Mildred, at 30-something, is considered a spinster in her 1950s London, and she moves through life fairly contentedly, working for the Impoverished Gentlewomen’s Group, helping out at her local parish, and living on her own in a small apartment. Her life gets slightly shaken up when a fashionable couple move in downstairs and Mildred finds herself swept up in their mildly dazzling world.

This one was a surprising delight. Think Cranford for slightly more modern era. I loved it. ( )

Another entertainingly deadpan Barbara Pym novel, in which a single woman observes the romantic shenanigans of those around her. I recognised Everard Bone the anthropologist from another of her books, which was a little disconcerting as I wasn’t sure in what order they were supposed to take place. The narrator, Mildred Lathbury, is a wonderful character. I found her musings alternately funny, astute, relatable, and full of pathos. I was concerned that at the end she would suddenly get married, but luckily she does not. She rents a flat on her own, but shares a bathroom, which drags her into the lives of her neighbours. Although she has a part-time job, most of her activity and her social life centre on her church. Despite not relating to her religiosity, I found her a kindred spirit. She does her best to help her friends and acquaintances, and yet there are limits:

The truth was, I thought, looking once more at the letter on the desk which could not now be finished tonight, that I was exhausted with bearing other people’s burdens, or burthens as the nobler language of our great hymn-writers put it. Then, too, I had become selfish and set in my ways and would surely be a difficult person to live with.

[...]

“Hullo Mildred, this is Everard.”
I was instantly suspicious. I had hardly even realised that we called each other by our Christian names but I supposed that after all this time we probably did, thought I was not conscious of ever having called him Everard.
After a few formal preliminaries, during which each asked how the other was, and gave and received an answer, there was a pause. What does he want? I wondered, and waited for him to say.
“I rang up to ask you if you would come and have dinner with me in my flat this evening. I have got some meat to cook.”
I saw myself putting a small joint into the oven and preparing vegetables. I could feel my aching back bending over the sink.
“I’m afraid I can’t tonight,” I said baldly.

Other highlights include the jumble sale, the woodworm revelation, the Catholic priests who resemble beetles, and the civil service pigeons. Pym is such a witty, observant, and skilled writer. I’m so glad she applied her talents to illuminating the world of single women in their thirties living in rented flats. ( )

(2020 has become my year of rereading the novels of Barbara Pym, my favourite novelist - "favourite" in the sense of "speaks most to my soul", not as in "greatest" or "best"; I believe she would have appreciated the distinction. This is my revised review.)

Mildred Lathbury, the protagonist of Barbara Pym's most accessible novel, is - I think - often used as a stand-in for Pym herself, even though I can't quite imagine Mildred having some of Barbara's youthful indiscretions. Certainly, though, I sometimes feel I am Mildred... and I'm a thirtysomething male! Perhaps this is the success of Excellent Women.

The worlds of Barbara Pym novels are usually small; here, indeed, we centre around a youngish spinster, her vicar and his sister, and a collection of anthropologists who have spent so much time examining the practices of other cultures that they are loath to entirely commit to the standard practices of their own. Pym's insight is as sharp as a pin, and her wit stabs like one too.

I sometimes hear Pym compared to another classic 20th century Brit, Anthony Powell (whom she read frequently) but I think there is a clear difference. Powell's characters, in his legendary A Dance to the Music of Time sequence, seem to be in the process of realising that life isn't entirely the tea party privileged young white people are promised. Pym's characters, on the other hand, open the book already aware of this. It is our privilege to watch them deal with this understanding, and seek a way to move forward in spite of it. Mildred's feeling on having to share a bathroom with fellow tenants at her stage in life, for example, is not quite horror, it's just resignation with a hint of self-doubt, and an occasional flutter (usually suppressed) of hope for a better outcome in future.

Amidst the barbs and sighs of Pym's characters, we are witnessing a fantastic cultural document, an entire world unfolding before our eyes. And in every interaction, the missed moments, the unintentional disparagement, the self-doubt amplified into pain and suffering. Unusually for a Pym novel, Excellent Women is in the first person, meaning that we miss out on one of her most sublime talents, an almost post-modern approach to point-of-view, where the author flits disarmingly between characters, allowing us to adapt to one way of thinking before we are rudely reminded that what is logical to one person is absurdity to another.

"Bittersweet" is an easy adjective to describe the end of most of Pym's novels, but perhaps - like the post-war rationing English cuisine that fills her early books - the taste is better described as "tasty but practical". Not overly rich, sometimes making do with a substitute ingredient, and a cheap bottle of wine from the store down the street to go with one's solitary meal. But you know (most of the time) that things will feel a bit better in the morning, with crumpets and tea by the fire. ( )

Really funny and clever; particularly re: Anglo-Catholic social culture. It sometimes managed to feel a little gruesome, just from the sheer claustrophobic press of expectations and under-estimations one can feel around the narrator at all times, which was impressive if difficult to experience at times. I want Mildred Lathbury to never have to cook for a man who doesn't know the first thing about her ever again! ( )

Simply a wonderful read. ( )