Detailed account of the life using much private correspondence. It got a bit tedious reading about endless spiteful treatment by Oxford blokes - and caring so much about these wastrels. I did love audio version of the Dove that Died and also liked detailed observations of 'the trivial round, the common task' (taken from Keble's hymn; New Every Morning is the Love') that she uses a lot in her books

Talk about bringing an idol down off the pedestal; I’ve always joked that Barbara Pym is my patron saint, but oof this was a rough read. I actually knew that the first draft of Pym’s first novel was written in the 1930s and was creepily pro-Nazi (thanks to Laura Shapiro at the Pym conference) and was disturbed then, but wow I definitely didn’t know that she herself visited Germany so many times and was in love with a Nazi too; I mean JFC in the extreme. That was enough, but then there was the entire boy-crazy aspect of her life which was annoying; I not sure if that was more Byrne’s interpretation, or if Pym truly only ever wrote about men in all her diaries.

It all makes one think about what you leave behind too as she wrote to herself along with her novels and stories; the fact that she ripped out and destroyed pages of those diaries is telling, and it’s so interesting to wonder about what was lost. I do ponder still how Byrne decided to tell Pym’s story; this was a crazy long bio for what was generally a fairly ordinary life, but I wish that we actually saw more of that ordinary part which Pym so beautifully writes about in her novels (although perhaps that was the point—the novels were the ordinary part…). ( )

I enjoyed this biography of one of my favorite authors. I found that what a vaguely knew of Pym was largely wrong. What I thought I knew was that she was an Emily Dickinson type - who lived a sheltered, unexciting life and wrote a bunch of novels that were barely published during her life or got little recognition. (I'm probably wrong about Emily Dickinson too . . . )

What I found instead was that Pym led a fairly modern and ahead-of-her times life. As a young woman at Oxford, she had many (disappointing) love affairs and seems to have enjoyed the sexual parts of these relationships. She traveled quite a bit, having a love affair with 1930s Germany the country and a young German man. She even thought Hitler was a good leader for Germany, before the war and atrocities came to light. She also was a Wren during WWII and traveled to Italy. She began writing novels in a focused manner in her 30s, and had six novels published between 1950-1961 which were fairly widely read. In the 60s, her style of novel, focused on "real people" and everyday life, fell out of favor during the sexual revolution. They were viewed as spinster-ly and old-fashioned, though her actual readers will know that there's quite a bit of forward-thinking in her novels. So she was unable to get any of her next novels published for a long stretch of time. In the late 70s, she was rediscovered and her novels have been in print ever since.

I liked this biography, though I was annoyed in the first third of the book at how much focus was put on her sexual relationships with men. It read like a string of failed relationships and as though that was all she cared about in her 20s. I wanted more about her female friendships, her academic endeavors, her family, her travels, etc. I think the focus of her male relationships stems from the fact that this book was largely based on Pym's diaries. I think it's normal that young women write about their love life to the exclusion of other things in their diaries! But it doesn't mean that in day-to-day life it's their primary focus or all-consuming. I wish the author had balanced the diary writings with other source material a little better. This evens out later, and I suppose in a way, Byrne was really trying to set up the fact that Pym was a liberated sexual woman. It provides good background to how incorrect it was when she's viewed as sedate, spinster-ish, and a bit prude in the 1960s. But, nevertheless, the beginning did bother me. Too much about the men!

Either way, I did enjoy learning more about Pym and I will read her novels with new eyes and better background when I reread her next. ( )

Paula Byrne wrote a very good book ('Mad World') about the author Evelyn Waugh and in her biography of Barbara Pym she has succeeded again in producing something special. Even those who know a good deal already about Pym and love her works will learn more. In writing this book Byrne has been helped a good deal by the fact that as she says, Pym is 'the most autogiographical of writers'. So this is not a formal biography (though properly researched and referenced) but rather an account of the way Pym transmuted her own life and its not very sensational happenings into novels which celebrate daily life. It is made easy to read by an engaging flowing style, and short chapters.

Byrne deals extensively and sympathetically with the episodes where Pym is in love with an SS officer, but there is a certain superficiality about them (he is said often to be 'close to Hitler' but it is never explained how, since he was not very senior, and there is no trace of his having been subjected after WWII to de-nazification or trial). And one wonders whether there is a reluctance to admit that Pym might have been quite happy to have the same views as the 1930s SS officer, even if she later 'recanted' by removing relevant parts of 'Some Tame Gazelle' – for which there was a commercial imperative. Certainly in the 1930s she was not of the same view about these matters as her sister and friend Jock Liddell, as the book does show.

The book does not aspire to literary criticism, but contains views about the novels; on the whole these seem sound but are perhaps too easy on the lesser works like 'A Few Green Leaves' and 'An Academic Question.' And Byrne's attempts to show that Pym adapted to changing times are a little laboured; these two books demonstrate through their uncertain handling of material that she didn't adapt well (the other two later books, 'A Quartet in Autumn' and 'The Sweet Dove Died' are more securely rooted in her own experiences).

Byrne perhaps spends too much time on the Pym/Jane Austen comparison. Although they both set their books in daily life, they were in reality very different writers (for example, Austen has very little description of houses and their contents, or clothes). To be fair, Pym herself downplayed this comparison when made in her own lifetime by those who should perhaps have known better.

The friendship between Pym and Larkin (an unlikely one in some ways) is well handled and given proper weight.

There are some minor niggles; although the acknowledgements mention a copyedit, the book could have done with another, as several places where information is duplicated persist. I found one instance where two characters mentioned as being from one novel are those in another. And one wonders why such a good author twice misuses the word 'fulsome'. But these are small matters. This is a book to sink into and enjoy. ( )

Very disappointing biography of one of my all-time favorite authors. Byrne seems to be fixated on Pym's sexual adventures in her Oxford years, devoting a cringeworthy amount of attention, and even excitement, to this short phase of Pym's life. She also blithely mixes up a couple of Pym's major characters with others from different books, which makes it look like she's read these few treasures just once and has forgotten what's in them. If that's your level of interest in an author, why write a biography? And why so very little about Barbara's sister, Hilary, who was such a huge part of her life? I prefer the older biography by Dale Salwak, "The Life and Work of Barbara Pym." ( )