Excellent Women by Barbara Pym

First published: 1952

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Satire

Time of work: The 1940’s

Locale: London, England

Principal Characters:

• Mildred Lathbury, an unmarried woman who lives in a flat near her parish church
• Helena Napier, and
• Rockingham “Rocky” Napier, the married couple who move into the flat below Mildred’s
• Julian Malory, and
• Winifred Malory, the rector of St. Mary’s parish and his unmarried sister
• Allegra Gray, a clergyman’s widow who becomes engaged to Julian
• Everard Bone, a prim, self-centered anthropologist
• Dora Caldicote, and
• William Caldicote, sister and brother

Form and Content

The plot of Excellent Women centers on Mildred Lathbury, her thoughts about the other characters in the novel and her actions toward them. She injects herself into the lives of a young couple, Helena and Rockingham Napier. He is something of a low-grade ladies man, and she is an anthropologist. Mildred befriends them as a couple and individually. Their marital difficulties generate varied expressions of concern from Mildred. Father Julian Malory and his unmarried sister, Winifred, are another pair of characters. St. Mary’s is Mildred’s church, and Julian and Winifred are significant friends to Mildred; however, she still has the capacity for ironical remarks about them. It is Julian’s engagement to the widow Allegra Gray that creates the biggest concern in this comic novel of manners. An egotistical anthropologist, Everard Bone, “courts” Mildred but in a disjointed and inconsistent manner; his is a very satisfied existence. Dora and William Caldicote, brother and sister, are the last major characters in the novel. Dora’s friendship with Mildred has an off-putting quality, and William is only interested in his own feelings and experiences.

The men in this novel are not attractive or strong. They are indecisive, lacking in some moral quality. They are not evil; they are simply ineffectual. The women, on the other hand, are “excellent.” Except for Allegra, the husband-seeking widow, they all have qualities that contribute to their enduring strength, allowing them to carry on from where life has deposited them.

In this first-person narrative, Mildred tells of her relationship with the Napiers and the Malorys. Her story reveals much about them, but more important, the reader discovers more about Mildred and her concept of excellent women. In an economy of words, Barbara Pym reveals Mildred as a fascinating character who is both amusing and sad. Pym is a comic writer, with a sharp eye and sharper words for her world of excellent women; she also describes a world of quiet sorrow and stoic suffering, relieved by a strong element of hope for a better tomorrow.

“Excellent women” is a code word that defines Mildred and the other women of St. Mary’s parish. They are unmarried by choice or because of circumstances beyond their control. It is by Pym’s literary artistry of indirection, understatement, and social reserve that she develops her theme of excellent women. How Mildred fits into that category provides a reflective pause for the reader. Helena tells Mildred about her marriage to Rocky; such concerns about marriage, marital prospects, and the general qualities of men form the basic structure of the novel.

For example, when Dora and Mildred attend a school reunion, their talk is speculation about who is married and what social type the husband is. The speculation is witty, but a melancholy element is also present. This tension between the comic and the pathetic allows Pym, through her main character, to present the reader with this state of affairs: “It was not the excellent women who got married but people like Allegra Gray, who was no good at sewing, and Helena Napier, who left all the washing up.” Mildred is hurt by being passed over, but she carries on with a bittersweet regard for her place in life.

This concern about marriage, husbands, and wives provides the major dramatic thrust of the novel. When Mildred and Everard Bone are discussing Helena, who has left Rocky, the concept of excellent women is dealt with in an ironic manner: Unmarried ladies achieve a state of excellence because nothing can be done about them except to respect and esteem them on the proper occasions.

Pym’s use of the term “excellent women” has a religious aspect as well, such as when Father Malory announces his engagement to Mrs. Gray to the excellent women connected to the church. Because Mildred is a clergyman’s daughter and active in the affairs of St. Mary’s, she reflects on the Church of England’s norms and on the Roman Catholic church. The text suggests that Mildred and other excellent women are almost de facto nuns. Yet Mildred also has a strong social sense and knowledge that help her as an excellent woman.

