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A Glass of Blessings by Barbara Pym
Feb. 11th, 2021 05:27 pmMy favourite book by a very good author, which I made the excellent decision to re-read this week. I've fallen in love with Barbara Pym's writing all over again...
A Glass of Blessings (1958) is perhaps an odd choice to review, because I find it slightly difficult to articulate just why I like it so much, but I'll see what I can do. Like all Pym's stuff it's a novel of character and subtle, perfectly observed social comedy. What plot it has can be summed up as 'middle-class woman in 1950s London goes to church, talks to a lot of different people and doesn't have an affair', but as a book it's very much more than that.
It's narrated in first person by Wilmet Forsyth, who (like her author) was in the Women's Royal Naval Service in Italy during the war, and since then has lived an uneventful life in London with the husband she met there, who works at a vaguely-described Ministry and makes enough money that Wilmet herself doesn't need to work. Her life as a result is rather aimless and she's clearly bored. Over the course of the book she becomes more involved in the life of the local Anglo-Catholic church, St Luke's, getting to know the three priests and their new housekeeper Mr Bason; tries vaguely to do various sorts of good works, along with the saintly Mary Beamish, a fellow-parishioner; and falls in an excitingly sparkling sort of love with the alluringly mysterious Piers Longridge, the brother of her best friend, who turns up at St Luke's one day and whose evening classes in Portuguese Wilmet subsequently attends.
In theory Wilmet is not especially likeable as a character—she's continuously oblivious, pretty judgemental and rather self-absorbed—but she's so engaging and her perspective is so much fun to read that I like her anyway. She has a brilliantly whimsical imagination which Pym uses to great effect to enliven her descriptions of everyday things and events, and at least by the end she is aware of her own failings in a sort of amusedly resigned way. The rest of the characters are all very memorably enjoyable too—Sybil, Wilmet's spiritedly unconventional mother-in-law, and her archaeologist friend Professor Root; Father Thames, Father Bode and Father Ransome, the three very different priests at St Luke's; Mr Bason, the earnest and charming culinary kleptomaniac; Mary Beamish, the doer of good works who spends the book quietly struggling to find her own happiness and eventually succeeds; Harry, the husband of Wilmet's best friend, who somewhat clumsily tries to have an affair with her to no effect; and so on.
Of course Piers is my fave, however. The vaguely-described unsatisfactoriness, the strange succession of jobs, the obsession with car number plates (I found that very relatable)... Over the course of the book Piers and Wilmet, despite Piers's inconsistent habits, manage to meet up several times and strike up a friendship, and I found their conversations great fun to read (I love the bit about the furniture warehouse), as well as the delicate description of Wilmet's developing feelings for him. I think one of the things that made me love this book so much when I first read it was that I guessed the big twist about Piers early on but didn't think it would actually happen as explicitly or as sympathetically as it does, and I was very pleased with both myself and Barbara Pym as a result. I've never had any success trying to write Pym fanfic—how could I possibly do that style justice, etc.—but I want all the fic about Piers. Perhaps I shall request him next Yuletide.
Then there's the other great character whose existence is kind of a spoiler, but who I like very much as well (and who provided an interesting contrast to a current fave with the same name, hahaha).
Anyway, besides the characters there's still a lot more to like about this book. Barbara Pym's abilities for social observation and perfectly-chosen details are incredible—the amount of meaning tea has in this book... and there are some brilliant comic episodes, like the affair of the Fabergé egg, Mr Bason's culinary creativity and Wilmet's confusion over the anonymous Christmas present. Then there are the details of liturgy and church politics at St Luke's—Mr Coleman's specially-made cassock and his woes over the correct positioning of the Paschal candle, all the worries about people ~going over to Rome~, and so on. The book isn't especially notable for quantities of nature description, but what is there is lovely—it takes place over a year from October to September, and I thought the sense of the changing seasons was beautifully conveyed. There's something to grin at on almost every page—and then you get to one of those moments where Pym just seems to sum up the humour and pathos and general emotional aspects of life in some perfect way, not too sentimental or too arch or too silly but perfectly sympathetic. I love her.
(on a tangent—I didn't know exactly what Fabergé eggs actually were when I read the book, but I've since looked them up and wow, they're more valuable than I imagined. Only 69 ever made... I think this makes it even funnier).
Anyway—there's a lot more I could say about this book but I think I'll leave it there. In the meantime, in my reignited love for Barbara Pym, there are still a couple of her books that I've not read yet, and I think two or three of the earlier ones are due for a re-read soon...
