Your favourite Pym novel(s)

Excellent Women has been my favourite thus far...

I really love Excellent Women but also No Fond Return of Love is one of my favourites!

Excellent Women is my favourite so far, too. Loved Mildred...

My vote is for No Fond Return of Love. I took it with me on a weekend visit with two academic friends who were in the process of editing their books pre-publication. I heard many complaints about the assistants working on the indeces. That night, I opened No fond Return of Love, and what did I find? The main characters were all attending a conference for editors, researchers, and indexers! I was sold, and it only got better.

Excellent Women justly deserves to be a classic but I still need to read so many of her other works. Perhaps No Fond Return of Love since it also seems to be a favorite.

>4 Cariola: Cariola, I'm very much looking forward to reading No Fond Return of Love, hopefully before the year is out. I worked for 20 years as a 'researcher' and then did a post-grad Library Studies course (where indexing was a favourite subject) and now I'm involved in contract technical writing/editing. It will be interesting and amusing to see Pym treatment of these 'careers'!

I can't pick a favourite. Each one, as I was reading it, was my favourite.

I already posted this on the Introductions thread, so sorry if I bore anyone twice. :)

My favorite is and has always been Quartet in Autumn. Even though I was only in my early 30's when I first read it, I was extremely moved by the portrayal of the loneliness of aging. I have read it two more times since then, and now that I am of the age of the characters in the book, I am even more in love with the book.

aruba, I am so pleased that you love that one because I think it is a terrific book and one of hers I am most fond of as well.

ETA: here's my review of it
My Review

Tiffin, I haven't read Quartet in Autumn but since reading your review I desperately want to!

Why thank you, Soup! Some find it sad but I found it so insightful and her writing so respectful of her characters that the sad aspect went into the background for me.

It sounds like my sort of book. I always appreciate authors who understand older characters and I know Pym is wonderful with the vulnerable and less visible.

>11 tiffin:: I feel the same way about Quartet in Autumn ... well said.

Thus far it is No Fond Return of Love, but could that be because it is the only one of hers I have read, though I have them all now, I think. I was told they are best read in order ( I think Rob shared that with me). So would that be the order of publication? He said to start with Some Tame Gazelle.
belva

I like Quartet in autumn, but I don't think it would be my favourite Pym: it's too much of a well-made novel and lacks a lot of the characteristically quirky Pym-like features of the early novels. It could just as well have been written by Anita Bruckner or Penelope Lively or someone: English fiction is full of lonely middle-aged ladies working in offices, but only Pym can throw in a Miss Doggett or random Brazilian diplomats in kilts. If I had a favourite, then maybe it would be Jane and Prudence or Excellent Women. Or even Crampton Hodnet, for all its imperfections.

>English fiction is full of lonely middle-aged ladies working in offices, but only Pym can throw in a Miss Doggett or random Brazilian diplomats in kilts

This is such a nice description of what distinguishes Pym!

Thanks, thorold!
Like tiffin, I can't pick a favorite either - at least until I've reread them all. (I've been spending a lot of time in the hospital with a terribly sick aunt for the past two days. Excellent Women is just the right size to live in a pocket or pocket book until wanted, so I've been enjoying Mildred and Company while I've waited......and right now, it's my favorite!

>15 thorold:
That should be Anita Brookner, of course - my musical tastes must be slipping through into books...

#18: Anita's 4th? hoho

...or rather "ho-ho-dadum"

Impossible to pick one--I started with Some Tame Gazelle and then read No Fond Return of Love, Excellent Women, Quartet in Autumn, and Less Than Angels. I saw no increase in the author's ability to amuse and move the reader, nor in greater artistic expression--just a continuing sense of experiencing a world vicariously--a world so artfully crafted that it seemed like reality, and not an artificial construct. Two great pleasures ahead: reading the rest of Ms. Pym's novels, and then starting over again. Perhaps after the second reading of all her work I will be able to pick a favorite.

>21 Django6924: Welcome to the group, Django.

>22 digifish_books:

Thank you, and it was certainly a pleasant surprise to find this site! I have been a confirmed fan and proselytizer of Barbara Pym's writings since 2004, and it still amazes me why she hasn't a following as large as it is fervent.

You've all convinced me! I picked up Excellent Women last week and it's wonderful; thanks to all who recommended it as a starting point. I can't wait to get back to it.

Yes, she is wonderful indeed!

I was delighted to find out from Amazon that Crampton Hodnet is the next Pym to be re-published by Virago. It will be released next July in the UK.

>26 Soupdragon:
I haven't heard of this publisher--maybe UK only?

#27 They're a British company, but the book are available elsewhere too. Their website is here.

>27 Django6924:: Virago Press is a UK-based publisher, but Virago Modern Classics have been reprinted by Penguin and Dial Press in the US. VMCs are "dedicated to the celebration of women writers and to the rediscovery and reprinting of their works." (this per their website).

Here on LT, there's a very active Virago Modern Classics group, filled with avid collectors.

My first Pym was Some Tame Gazelle, followed by Excellent Women and yesterday I finished Quartet in Autumn. I've loved them all but my favourite is Some Tame Gazelle perhaps because it was my introduction to Barbara Pym. I remember being unwell and very sorry for myself, listening to Some Tame Gazelle made me smile and sometimes laugh out loud.