Context

Excellent Women is not, in a strict sense, a feminist novel. Pym’s work is not driven by ideology and politics. Rather, her subjects and ironic style can be traced to Jane Austen—a worthy tradition, indeed, in the history of the British novel. To appreciate Pym’s art, her biography is instructive. Hers was a middle-class background. She started writing when she was sixteen. Pym graduated from the University of Oxford, and all of her life she read widely. She lived at home after graduation but moved to London just before the start of World War II in 1939. She had traveled much in Europe. During the war, she joined the WRNS, a women’s military support group, that did varied tasks on the home front. After the war, she worked for the International African Institute, where she became a student of anthropology. Writing constantly, she published six novels from 1950 to 1961. Then, in a bizarre turn of events worthy of a Pym novel, by the 1960’s publishers were rejecting her manuscripts; apparently, her material had become “dated.” Her life was then bounded by English literature, the Anglican church, and her work at the institute. She continued to write, however, and as a result of praise from Philip Larkin and Lord David Cecil, her novel Quartet in Autumn was published in 1977; three other novels followed. She was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, the highest literary award in English letters. Pym died in 1980.

Pym’s literary landscape, like Austen’s, is small but deep with insight. Her subject is men and women and their experiences with one another. Often the men are dull-witted and vague about the consequences of their actions. Pym forgives them and the women involved by stressing the common humanity of all and by giving emphasis to the comic side of the human condition. She explores the lives of ordinary people who, upon closer examination, are not ordinary at all. Isolated by choice or by circumstance from the ideological wars of the women’s liberation movement that was so strong in the United States and England, Pym produced a remarkable series of novels, such as Excellent Women, and unforgettable people, such as Mildred Lathbury, an excellent woman.

Bibliography

Cotsell, Michael. Barbara Pym. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989. This brief but heavily factual biography is well researched. With a select bibliography, Cotsell ties the particulars of Pym’s life to her novels. He believes that, unable to identify with or accept the England of the 1960’s, Pym made a pained comedy out of her newfound incongruity.

Holt, Hazel. A Lot to Ask: A Life of Barbara Pym. London: Macmillan, 1990. Written by Pym’s friend and literary executor. Holt had also worked with Pym at the International African Institute for nearly twenty-five years. Holt provides a warm portrait of a woman who was given to romantic fancies and yet who had the capacity for critical self-examination, as demonstrated by the character of Mildred. The text is based on the Pym papers at the Bodleian Library at Oxford. Quoting generously from the Pym archives, Holt brings forth a delightful, complex person for the reader. Photographs are included.

Liddell, Robert. A Mind at Ease: Barbara Pym and Her Novels. London: Peter Owen, 1989. Focusing on the novels that Liddell believes sustain Pym’s popular reputation, he speculates about Pym’s vast popularity since her “comeback” in 1977 and about the ironies of literary fashion. This brief book is divided into three parts: the early years, the canon, and the later years.

Pym, Barbara. Civil to Strangers and Other Writings. Edited by Hazel Holt. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1987. Contains a previously unpublished novel and short stories; its key worth is “Finding a Voice: A Radio Talk.” Transmitted on April 4, 1978, it is an honest judgment by Pym of her life and work. She names her literary models and describes her general outlook on life. An excellent introduction to Pym’s world.

Pym, Barbara. A Very Private Eye: An Autobiography in Diaries and Letters. Edited by Hazel Holt and Hilary Pym. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1984. The editors are Pym’s literary executor and sister. Drawing on the vast correspondence and other writings, they have fashioned a most informative autobiography. Pym’s writings are organized around the sections “Oxford,” “The War,” and “The Novelist.” A must for understanding Pym’s life and her art and how she looked at both with an ironic and compassionate gaze. Contains illustrations, a publishing history, and an index/glossary.

Rossen, Janice. The World of Barbara Pym. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1987. This book deals with England as it is perceived and re-created in Pym’s novels. Seven chapters explore Pym as writer: “A Style of One’s Own,” “Love in the Great Libraries,” “Spinsterhood,” “High Church Comedy,” “Anthropology,” “The Artist as Observer,” and “A Few Green Leaves as Apologia.” Argues that Pym’s subjects are downtrodden, mild women who exemplify excellence on an uncommon level.