a friend who
took them from a plant I gave him back in 2000.

We first saw this 'Lord Bute' pelargonium at Sissinghurst about six years ago. John finally found a supplier in the US.

Countdown

2013-05-28T08:08:00.000-04:00

Countdown

2013-05-27T11:53:00.000-04:00

Bits and Roberts

2013-05-24T14:21:00.000-04:00

[Editor's note: Since a few of the bobs this week are a bit lengthy, the Editorial Board decided that this week's Bits and Bobs could not be accurately named so. Not wanting to break from the Bits and Bobs format, the Board determined by majority vote to temporarily modify the title of the series for this, and any, occasion when a Bob is long enough as to constitute being a Robert.]

Classic Club Spin 2
At the last minute I decided to take part in the Classic Club Spin 2. The number spun was 6 and so the classic that I must read by July 1st is The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac by Eugene Field. I am a little disappointed in the spin. Not because I don't want to read TLAB, but rather because I was hoping the spin would force me to read something I was less keen to read, like Little Dorritt or Vanity Fair. Still, the spin did its job because the Field is a book that I probably would not have gotten around to for some time. I have half a mind to use the rest of my Spin list as some kind of crazy reading guide for the second half of 2013. As if finishing my Century of Books list isn't enough.

Letting go of Bowen
Speaking of A Century of Books, one thing the process has forced me to face is that some authors may not be for me. Since I finished the majority of my ACOB list, I decided to read the remaining titles in chronological order. And let me tell you, when I am faced with a book I must read before I can go on to the next year on the list, I really start to get honest with myself about what I think of an author or book. You may remember me jettisoning Virginia Woolf earlier this year. I have read a few of her books, but after really, really struggling to finish the short Mrs. Dalloway, I decided there would be very little Woolf in my future. (I'm still going to try Leonard.)

So I made my way to 1929 and Elizabeth Bowen's The Last September. In 1999 I read my first Bowen, The Death of the Heart and I remember finding it a little slow but overall liking it. A few years later I read To the North and had a similar experience. When I read The House in Paris in 2007 I quite liked it, giving it 8 out of 10. So I had high hopes for The Last September. But I struggled. I think I reread the first three pages three or four times with nothing sinking in. As I pushed myself forward to about page 60, all I could think was how much I wasn't enjoying it and how I really couldn't wait for it to be over. I know I am not supposed to think that way about the great Bowen, but boy it didn't work for me.

I know very little about formal literary criticism or what constitutes what in terms of literary periods. But, having recently read and hated the "modern" (so I'm told) Some Do Not, the first of the Parade's End books by Ford Madox Ford, I began to pay more attention to the notion of modernist novels and the fact that I think I may have a tendency to a universal dislike of the style/period. Isn't Woolf considered modern? And while I wouldn't lump The Last September in with Parade's End, it did seem to have a whiff of the modern about it. And because all I could do was think how much I didn't care about the characters and the fact that I didn't like the writing itself, I decided it was time to let the Bowen go. Maybe another time and maybe another Bowen.

(If the Studs Lonigan trilogy is modern, I am in trouble since they are coming up on my list.)

Passing by Nella Larsen
Since I eighty-sixed the Bowen I needed to come up with a book from 1929 to fill the gap. Consulting all the relevant lists online and elsewhere, I began to despair. Not only did I not seem to have anything in my library from 1929 but all the titles were totally obscure or weren't really tripping my trigger. The only title I saw that interested me was the great Dodsworth by Sinclair Lewis. But I read that ages ago. I even began to consider reading some non-fiction. (gasp)

So I left Lucy to chase chipmunks in the backyard so I could consult my shelves. I first went to my tower of unread Viragos. Out of about 40 of them I finally found one from 1929. The Laquer Lady by the oddly named F. Tennyson Jesse, it appeared to be a bit of historical fiction, which I thought kind of defeated the purpose of reading something from 1929. Moving through my unread hardcover collection I found nothing from 1929. Moving yet again over to my unread paperback shelves I came across Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves. Ostensibly a memoir, this also didn't seem to really capture 1929 in the way I was hoping for. Plus non-fiction would never be my first choice (unless it was 84, Charing Cross Road).

