Customer Reviews

AN Academic Question (Plume)

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I have read all of Barbara Pym's published works and I find that this is one of her weaker offerings. In this book she leaves her spinsters and has a married woman with a child for her heroine. She doesn't seem comfortable with this heroine. The scenes with the child are a little stilted. She doesn't seem as real or as interesting as Mildred of "Excellent Women" or even Wilmet of "A Glass of Blessings" her other married heroine. But, as a fan I enjoyed the book. It was interesting to see her outside her usual cast of characters. There are some really good parts, especially those dealing with the academics where she is on familiar ground.

This book is a rigidly light-hearted portrayal of a woman, Caroline, trying to figure out what she should be doing. Married to an academic, and dissatisfied with being a housewife she attempts to fill her time by reading to residents at a retirement home. Her husband becomes very interested in the individual that Caroline is reading to, and steals a manuscript to further his research.

The cynical disrespect and disregard that Caroline, her husband, and all the characters exhibit for ethics or pretense of social feeling is no doubt intended to amuse. Since her best friend is a hedgehog-fancier one cannot help but imagine that this is supposed to be a comedic story. Perhaps it is the distance in time (the book was published posthumously in 1986), but rather than humorous the characters are repellent, the plot depressing, the racism irritating. This is the type of book that might be interesting when published, but is quickly outmoded.

Professor Maynard always gave a party at the beginning of autumn. Caroline Grimstone, Caro, is the narrator of the book. She is married to Alan and has a four year old daughter, Kate. The university had grown up from a local technical college. Crispin Maynard heads Alan's department.

The Pym voice is fully present in this work, notwithstanding the fact that Hazel Holt used two drafts to make a coherent whole of this posthumous work. A mother and son couple, Coco, (Corcoran), and Kitty Jeffreys are friends of Alan and Caro and also attend the party. Coco is a research fellow in Caribbean Studies. Crispin is an historian and Alan an anthropologist, and both men are specialists in the study of pre-literate peoples. Iris Horniblow is someone who is new in the department and Caro wonders if Alan is interested in her. Dolly Arborfield is a friend and the sister of Kitty Jeffreys. Her interests run to old books, junk, and animals. In her sixties, it seems that Dolly has rather lost contact with people.

Through Dolly Arborfield, Caro pursues good works by going to an old peoples' home, Normanhurst, to read to a missionary living there. The paper read is one authored by Crispin Maynard. The missionary, Mr. Stillingfeet, has a box of papers that even Crispin Maynard has not seen. In a Henry James-like plot, Caro and Alan distract the old missionarya day prior to his death with a bag of crisps while Alan gains entry to the box. Later, Caro, a volunteer at the university library, has to find a way to secrete the manuscript in the librarian's office. Alan, an up and coming academic, uses the information gained in a piece for a scholarly journal. It turns out that Crispin knows what has transpired, at least sort of. There is the suggestion in the book that Crispin would have used the advantage gained from seeing the papers had he been in Alan's shoes.

What Caro really thinks of the matter is not fully disclosed. Everything is treated in a tone of irony. This is a very good, and completely modern, book.

A reader not familiar with the works of Barbara Pym might come away from reading An Academic Question less than enthused. Hence, it would behoove them to read her Booker Prize nominated Quartet in Autumn first and put this one last on the list. Written during her "silent" years when she was unable to get a publisher to represent her work, An Academic Question centers primarily on Caroline Grimstone, the wife of an academic who finds herself embroiled in the studious affairs of her husband, Alan, a climbing intellectual wannabe whose book smarts are all that he has going for him. He truly is a one dimensional character if ever there was one. Yet, having worked in academia myself, the caricature of Alan is not too off the mark and certainly not a literary failing of Pym's. She has his dullish and repressed mannerism pretty much down pat. Unfortunately, that's essentially it with him. Though as a character I found him less than interesting, it is Alan who gets the ball rolling by having his bored wife, Caroline, act as a thief on his behalf. In academia, it is vital to get published, to get a name established, for that can lead to tenure, research grants, name recognition and endowed chairs. Alan wants that, for even though he is an up-and-comer, he is still a junior professor with very limited credentials. The story begins to move forward when a former missionary with research papers of profound academic interest to Alan and a competing professor named Crispin Maynard, is moved into Normanhurst, a large, Edwardian detached house where retirees go to spend their twilight years. Ever the opportunist, Alan nudges his wife to "volunteer" at the home and perhaps help herself to his private papers in order to enhance his own writings, for his speciality is a form of sociological anthropology. However, his own writings need to be beefed up a bit. A loving wife to the end, she complies. And in the process of doing so, she enters a phase internal contemplation about how she wound up acting as a kind of university spy for her husband. The absurdity of her actions begin to hit home, and she ponders about her own intelligence and also being reduced to something mirroring a Barbara Cartland novel without the romance. Without a true support system to help her out, she is reduced to the eccentric people around her, mainly Dolly Arborfield, an "antiques" dealer with a bizarre penchant for, of all things, hedgehogs and Coco Jeffreys, a rather gossipy and effeminate male Caribbean expert who works in her husband's department. Together, they are her counsel. But she would do well without them. The latter thinks she should have an affair, apparently the most daring act that a quasi nonplussed academic can take in order to find themselves. Yet, that is not her speed. Ultimately, the missionary does die, and his papers get housed in the university library where academics can sift through the research treasures. And right on cue, Alan recommends that Caroline work part-time at the library, to "occupy" some of her free time, fill out index cards and label books. And while she's at it, help herself to some of the research papers. Again, she complies and succeeds. Her reward for her devotion? Well, a reader will just have to find that out for him or herself. For me, I thought it was repellent, and Barbara Pym, in a way, does ask for forgiveness. It is only though internal contemplation and the nutty characters that make Caroline see beyond the the monotony and dullness of her marriage and life in academia, for it changes into comforting consistency and a place of development, a constant academic test to study and conquer. Life. And in the end, Caroline Grimestone becomes an A+ student, precisely because she is able to navigate around the ridiculousness of life. While an Academic Question may not be the best of Pym's literary output, it definitely has her mark on it. And it was appropriate that she chose academia for the conveyance of this particular message. It is witty, subtle and very lightly imbued with an almost unnoticed dark edge.

I had never read any of Barbara Pym's books before, but had heard she was a good writer, so when I came across this in a library, I tried it out. Perhaps it was the 1970s time period, but I had trouble understanding the motivations of many of the characters. Caro, the narrator, is a "University wife" whose husband teaches something unspecified in the Anthropology dept. of a provincial university. Caro herself is bored with her life, but doesn't seem to have the gumption to do anything about it. She's interested in very little, including her own child (the couple employs a full-time Swedish nanny although Caro doesn't work), and seems to just drift along, not very well-treated by those around her. When her husband commits an unethical act to further his research paper, Caro hardly seems aware that it is wrong, and never says anything about it to him. Dramatic events are quickly leached of any momentum: an adulterous affair is briefly agonized over, and then never mentioned again; thefts go unnoticed; an ex-lover shows up briefly, then disappears. The most interesting characters, Caro's flamboyant friend Coco and his diva mother, merely provide background color, and never further the story. If Pym intended to create a portrait of a dull, modern life, she succeeded, but I can't say the book does anything for the reader. Although her writing style is fairly engaging, it doesn't make up for the characters' lack of initiative. If you want to feel as frustrated as they are, read this book.