Customer Reviews

A Glass of Blessings

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is the most entertaining book I have read in a long time. I happened upon the Barbara Pym web page and there was a page of quotations from her novels that were very amusing, kind of off-the-wall. Usually, humor from another era seems very tame or just doesn't hold up. I looked for a copy of one of her books and came across an old paperback copy of this one at the public library. The perceptions of the lead character, Wilmet Forsyth, a 33 year old childless married woman with a lot of free time on her hands, make up the book. I could describe some of the events in the book which involve men she finds attractive and men who find her attractive, church functions, a homosexual relationship, etc. but I won't bother. Sex is never overtly mentioned or contemplated by Wilmet in this book. The portrayal of a gay couple in England in the 1950's fascinated me. Wilmet is so cautious and careful in her observations even though she is opinionated. I was happy she wasn't harsh toward these gay characters even though she is heavily involved in her church. Wilmet is not a really deep thinker, but she's funny and kind. Anyway, it's a fun book you should seek out.

Blessed with money, position, and marital stability, Wilmet Forsyth lives in the heart of London with her husband and mother-in-law and tries to spice up her staid life by imagining the possibility of romance coming to her from handsome clergymen or lonely bachelor friends. The intertext for Pym's 1958 novel is clearly Jane Austen's EMMA, with the main character again trying to offset the end of narrative possibilities for herself that marriage brings. Philip Larkin praised A GLASS OF BLESSINGS as the subtlest of Pym's comedies, and although it's depiction of grace operating among the very respectable and genteel is very charming and even ultimately moving it is not one of her funnier books (in part because it is told from Wilmet's point of view and she, unlike Pym's more disadvantaged heroines, is so limited in her outlook). But the novel is pretty joyful nonetheless, and its depiction of a 1950s London gay subculture at the end of the book is fairly fascinating.

Jilly Cooper says that Barbara Pym's books remind her "of what is true.....about English life". In the case of A Glass of blessings, this refers to a very small, but significant part of 1950's English life in the 1950's, and Barbara Pym portrays it beautifully. Her characterisation is excellent, as are her descriptions. She must have been a very observant woman. To say that she is snobbish is unfair. She portrayed her part of the world as she saw it. And note that the very implicit sexual backdrop never has to be referred to explicitly at all.

Whetehr the fifties were "better" than now is open to doubt: but if you want a picture of a small part of 1950's England, then this is an enjoyable way to find it.

So says Piers Longridge - single, handsome, and 35 - to Wilmet Forsyth, when she awkwardly expresses her surprise and consternation at learning that he does not share his flat with a colleague from work but rather with a much younger man who works as a model and at a coffee bar. Which, of course, means that Piers - her best friend's brother whom she liked to fancy was romantically attracted to her - is gay. And suddenly the romantic fantasies that colored her own rather staid married life go poof.

Barbara Pym made a career out of writing about women in their mid-thirties whose lives have turned out to be circumscribed by the social conventions that predominate the post-WWII England of the middle and upper-middle classes. They are expected to live, charmingly but docilely, in the shadows and in the service of the men of England. They sense that something is wrong with this arrangement, but all of the tumblers have not yet dropped to release them from either their mental or their physical cages.

Wilmet Forsyth is the iteration of the Pym "heroine" in A GLASS OF BLESSINGS. Wilmet is 33. The high point of her life was as a Wren in Italy during WWII, where, after a taste of glamour and excitement as a single young woman, she met Rodney, who is now her husband. Rodney works in a government ministry and is about as conventional as could be. Wilmet and Rodney do not have children and they live comfortably with Rodney's mother. Although Rodney is dutifully solicitous of Wilmet, the notion of her also working is anathema to him. So she must occupy herself with activities at the local Church of England, giving blood, occasional luncheons and shopping trips, and taking Portuguese lessons one night a week with her mother-in-law. And with being exquisitely curious as to whether the men she encounters find her attractive and desirable, though heaven knows how she would respond if any of them actually suggested a sexual encounter.

Needless to say, it's a rather boring life. And truth be told, Wilmet is a rather boring lead character, the least interesting and sympathetic of the leads of the four Barbara Pym novels I now have read. A GLASS OF BLESSINGS has its moments of understated comedy and satire, as well as nice touches from time to time. For example, with unvoiced reference to T.S. Eliot, Barbara Pym/Wilmet Forsyth writes: "We had a hard winter that year. February and March were cruel months - not in the poet's way perhaps, but bad enough for most of us. * * * April was balmy and delicious, and cruel in the way the poet did mean, mingling memory and desire. The memory was of other springs, the desire unformulated, unrecognized almost, pushed away because there seemed to be no place for it in the life I had chosen for myself."