Then I spotted a title that I had seen on the wikipedia list of novels from 1929. Passing by Nella Larsen. I had no idea I owned the book, but once I looked at it I realized I bought it fairly recently. It is one of those pale blue-spined Penguin Modern Classics that have such wonderful covers. I often buy lovely Penguin books at used book sales just because I like their covers. I am sure I picked this one up initially for that reason but I am also sure that I bought it because the subject was fascinating. It actually turned out to be way better than the Bowen in terms of capturing the spirit of 1929. No doubt The Last September is very much about its time, but it also smacks of earlier decades as the characters hold on dearly to the life of tennis parties at a big country estate despite. But in Passing, the 1920s are split open. It captures the spirit of the Harlem Renaissance, paints a picture 1920s Chicago and New York, and vividly describes race relations in middle and upper class society at the time.

The novel focuses on Clare, a light skinned African American woman who "passes" for white and is married to a racist white man who doesn't know her true racial identity and Irene who can pass for white but doesn't try to. The two were childhood friends but haven't seen each other since Clare went off to live her white life. After bumping into each other in a whites only rooftop restaurant in Chicago, their two lives become linked in a way that leads to tragedy. This was a fascinating book for so many reasons. I am so glad the Bowen didn't work out.

Some progress
Although I am quite enjoying A Suitable Boy, and find it to be a bit of a page turner, I still find myself needing to accomplish something in my reading. Meaning I have an overwhelming need to finish books more quickly so I have been reading shorter works while I work my way through ASB.

Ready to trip the light Pymtastic?
As most of you are aware by now, Barbara Pym Reading Week is just around the bend. Excitement has been picking up in the blogging world, on Facebook, and on Twitter (#PymReadingWeek). It was even featured in the latest issue of Green Leaves, the newsletter of the Barbara Pym Society. For more information on the upcoming reading week just scroll down to the previous post.

Barbara Pym Reading Week is almost here

2013-05-19T17:22:00.000-04:00

We are less than two weeks away from Barbara Pym Reading Week in honor of the centenary of Pym's birth. Every day from June 1st to the 8th, Amanda at Fig and Thistle and I will be posting Pym-related features on our blogs. We will also be linking to other bloggers around the world who will also post Pym-related items that week. There will be GIVEAWAYS and even a CONTEST that we will announce on opening day of the reading week.

Don't have a blog but love Barbara Pym?
No problem. You will have lots of fun things to look at that week and will be eligible for the giveaways and the contest. And all of us bloggers love getting comments. We look forward to hearing what you have to say.

Have a blog but don't know Barbara Pym?
No problem. This is your chance to be introduced to one of the 20th century's wittiest novelists. If you want to participate use one of the banners below on your blog to let people know you are taking part and let us know back on our blogs so we can link to your Pym-related post.

Don't have a blog AND don't know Barbara Pym?
No problem. Come back here or go to Fig and Thistle on June 1st and see what all the fuss is about. You can also go to your library and check out a Pym novel, go to Open Road Media to download an electronic version.

On Facebook?
Blogger Heaven Ali is hosting a Virtual Tea Party on June 2nd in honor of Pym's 100th birthday.

On Twitter?
Amanda (@nerdybookgirl) and I (@Thomasatmyporch) and many others will be tweeting about all things Pym using #PymReadingWeek and #BarbaraPym100. In fact the tweeting has already begun. (Some of us have already been called #PymPimps or #Pymps.)

What (my) readers like

2013-05-19T07:38:00.001-04:00

I was trying to think of a clever hook for the pictures I am about to post when I began thinking about why I was posting them in the first place--other than John urging me that is. What occurred to me was that readers, and certainly my readers, like this kind of thing. Then I began thinking of all the affinities beyond books that we readers seem to share. And although each of these items is not universal to all readers, or even to all readers of My Porch, I think if we were all in a room together these are the things we would end up talking about.

