An unsuitable attachment (Perennial library) [Paperback]

Barbara Pym (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1983 | Series: Perennial library (Book 653)

When Barbara Pym died in January 1980, this unpublished novel was found among her papers - written in 1963, at a time when her work was out of fashion. The publication after nineteen years of An Unsuitable Attachment therefore became an important literary event and a source of joy for her many fans. Set in St Basil's, an undistinguished North London parish, An Unsuitable Attachment is indeed full of the high comedy for which she is famed. There is Mark Ainger, the vicar, who introduces his sermons with remarks like Those of you who are familiar with the church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome.' His wife Sophia with her cat, I feel sometimes that I can't reach Faustina as I've reached other cats.' Rupert Stonebird, anthropologist and eligible bachelor. The well-bred Ianthe Broome who works at the library and forms an unsuitable attachment with a young man there. The sharp-tongue Mervyn Cantrell, chief librarian, who complains that when books have things spilt on them it is always bottled sauce or gravy of the thickest and most repellent kind rather than something utterly exquisite and delicious.' There is also Daisy Pettigrew, the vet's sister, another obsessional cat person, and Sister Dew who bears a strong resemblance to Sister Blatt in Excellent Women. These and many more incidental characters come under Barbara Pym's microscope. Phillip Larkin sums up what An Unsuitable Attachment means to Pym's legion of admirers in his fascinating introduction, saying, It is richly redolent of her unique talent ...her followers will need no further recommendation.'

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"[This] is a paragon of a novel, certainly one of [Barbara Pym's] best, witty, elegant. . ." -- -New York Times Book Review --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

From the Publisher

ALSO AVAILABLE:
Crampton Hodnet,
A Few Green Leaves,
Jane and Prudence,
Some Tame Gazelle,
The Sweet Dove Died --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Harper & Row; 1st Perennial Library ed edition (1983)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060806532
• ISBN-13: 978-0060806538
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,805,221 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

40 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Romance, social class, church and a cat., November 20, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: An unsuitable attachment (Perennial library) (Paperback)

Barbara Pym is often called the Jane Austen of our time. Insofar as she observes keenly the social intercourse, inconsistancies and mores of her own time and place, this is true. But do not regard her as a duplicate of anyone. Her dry, elegant observations reach their height in An Unsuitable Attachment, a meandering story which takes place in a London parish in the 1960's. Pym lightly delineates the social changes taking place in England through her assortment of characters. From the upper-middle-class vicar's wife Sophia, devoted to her aptly-named cat Faustina and her handsome if remote husband Mark, to the wistfully mod single Penelope, to the good-hearted if crude working-class Sister Dew, Pym represents the spectrum of generational and class attitudes, and the resultant clashes of understanding between these attitudes. In spare yet well-honed descriptions she evokes a post-war, newly prospering London, a city where exotic (meaning dark-skinned) immigrants live close by old-fashioned people whose relatives who come up by train from the country to open a parish bazaar. I lived in London not many years ofter this story is set, and the mix of characters, descriptions of streets and houses, and tone and pace brilliantly evoke the atmosphere of that wonderfully complex and vital city. The romance is fun, too.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Romance, social class, church and a cat., November 20, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: An unsuitable attachment (Perennial library) (Paperback)

Barbara Pym is often called the Jane Austen of our time. Insofar as she observes keenly the social intercourse, inconsistancies and mores of her own time and place, this is true. But do not regard her as a duplicate of anyone. Her dry, elegant observations reach their height in An Unsuitable Attachment, a meandering story which takes place in a London parish in the 1960's. Pym lightly delineates the social changes taking place in England through her assortment of characters. From the upper-middle-class vicar's wife Sophia, devoted to her aptly-named cat Faustina and her handsome if remote husband Mark, to the wistfully mod single Penelope, to the good-hearted if crude working-class Sister Dew, Pym represents the spectrum of generational and class attitudes, and the resultant clashes of understanding between these attitudes. In spare yet well-honed descriptions she evokes a post-war, newly prospering London, a city where exotic (meaning dark-skinned) immigrants live close by old-fashioned people whose relatives who come up by train from the country to open a parish bazaar. I lived in London not many years ofter this story is set, and the mix of characters, descriptions of streets and houses, and tone and pace brilliantly evoke the atmosphere of that wonderfully complex and vital city. The romance is fun, too.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Pym at her most typical, January 11, 2009

By 

Jay Dickson (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

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This review is from: An Unsuitable Attachment: a novel (Paperback)

AN UNSUITABLE ATTACHMENT might be called the most typical of Barbara Pym's novels, which is a bit surprising because it was one that was famously rejected by her publisher in the mid 1960s, leading to her long spell when she did not publish until she was famously rediscovered over a decade later (and was nominated for the Booker Prize for QUARTET IN AUTUMN). All the types you'll find in other Pym novels--the unmarried woman leaving the bloom of youth doing research or filing work for others; the gentle vicar; his eccentric wife; the preoccupied anthropologist--are present here, and the central questions (as always) center upon marriage and happiness in distressed but genteel circumstances. This is not one of the Pym books that absolutely knocks your socks off for either its humor or its construction, but it's still well crafted and very funny (in Pym's gentle and unsurprising way). There's a great cat that figures as much into the plot as nearly any of the humans, and a splendid and very recognizable set-piece of most of the major characters taking a vacation in Rome where they flirt with one another (always one of the preoccupations of any Pym novel, and probably why she has so often been compared a bit misleadingly to Jane Austen).