Jane and Prudence [Paperback]

Barbara Pym (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1999

This early novel by Barbara Pym captures the charm and folly of English middle-class life. The two title characters share a devoted friendship based on memories of Oxford school days, poetry and their neighbors' private affairs- all discussed over leisurely lunches. And they share a common goal: finding a suitable mate for Prudence.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"She does for her own domain what Jane Austen, Edith Wharton and Henry James did for theirs..." -- Atlanta Journal

About the Author

Barbara Pym, who died on January 11, 1980, spent the last few years of her life in an Oxfordshire village, sharing a small cottage with her sister. In 1977, after sixteen years in the wilderness she published QUARTET IN AUTUMN. It was treated as a major literary event, as was her next novel, THE SWEET DOVE DIED.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Moyer Bell and its subsidiaries (September 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1559212268
• ISBN-13: 978-1559212267
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #271,799 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sheer bliss, even the 10th time around, February 12, 2002

By 

ARG (Arlington, VA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Jane and Prudence (Paperback)

What a joy it is to sink into a Barbara Pym novel, especially this one, which is one of my favorites. The eye for detail, the wit, the ability to sketch a character with just a sentence or two, that this author possesses, never fail to delight. I return to her novels every couple of years, and find them to be balm for the soul.

This trip into the English countryside of 50 years ago, with its vicars, teas, and rationing, is a gentle and wondrous escape from current realities. Yet, like all great literature, its insights into human nature is timeless.

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Jane and Prudence is a hilarious novel of British manners., May 14, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Jane and Prudence (Paperback)

You need not be an Anglophile to enjoy Jane, the vicar's wife whose literary past has her quoting odd lines of seventeenth century poetry at inappropriate moments, startling her visitors and making her readers giggle. Jane's friend Prudence is all propriety and green eye shadow, but can't seem to find a suitable husband among many suitors, some more colorful than others. A brief but pleasing little novel, sharply written and finely shaped. If you're not already a Pym fan, you'll become one.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "I never read anything my mother reads.", November 19, 2004

By 

Charles Slovenski (Geneva Switzerland) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Jane and Prudence (Paperback)

"I never read anything my mother reads," said my best friend Tom when we were college students. Although that was a long time ago, I still remember his response when I offered him a copy of a Barbara Pym novel. Such is the far-reaching reputation of this very entertaining writer. However, I vouch for the fact that Pym's novels appeal to a much wider public than our mothers.

Take Jane and Prudence. Jane is a frumpy but bright vicar's wife who would, in another age and novel, enjoy a profitable career in Human Resources Management. Prudence, her close friend from schoolgirl days, is a single woman living in a modest flat in London and working in a dreary office but whose life is anything but dull. She likes fine things, makes up her face artfully and fantasizes about her married employer. Jane and her husband the vicar have recently relocated to a village vicarage where the locals are hard pressed to accept their new neighbors. Prudence comes to visit and is courted by the local Lothario who is ultimately swept up by his rich neighbor's hired companion, leaving Prudence slightly bereft and impelled to dally with her pale, lean co-worker who enjoys hiking.

That's the plot as best as I can describe it, leaving out the small but pretty byroads of church decorating parties, council meetings and office lunches.

Within this precious story is great high comedy, full of irony and wit. The office scenes are hilarious, depicting an inpenetrable hierachy that had me laughing away. The village characters are all distinct and never reduced to stock rustic characters, therefore I was fascinated. The very industrious woman who lands the local but lazy Lothario gives a firm example of "setting one's cap" to winning a mate. Pym likes to depict characters who study anthropology and it's fitting that her people in this story are quite a tribal study in themselves.