But on the whole, A GLASS OF BLESSINGS is the least engaging of the four Pym novels I have read. What most distinguishes it is its depiction, though light and almost off-hand, of homosexual circles in London - something, I imagine, that was rather uncommon among establishment novelists such as Barbara Pym in the 1950s. Even so, I am stretching a little bit to give it four stars.

It's really a shame Pym isn't read and talked about more often. Her writing evokes Anthony Trollope with his insights into people's hearts crossed with a dollop of Jane Austen's humor. Pym writes about middle class people going about their day to day activities just as Trollope and Austen did and just like them she makes the characters fascinating.

The book is set in the 50's and told from the viewpoint of a 29 year old childless woman named Wilmet as she tries to navigate growing older. (I suppose 29 was considered differently then.) Though she's happy with her husband whom she met in Italy while serving as a WREN and he was a dashing soldier she still likes the attention of other men. She runs into them at innocuous places such as church and while visiting friends. Pym's humor is understated. There are no mean undertones. She touches on homey things like knitting, helping a friend choose a new dress or hairdo, nights at home with her husband and mother in law, romantic memories of the war years and Italy, church gossip, and even listening to John Rutter on the radio directing Christmas carols sung by the King's Cambridge choir. She invokes past authors such as Wilde,Woolf, Gaskell and Trollope. I hope I'm not giving the impression that this is a bit of fluff writing because it's not. It's immensely complex writing but I also keep wanting to describe it as delicate. The best part of her writing is having a front row seat at a cozy chat between friends where you get to see the subtext.

Here was a totally unexpected -- and unexpectedly delightful -- read. Barbara Pym was hailed twice by the Times Literary Supplement as "the most underrated novelists of the century" -- that was 1977; she died three years later in 1980 at the age of 67 having published just 7 novels in her lifetime of which A Glass of Blessings was her fifth from 1958.

Set in 1950s London, this witty novel is told through the narration of the shallow and self-absorbed protagonist Wilmet Forsyth who, despite her flaws, begins to learn something about love and about herself. The characters are explored in everyday activities, many involving the church (no less than three priests are central to the evolving events), and the others part of Wilmet's family (including her mother-in-law who owns and rules their home) and friends. When by chance, she re-connects with a childhood friend, Piers Longridge, and imagines he is a secret admirer, her heart re-awakens after years of colourless genteel contentment.

For social historians, there are endless observations, not least the very sympathetic portrayal of one matter-of-factly homosexual couple, and the richly embedded role of the church in daily lives as a social, rather than religious, institutiton.

Since her death, Pym has been recognised by countless scholarly revisitations, including an official Barbara Pym Society ([...]).

Barbara Pym has written another entertaining novel while giving insights into her characters minds and motivations.

This is truly a great book. In all of its proportions it is graceful and beguiling. Themes of love are presented with humor.

St. Luke's head is called, Pym-like, Father Thames. At the service, Wilmet Forsyth, wife of Rodney a civil servant, meets her friend Rowena's brother, Piers Longridge. She and her friend Rowena were Wrens during the war. They met each other and their husbands while stationed in Italy.

When Wilmet visits Rowena and her family in the country she goes to the country church. It seems to her that country churches are surrounded by graves and yew trees. Wilmet learns that Father Thames carries a sense of disappointment that he never became an Archdeacon. There is a reception held in honor of the new assistant, Father Ransome.

Wilmet and her mother-in-law Sybil decide to take evening classes from Piers in Portuguese. Wilmet explains to Piers that she was named for a character in a Charlotte Yonge novel. She gives blood and is drafted to help an acquaintance, Mary, find a suitable dress. It is possible that Wilmet is being pursued by both Piers and Rowena's husband, Harry. She find the Christmas Eve service beautiful and exhausting. She attends service alone since Sybil and Rodney are agnostics. Sybil remarks that she doesn't know what is expected when Christians pray for the sick.

When one of the communicants, (Mary), experiences her mother's death, she joins an order, but decides later that she is not suited to religious life. In the end Mary and Father Ransome marry and Sybil marries too, causing Rodney and Wilmet to be turned out of her house. Rodney and Wilmet find an appropriate flat in the vicinity. A bare outline of the plot does not do justice to the book.

I bought this because it was the selection for a bookgroup I'm in. It is a bit dated. I'm not moved to read anymore of her books.