Crampton Hodnet

I sent this book to a younger friend, in her early thirties, for Christmas, thinking that she would enjoy the writing and the humor. Her thank you note read: "I just finished CRAMPTON HODNET last night and LOVED IT!" If you haven't read any books by Barbara Pym, get CRAMPTON HODNET today!

Barbara Pym is a writer with a light touch and a wonderful sense of humor. I enjoy reading and re-reading her novels for the atmosphere she creates around her cast of earnest British students, church ladies, professors, vicars, aunts, and spinster companions as they mix and mingle, wonder and worry, take tea, attend jumble sales and go about their middle-class lives.

I completely disagree with the 'one star' reviewer. He or she hit the nail on the head with the observation that it was completely unfair that the 36 year old curate gets a nineteen year old girl while the 36 year old woman is an isolated spinster. That's exactly what is great about this book. The observation that a talented, kindly, humorous, intelligent woman is socially 'worthless' compared to a fairly buffoonish man of a similar (middle) age is one of the things that makes this book brilliantly -- not exactly dark, but certainly unwavering. And Pym's lovely, detailed, understated style makes every page an incomparable treat. Incomparable, because Pym's literary gift doesn't shout at you -- I don't know why she wrote, but you don't get the impression it was with Proustian status in mind, thank goodness. Or maybe with literary status in mind, but the thought must have been accompanied by the sort of self awareness that few people possess -- I don't -- that allows them to thwart their desire to impress and instead lets them simply impress through their service (in this case, to the reader). I can't describe the richness of her style, but it is incredibly evocative without ever distracting from the narrative of her story. She combines Colette's facility with detail with the humility of -- a popular novelist? I love Barbara Pym's books and I am so grateful to her for writing them. I recommend that every woman read them, and every man who likes reading too.

Though always insightful and just stunningly human, Barbara Pym's novels do tend to blur into one another, fraught as they are, with spinsters and vicars who take tea on rainy days and wonder about what is "suitable." But this one stands out.Oh sure, there's a vicar and a tender young curate and a couple of spinsters and lots of tea and a few unsuitable dresses, comments, situations, and even romances; but in this, Barbara Pym's first novel, the characters are funnier, and the farce is one shade broader.Think of this as the BEST one. That will help you sort it out.

"Crampton Hodnet," a novel of Oxford, entertains and amuses in a way few books do. Miss Doggett, the upright spinster who entertains hapless Oxford youths at tea parties in her dark North Oxford home; Jessie Morrow, her companion (who reappears later in "Jane and Prudence"); their curate lodger, the vicar and his wife, Miss Doggett's cousin, the academic Francis Cleveland, his vague but charming wife Margaret, Francis's brilliant student, Barbara Bird, and many others enrich the cast of an enchanting novel The plot is more vigorous than in some of Pym's later works, and one laughs from beginning to end. Treat yourself some rainy afternoon.