(2020 has become my year of rereading the novels of Barbara Pym, my favourite novelist - "favourite" in the sense of "speaks most to my soul", not as in "greatest" or "best"; I believe she would have appreciated the distinction. This is my revised review.)

Mildred Lathbury, the protagonist of Barbara Pym's most accessible novel, is - I think - often used as a stand-in for Pym herself, even though I can't quite imagine Mildred having some of Barbara's youthful indiscretions. Certainly, though, I sometimes feel I am Mildred... and I'm a thirtysomething male! Perhaps this is the success of Excellent Women.

The worlds of Barbara Pym novels are usually small; here, indeed, we centre around a youngish spinster, her vicar and his sister, and a collection of anthropologists who have spent so much time examining the practices of other cultures that they are loath to entirely commit to the standard practices of their own. Pym's insight is as sharp as a pin, and her wit stabs like one too.

I sometimes hear Pym compared to another classic 20th century Brit, Anthony Powell (whom she read frequently) but I think there is a clear difference. Powell's characters, in his legendary A Dance to the Music of Time sequence, seem to be in the process of realising that life isn't entirely the tea party privileged young white people are promised. Pym's characters, on the other hand, open the book already aware of this. It is our privilege to watch them deal with this understanding, and seek a way to move forward in spite of it. Mildred's feeling on having to share a bathroom with fellow tenants at her stage in life, for example, is not quite horror, it's just resignation with a hint of self-doubt, and an occasional flutter (usually suppressed) of hope for a better outcome in future.

Amidst the barbs and sighs of Pym's characters, we are witnessing a fantastic cultural document, an entire world unfolding before our eyes. And in every interaction, the missed moments, the unintentional disparagement, the self-doubt amplified into pain and suffering. Unusually for a Pym novel, Excellent Women is in the first person, meaning that we miss out on one of her most sublime talents, an almost post-modern approach to point-of-view, where the author flits disarmingly between characters, allowing us to adapt to one way of thinking before we are rudely reminded that what is logical to one person is absurdity to another.

"Bittersweet" is an easy adjective to describe the end of most of Pym's novels, but perhaps - like the post-war rationing English cuisine that fills her early books - the taste is better described as "tasty but practical". Not overly rich, sometimes making do with a substitute ingredient, and a cheap bottle of wine from the store down the street to go with one's solitary meal. But you know (most of the time) that things will feel a bit better in the morning, with crumpets and tea by the fire. ( )

Really funny and clever; particularly re: Anglo-Catholic social culture. It sometimes managed to feel a little gruesome, just from the sheer claustrophobic press of expectations and under-estimations one can feel around the narrator at all times, which was impressive if difficult to experience at times. I want Mildred Lathbury to never have to cook for a man who doesn't know the first thing about her ever again! ( )

Simply a wonderful read. ( )

excellent! jumble sales, endless cups of tea, that cursed incense (whether the good type or no), the meaning behind a quick glance- oh my. such minuscule things, stirred and expanded to take over all of our narrator’s tiny universe. The minutia of a quiet spinster’s life, the strictures of lower middle class post WW2 church-centric society, observed by a witty, dark intelligence with an extraordinary subtlety and an occasional giggle.

‘Well, you’re a sensible person. it’s just the kind of thing you would have.’
Oh, dear, one was to be for ever cast down, I thought, brooding over the piece of fish on my plate….

haha! If you like the Penelopes, Muriel Spark or Nancy Mitford you will thoroughly enjoy this gem. ( )

Needed a break after reading a string of YA dystopians for work. This book is certainly the polar opposite of a YA dystopian, and it's a classic of humorous 20th-century British fiction for a reason.

Excellent Women is a comedy of manners—except that the setting is bleak post-War London, and it's a black comedy. This book is kind of like the anti-chick lit novel, with the quaint job (instead of a cupcake shop, a Society for the Care of Aged Gentlewomen) and the cast of baffling, unreliable men.

It's not laugh-out loud funny, but is nevertheless hilarious; Mildred's voice gives everything a tragic (but restrained) humor. And while many of the supporting characters have the two-dimensional quality you see in satire, Mildred is a complex, fully realized character and the reason I kept turning the pages.

Some books succeed by stringing together well-written scenes, but Excellent Women succeeds as a beautifully orchestrated whole, with impeccable comic pacing.

I hope I am not overselling this book—to enjoy it, you have to be the kind of person who enjoys reading about a vicar's daughter making tea and organizing jumble sales for 270 pages. I just happen to be that person. ( )