En automne à Oxford-Nord, la seule distraction pour Miss Dogget, une vieille dame à l’esprit aiguisé, et Miss Morrow, sa dame de compagnie, vieille fille un peu moche, c’est d’organiser des dimanches après-midi thé avec la jeunesse du coin, M. Cherry et sa carrure de rugbyman M. Bompas qui passe pour un bolchevik avec ses idées de socialiste, M. Wyatt qui étudie la théologie, Michael et Gabriel, que tout le monde confond.
Et puis d’aller dîner chez Francis Cleveland, le neveu de Miss Dogget, dont la fille Anthea fréquente d’un peu trop près Simon, qui ambitionne de devenir Premier Ministre.
Dans cette petite ville où tout le monde se connaît, les potins sur le voisinage sont bien souvent la seule distraction.

« Ce devait être terriblement ennuyeux de travailler à la bibliothèque par ce beau temps, et Miss Morrow avait souvent remarqué que les gens intelligents avaient tendance à aimer les commérages et les intrigues. »

C’est dans ce train train ronronnant qu’arrive un nouveau vicaire M. Latimer, qui s’entend si bien avec Miss Morrow.
Et M. Cleveland se rapproche un peu trop de la jeune et jolie étudiante, Barbara Bird, qui n’a d’yeux que pour lui.


Dans cette ambiance délicieuse, il ne se passe finalement pas grand chose. J’ai parfois eu l’impression de me retrouver dans une enquête de Miss Marple mais sans meurtre.
Et pourtant, mon esprit romantique s’est attaché à tous ces personnages, s’ennuyant tellement que le moindre geste du voisin est décortiqué à l’extrême. C’est un livre souvent très drôle et très fin, avec une très bonne analyse des caractères.
Même si c’est finalement très logique et dans la continuité des choses, j’ai tout de même regretté qu’aucune des histoires n’ait finalement aboutie. La fin est un éternel recommencement et la vie continue.

– Tiens, Miss Morrow, je ne vous avais pas vue, vous étiez donc là? fit Miss Doggett.
– Voilà bien quelque chose qu’elle ne pourrait pas nier, déclara le pasteur en gloussant de satisfaction, comme à chaque fois qu’il faisait une plaisanterie.
– Si, je le pourrais, réplique Miss Morrow. Une demoiselle de compagnie fait partie du mobilier. Ce n’est pas vraiment quelqu’un.

While I loved Barbara Pym's [b:Excellent Women|178565|Excellent Women|Barbara Pym|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1309376675l/178565._SY75_.jpg|1883997], I had trouble connecting to this book. Rather than a single strong narrative voice, this book dispassionately looks at several small-town characters with satiric distance. The book centers on two comically dumb love affairs. The new curate in town is highly self-conscious about the possibility of rumors going around about his involvement with his landlady's companion, even though there is nothing going on. He gets so involved in his lie that he invents a fictional curacy, Crampton Hodnet, a completely and unnecessary and obvious lie which only stokes the rumor mill. Meanwhile, a professor and a graduate student awkwardly begin an affair each seeming shocked and rather dismayed that their impossible crush is returned. There are some very funny scenes in this book, but without a strong emotional connection to any of the characters, I couldn't really get too involved in it.

(Fiction, Vintage)

One of Pym’s favourite subjects is the behaviour of anthropologists as they study the behaviour of others. In Crampton Hodnet, she again examines this through a young anthropologist who has moved into her mother’s village home in North Oxford to complete a paper. She cannot help observing the inhabitants of the community. This, of course, serves as an outlet for Pym’s observations of human nature. This story is a little more “tied-up” than some of her others and was first published posthumously in 1987.

Read this if: you enjoy sly humour about the human condition. 3½ stars

Barbara Pym is undoubtedly the Jane Austen of 20th century. Crampton Hornet was the writer's first finished novel but only published posthumously. Very comic, very English. A lighthearted humouring of the life of middle class academics in Oxford in 1930s.

The book is character-driven. Here are some of the well crafted and lively characters:
A passionate young woman whose idea of perfect love is platonic and includes a lot of poetry reading
A 50 something professor in his mid-life crisis
A 35 years' old curate whose moral standard is not any higher than God's people and who recently discovers he does not want to celibate after all
A formidable snobbish old widow
A amiable gay (hinted) couple who always at each other's side
....
Perhaps my favourite character is Miss Morrow, a small, "plain" looking 35 year's old spinster (what a dated word), a paid companion of a rich widow, kind, sharp and observant, far more intelligent than her employer knows or allows. I keep hoping she would find her Mr. Right and the passionate love she deserves. Of course, it won't be a Barbara Pym if it happens that way.

How is it that this most Pymish of Pym novels wasn't published in her lifetime?

They teach you that change is the point of a novel. I suppose what, exactly, changes is up to the author.

Barbara Pym is an author that I will be devouring, hungrily and to the fullest extent whenever I can. Her prose is utterly hilarious, with a slight PG Wodehouse of the Oxford academic world thrown in as well as that sharp humour of Nancy Mitford and I adore her satirical wit which makes a mockery of the most normal things. To me she is an unearthed treasure, and I am only sorry there aren't lots more of her books, but I suppose with a talent like hers it is quantity over quality.