Lists
Libraries (natch)
Hot beverages (tea, the coffee family, cocoa)
Baking
Book shops (see Libraries)
Travel (actual or vicarious)
Helene Hanff
Twitter (a very book-friendly place)
Pets (Lucy, Deacon, Sherpa, Odie, Jasper, Ritchey, Hops, etc.)
CSAs, Farmers Markets, and fresh vegetables in general
Typewriters
Knitting (not something I am interested in, but I know you are legion)
Gardens

Ah yes, gardens, the reason for this post, phtots of John's efforts in the garden paying off...

While I am at it, here are some photos from our recent road trip to Ithaca to go to a book sale.

Proof of the Canadian invasion of the border states.
If it weren't for Tim Hortons, I would say that it is time to build that wall.

One of the great things about a road trip to central New York from DC is that you can avoid the I-95 corridor entirely. Thirty minutes or so on I-270 and then you can jump onto U.S. 15 all the way trhough Pennsylvania, which is in surpisingly good repair, scenic, and low on traffic.

With lumberjacks like this...

On the way home we stopped by Whitmore Farm which is owned and farmed by friends of ours.

I don't know which of the next three photos came first. ;-)

Can't forget about little Lucy.

Letting someone else choose your book

2013-05-16T07:11:00.000-04:00

Not only do I have a really hard time allowing someone to choose a book for me to read, but I am so much of a contrarian I tend to rebel against reading lists of my own creation even before the digital ink is even dry. Yet I am oddly drawn to something Amanda, my co-host for the upcoming Barbara Pym Reading Week, blogged about yeterday. She is participating in the Classics Club Spin #2 in which participants make a list of 20 classics they are dying to read, dreading to read, or some combination thereof. Then on May 20th, the good people at the Classics Club choose a random number between 1 and 20 and then you go off and read the classic on your list that corresponds with the chosen number by July 1st.

I couldn't resist. Here is my list. I have peppered it with things I am dying to read, some that I am less interested in reading but are part of finishing off my Century of Books list, and some are weighty classics that have been gathering dust in my library. In all cases I own all of the books listed, so I will have no excuses.

1. The Shuttle by Frances Hodgson Burnett
2. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

3. Jessie Philips by Fanny Trollope
4. The Old Man and Me by Elaine Dundy
5. Young Lonigan by James T. Farrell
6. The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac by Eugene Field
7. Pale Horse, Pale Rider by Katherine Anne Porter
8. Shirley by Charlotte Bronte
9. The Well by Sinclair Ross
10. Eustace Diamonds by Anthony Trollope
11. Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky
12. The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
13. Pamela by Samuel Richardson
14. Vanity Fair by Thackery
15. Little Dorritt by Charles Dickens
16. An Old Fashioned Girl by Louisa May Alcott
17. Summer Will Show by Sylvia Warner Townsend
18. My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier
19. Brook Evans by Susan Glaspell
20. Eyeless in Gaza by Aldous Huxley

Reading Update

2013-05-15T10:15:00.000-04:00

The recent weekend road trip means that I haven't had much time read. Still happily working away at A Suitable Boy. To recap my recent reads, I will start with the one I wanted to hurl across the room because it was so bad...

Constance Harding's (Rather) Startling Year (US)
A Surrey State of Affairs (UK) by Ceri Radford
Let me try and make a few comparisons to help explain this piece of derivative dreck: The cluelessness of Hyacinth Bucket was only marginally funny when the show was new 23 years ago. Radford seems to think that putting Hyacinth (Constance) on the Internet is a sure fire way to make this book hilarious. It isn't. Bridget Jones all grown up at 53 but without any of Helen Fielding's wit. But Constance is so much cooler than Bridget because she has a blog rather than a diary. What innovation. It's as if Radford took every one-dimensional starchy British character she had ever seen in American film and TV and decided that was going to be her heroine. This is 30-year old Radford (she was only ten when Hyacinth was cutting edge) trying to get into the brain of a 53-year old and failing miserably. There are ways to portray out of touch housewives that are much funnier and less insulting to the intelligence of readers (and housewives).

