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An Academic Question by Barbara Pym
Oct. 28th, 2021 06:11 pmMy last Barbara Pym novel!
An Academic Question was written in draft form in 1971, in the middle of Barbara Pym's period of being ignored and rejected by publishers. She didn't expect to be able to get it published, but kept writing anyway. When she was rediscovered and once more justly celebrated by the literary world she concentrated on her new novels, and the published version of this one was assembled from drafts and notes by Hazel Holt after Pym's death.
It's quite different from her other books: set in a 'provincial university town' somewhere in the southwest of England (I thought perhaps a fictionalised Bath, based on the mentions of a spa town past, and the history of the university seems to match too, but anyway) and narrated by Caroline Grimstead, the young wife of a lecturer in anthropology. Alan, Caro's husband, has academic ambitions, and the big incident of the book comes when he steals a manuscript to provide material for a paper he's writing in a dispute with an academic rival. Besides this we see Caro's general dissatisfaction with her life as a 'graduate wife' and meet various eccentric residents of the town and anthropology department.
Pym's earlier and later novels, divided by this period when she wasn't being published, have very different moods—the later ones feel much bleaker and more cynical, and while I think they're good I don't like them nearly so much. This one definitely belongs to the later group. While there is plenty of humour and sparkle in it, I felt the general mood was rather depressing, and the usual Pym tendency to leave things unresolved and uncertain seemed excessive—frustrating rather than wryly amusing as it often is in the earlier books.
I think Pym does her best with settings when writing about places she knows well. There are some good details here—the neo-Georgian house, the buildings in the town centre and at the university—but not so much specific detail as in her London books (the furniture depository!). The handling of the university background also seemed uncertain, with vague descriptions of students rioting about something or other, though that did work well for Caroline's particular perspective. And I didn't feel there was very much to like about Caroline herself—she comes across as indifferent, uncaring and sometimes spiteful, and her first-person narration somehow isn't as likeable in spite of it all as Wilmet's, for instance.
I did like the descriptions of Caroline's work in the university library, as well as the lovely absurdity of Dolly and her hedgehogs! Also the eventual resolution of the 'academic question' of the stolen manuscript, and of course the Pym habit of cameos of characters from other books—the memorable Sister Dew and Esther Clovis make reappearances here.
Well, now there's nothing to do but to read the rest of Pym's books again :D And her diaries, of course, which I will get to soon.
An Academic Question was written in draft form in 1971, in the middle of Barbara Pym's period of being ignored and rejected by publishers. She didn't expect to be able to get it published, but kept writing anyway. When she was rediscovered and once more justly celebrated by the literary world she concentrated on her new novels, and the published version of this one was assembled from drafts and notes by Hazel Holt after Pym's death.
It's quite different from her other books: set in a 'provincial university town' somewhere in the southwest of England (I thought perhaps a fictionalised Bath, based on the mentions of a spa town past, and the history of the university seems to match too, but anyway) and narrated by Caroline Grimstead, the young wife of a lecturer in anthropology. Alan, Caro's husband, has academic ambitions, and the big incident of the book comes when he steals a manuscript to provide material for a paper he's writing in a dispute with an academic rival. Besides this we see Caro's general dissatisfaction with her life as a 'graduate wife' and meet various eccentric residents of the town and anthropology department.
Pym's earlier and later novels, divided by this period when she wasn't being published, have very different moods—the later ones feel much bleaker and more cynical, and while I think they're good I don't like them nearly so much. This one definitely belongs to the later group. While there is plenty of humour and sparkle in it, I felt the general mood was rather depressing, and the usual Pym tendency to leave things unresolved and uncertain seemed excessive—frustrating rather than wryly amusing as it often is in the earlier books.
I think Pym does her best with settings when writing about places she knows well. There are some good details here—the neo-Georgian house, the buildings in the town centre and at the university—but not so much specific detail as in her London books (the furniture depository!). The handling of the university background also seemed uncertain, with vague descriptions of students rioting about something or other, though that did work well for Caroline's particular perspective. And I didn't feel there was very much to like about Caroline herself—she comes across as indifferent, uncaring and sometimes spiteful, and her first-person narration somehow isn't as likeable in spite of it all as Wilmet's, for instance.
I did like the descriptions of Caroline's work in the university library, as well as the lovely absurdity of Dolly and her hedgehogs! Also the eventual resolution of the 'academic question' of the stolen manuscript, and of course the Pym habit of cameos of characters from other books—the memorable Sister Dew and Esther Clovis make reappearances here.
Well, now there's nothing to do but to read the rest of Pym's books again :D And her diaries, of course, which I will get to soon.