A Glass of Blessings (1958) is perhaps an odd choice to review, because I find it slightly difficult to articulate just why I like it so much, but I'll see what I can do. Like all Pym's stuff it's a novel of character and subtle, perfectly observed social comedy. What plot it has can be summed up as 'middle-class woman in 1950s London goes to church, talks to a lot of different people and doesn't have an affair', but as a book it's very much more than that.
It's narrated in first person by Wilmet Forsyth, who (like her author) was in the Women's Royal Naval Service in Italy during the war, and since then has lived an uneventful life in London with the husband she met there, who works at a vaguely-described Ministry and makes enough money that Wilmet herself doesn't need to work. Her life as a result is rather aimless and she's clearly bored. Over the course of the book she becomes more involved in the life of the local Anglo-Catholic church, St Luke's, getting to know the three priests and their new housekeeper Mr Bason; tries vaguely to do various sorts of good works, along with the saintly Mary Beamish, a fellow-parishioner; and falls in an excitingly sparkling sort of love with the alluringly mysterious Piers Longridge, the brother of her best friend, who turns up at St Luke's one day and whose evening classes in Portuguese Wilmet subsequently attends.
In theory Wilmet is not especially likeable as a character—she's continuously oblivious, pretty judgemental and rather self-absorbed—but she's so engaging and her perspective is so much fun to read that I like her anyway. She has a brilliantly whimsical imagination which Pym uses to great effect to enliven her descriptions of everyday things and events, and at least by the end she is aware of her own failings in a sort of amusedly resigned way. The rest of the characters are all very memorably enjoyable too—Sybil, Wilmet's spiritedly unconventional mother-in-law, and her archaeologist friend Professor Root; Father Thames, Father Bode and Father Ransome, the three very different priests at St Luke's; Mr Bason, the earnest and charming culinary kleptomaniac; Mary Beamish, the doer of good works who spends the book quietly struggling to find her own happiness and eventually succeeds; Harry, the husband of Wilmet's best friend, who somewhat clumsily tries to have an affair with her to no effect; and so on.
Of course Piers is my fave, however. The vaguely-described unsatisfactoriness, the strange succession of jobs, the obsession with car number plates (I found that very relatable)... Over the course of the book Piers and Wilmet, despite Piers's inconsistent habits, manage to meet up several times and strike up a friendship, and I found their conversations great fun to read (I love the bit about the furniture warehouse), as well as the delicate description of Wilmet's developing feelings for him. I think one of the things that made me love this book so much when I first read it was that I guessed the big twist about Piers early on but didn't think it would actually happen as explicitly or as sympathetically as it does, and I was very pleased with both myself and Barbara Pym as a result. I've never had any success trying to write Pym fanfic—how could I possibly do that style justice, etc.—but I want all the fic about Piers. Perhaps I shall request him next Yuletide.
Then there's the other great character whose existence is kind of a spoiler, but who I like very much as well (and who provided an interesting contrast to a current fave with the same name, hahaha).
Anyway, besides the characters there's still a lot more to like about this book. Barbara Pym's abilities for social observation and perfectly-chosen details are incredible—the amount of meaning tea has in this book... and there are some brilliant comic episodes, like the affair of the Fabergé egg, Mr Bason's culinary creativity and Wilmet's confusion over the anonymous Christmas present. Then there are the details of liturgy and church politics at St Luke's—Mr Coleman's specially-made cassock and his woes over the correct positioning of the Paschal candle, all the worries about people ~going over to Rome~, and so on. The book isn't especially notable for quantities of nature description, but what is there is lovely—it takes place over a year from October to September, and I thought the sense of the changing seasons was beautifully conveyed. There's something to grin at on almost every page—and then you get to one of those moments where Pym just seems to sum up the humour and pathos and general emotional aspects of life in some perfect way, not too sentimental or too arch or too silly but perfectly sympathetic. I love her.
(on a tangent—I didn't know exactly what Fabergé eggs actually were when I read the book, but I've since looked them up and wow, they're more valuable than I imagined. Only 69 ever made... I think this makes it even funnier).
Anyway—there's a lot more I could say about this book but I think I'll leave it there. In the meantime, in my reignited love for Barbara Pym, there are still a couple of her books that I've not read yet, and I think two or three of the earlier ones are due for a re-read soon...