Little Altars Everywhere by Rebecca Wells
I read this one to cover 1992 on my A Century of Books list. And it certainly had all of the hallmarks of books of that period: drunken, abusive parents (oh, look that pregnant woman is smoking), satirical look at the Catholic church, sassy southern women just begging to be adapted to the Hollywood screen. This prequel to the Ya-Ya sisterhood is a poor man's Steel Magnolias.

Surprising Myself by Christopher Bram
The 1987 debut novel of Gods and Monsters (Father of Frankenstein) author Christopher Bram. I read this one right after high school and loved it. Twenty-six years later the landscape for young gays is so, so different, so this reads a bit like historical fiction, but it still managed to charm me a second time.

Quartet by Jean Rhys
The only "serious" book I have read lately. Enjoyable in that tragic French life kind of way. Woman's husband ends up in prison, she becomes a mistress to survive...angst, jealousy, more angst. I actually quite liked it. Makes me wish I had gotten my hands on the two Jean Rhys Penguins before Frances found them.

Book Sale Finds (with a helping of Farmer's Market)

2013-05-14T14:15:00.000-04:00

This past weekend we headed up to Ithaca, New York so that I could go to the gigantic Tompkins County Friends of the Library book sale. They have the sale twice a year in October and May. The sale goes for three successive weekends with the prices getting cheaper each day. On the first day of the sale hardcover books are all $4.50. By the 4th day (the day we were there) hardcover prices are down to $2.50 a title. And by the final day of the sale you can get all you can fit in a bag for just $1.

We probably wouldn't have driven six hours one way for just a sale, but since we have friends in Ithaca we hadn't seen in a while, we decided to make a weekend of it. JoAnn at Lakeside Musings was at the sale about six hours after I was. It looks like she had good luck with trade paperbacks which I skipped entirely. Too many people in my way. Plus I was looking for older things that couldn't possibly interest anyone but me.

Now, the books.

The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall
I have heard this one is a bit of a depressing snooze. But it is seminal work of early LGBT fiction, so I thought I would give it a go.

An Unsuitable Attachment and A Few Green Leaves by Barbara Pym
I am trying to get all of Pym's books in these hardcover Dutton editions. I have five of them now. But this Green Leaves turns out to be a dupe of something I already have. I am going to send it to JoAnn to thank her for sending me an Angela Thirkell novel.

The Glory of the Conquered by Susan Glaspell
I keep collecting the works of this author, I think she has been reissued by Persephone, but I haven't read any of them yet. I hope I like her work or I will have a lot of duds on my shelf.

The Railway Police and The Last Trolley Ride by Hortense Calisher
I know nothing about this book, but I like the fact that both novellas are train related. And the author's name is Hortense. It must be fantastic.

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos
There were several copies of this on the shelf each with a different pattern on the cover. Seemed like it was worth a go.

Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
Lady Anna by Anthony Trollope
I collect these little Oxford World Classic hardcovers so I don't always need to like the actual work. I am ambivalent about Dickens but love Trollope. Only it turns out I already had both of these at home.

Although I only recognized Penelope Lively's name, I thought this look interesting and whould go well with my Anglo-iana collection. But now looking at the cover, I realize I also know Helen Cresswell. She wrote a series of juvenile books that were favorites of mine gorwing up even though I only understood about half of the English (vs American) vocabulary.

Too many people thing I am an a-hole for not liking du Maurier. So I am going to give this one a go. Many tell me this is their favorite. Hopefully third time will be the charm for me with this author.

Another little Trollope in an Oxford World Classic edition. A lovely edition of Margery Sharp's The Foolish Gentlewoman which I was so happy to find. Turns out I also have that one at home. Sheesh. And then a gigantic bio of ICB.

While in Ithaca, we also stopped by the fantastic farmer's market. One of the best I have ever been to. It has its own purpose built pavilion right near the foot of Cayuga Lake.