A Very Private Eye by Barbara Pym
"A Very Private Eye" is an autobiographical work by British novelist Barbara Pym, compiled posthumously from her diaries, notebooks, and letters by her sister Hilary and literary executor Hazel Holt. The book presents a unique form of autobiography, allowing Pym to narrate her life through her own words while the editors provide context and fill in missing details. It is structured in three main parts, covering her time at the University of Oxford from 1932 to 1939, her experiences during World War II when she served in the Women's Royal Naval Service, and her literary career from 1948 until her death in 1980. Notably, the work highlights Pym's evolving relationship with writing, detailing both her early struggles and later successes. The inclusion of letters to prominent figures, such as poet Philip Larkin, adds depth to her personal narrative. Upon its release in 1984, the book garnered attention for its insightful exploration of the connections between Pym's life and her fictional works, making it a valuable resource for readers interested in her novels or her personal journey. "A Very Private Eye" offers a candid glimpse into the life of an influential writer while raising questions about the nature of autobiography itself.
A Very Private Eye by Barbara Pym
First published: 1984
Type of work: Autobiography/diary/letters
Time of work: 1932-1980
Locale: Primarily England; Italy, Portugal, Germany, and Central Europe
Principal Personages:
Barbara Pym , a novelistHenry (Lorenzo) Harvey , an older contemporary at the University of Oxford with whom she fell in loveRobert (Jock) Liddell , a mutual friend at Oxford, later a novelist, critic, and travel writerPhilip Larkin , a poet, instrumental in Pym’s rediscoveryHilary Pym , Barbara’s younger sister
Form and Content
British novelist Barbara Pym began keeping a diary while a student at the University of Oxford in the 1930’s. Using excerpts from these diaries, from her later, less formal notebooks, and from some of her letters, Pym’s younger sister Hilary and her friend and literary executor Hazel Holt have put together a different kind of autobiography. Pym tells her own story in her own words, but the two editors have also written small amounts of introductory and explanatory material to fill in the gaps with facts, ideas, and feelings that were not recorded originally to serve such a direct and organized autobiographical function. Yet the author regularly shows that she expected her diaries and notebooks to be published.
Holt’s three-page preface sets forth her personal and professional relationship with Pym, which included twenty-five years together as editors and writers for the International African Institute in London. Hilary Pym, in five pages, provides background details of the Pym family and briefly sketches the childhood of the sisters in Oswestry, Shropshire.
The body of the book is divided into three main parts. Part 1, “Oxford,” covers the 1932-1939 period, when Pym was studying English literature. She remained in Oxford, at least part-time, after completing her degree. During that period she began work on her first novel, which was not actually completed until 1950, when it was published under the title Some Tame Gazelle. Part 2 covers the years of World War II; during that time, Pym joined and ultimately became an officer in the Women’s Royal Naval Service. The four subdivisions reflect both chronological and thematic concerns: “Adapting to the War” covers the period from 1940 to 1942, when England was suffering air raids; Pym wrote in a letter to Henry Harvey and his wife, Elsie, in Stockholm, “Wars aren’t what they used to be in Victorian times, when they were fought abroad decently by professional soldiers!” Demonstrating both the passing of time and the connections between Pym’s private life, the war, and “ordinary” life, the editors cover 1943 and part of 1944 with two sections related to when she started new diaries. They are titled “Christmas I” (1942) and “Christmas II” (1943). Sometimes there are large gaps in time unaccounted for during these war years; for example, the ten-month period between diary entries of November 21, 1943, and September 17, 1944, includes but one letter, written to Harvey, on May 26, 1944. The last section of her war and prepublication years is titled “Naples” and reflects her life in Italy with the navy, working at her job as a censor. This part of her life came to an end with her discharge on January 11, 1946.
Although she went to work that same year for the International African Institute, the entries in the autobiography do not begin until early in 1948. The last of these three main parts of the book, “The Novelist,” consists of three sections, the first devoted to the 1948 to 1963 period, when six novels were published in rapid order. The second covers the 1963 to 1977 period, when no publisher wanted to print what she wrote. It concludes with the period from 1977 until her death in 1980, when renewed publication brought greater fame than before. Four new novels were published, three during her lifetime and one posthumously. The 334 pages of the autobiography itself are followed by a bibliography and brief publication history of the novels and a comprehensive index and glossary, the glossary being the inclusion of nicknames and other aids to cross-referencing. The book contains twelve pages of photographs.
The principal recipients of her letters were Henry Harvey, her first love at Oxford and later a professor at the University of Helsingfors; Robert Liddell, a staff member at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, when Pym met him and later a novelist and critic living primarily in Athens; Philip Larkin, poet, writer on jazz, and librarian at the University of Hull; and Robert Smith, an Oxford graduate and professor of history at the University of Lagos in Nigeria.
Critical Context
Upon its publication in 1984, A Very Private Eye received reviews in at least eleven major American periodicals, ranging from The Wall Street Journal to The New Republic. A thesis running through most of these reviews is that this book accomplishes the primary biographical function of elucidating some relationships between fact and fiction. Readers of this book who have previously read Pym’s novels can benefit from discovering the reasons behind her taking certain positions or expressing certain attitudes. There is the equal reward of getting her view of the real persons behind some of her fictional characters. Other readers of this book may well be led by Pym’s strong, honest, open personality to want to discover her novelistic creations.
In addition to being placed within the context of the fiction, this book can be examined in its relationship with the more usual way of publishing an author’s diaries and letters, that is, as separate volumes that do not purport to be autobiographies. Pym clearly meant to say what she says in all this material, and she clearly hoped that much of it would be published; the form it might take was not of her choosing, but she and her words are well served by this form of publication. Although this book does serve well as an autobiography, the reader should not take it as replacing a full biography, with interpretation of Pym by some writer other than Pym.
Bibliography
Burkhart, Charles. The Pleasure of Miss Pym, 1987.
Christian Science Monitor. LXXVI, August 23, 1984, p. 21.
Goldstein, William. “A Novel, a Biography, a Play: A Peek Inside the Pym Estate,” in Publishers Weekly. CCXXVIII (October 4, 1985), p. 43.
Library Journal. CIX, June 1, 1984, p. 1126.
Long, Robert Emmet. Barbara Pym, 1986.
Los Angeles Times Book Review. August 5, 1984, p. 1.
Nardin, Jane. Barbara Pym, 1985.
Ms. XIII, July, 1984, p. 21.
The New York Review of Books. XXXI, August 16, 1984, p. 15.
The New York Times Book Review. LXXXIX, July 8, 1984, p. 3.
The New Yorker. LX, July 16, 1984, p. 91.
Newsweek. CIV, July 23, 1984, p. 64.
Publishers Weekly. CCXXV, May 4, 1984, p. 46.
Rossen, Janice. The World of Barbara Pym, 1987.
Salwak, Dale, ed. The Life and Work of Barbara Pym, 1987.
The Wall Street Journal. CCIV, July 3, 1984, p. 22.