She was a British novelist, sometimes called a "modern Jane Austen," who wrote wry, domestically-detailed novels about mid-century life in England, usually involving the Anglican Church. I love them! Lots of single ladies, vicars, eccentrics, descriptions of food, with a quiet sadness underlying it all, captured by a woman who was nothing if not clear-eyed.
 |
| Barbara Pym in her last home, in Oxfordshire, late 1970's |
When we were in England in 2009, I insisted on a detour on the way to Heathrow Airport so that I could visit her grave in the village of Finstock, in Oxfordshire, where she retired. My cousin and her husband drove us there. Jerry found her gravestone in the churchyard.
 |
| At Barbara Pym's grave, Oxfordshire, 2009 |
Yesterday, trolling around online, I found that there's a Barbara Pym society, Green Leaves, that has documented every place she lived and went to church,which became the settings for most of her novels. I looked at the addresses and realized you'd have to traipse all over London via tube and bus and your own two feet to visit them all. Would I do this? No. I love her, but I'd rather visit her world in her novels. Cross that off the bucket list.
No comments:
Post a Comment