Rating: 
Summary: Snicker, chortle, snicker, weep
Review: All of Ms. Pym's books are excellent and worth reading over and over. Quartet in Autumn & The Sweet Dove Died are sad. All the others are humourous. About everyday life--stuff we've all been through, the people we put up with, the slights, the boredom. But through Ms. Pym's eyes, these tedious daily events are amusing set pieces. She's subtle...just describes the situation, makes a comment and lets you figure out just how funny your everyday life would be if you could stand back a little. As I said in the title of this review...her stories are like the sitcom Seinfeld: nothing ever happens, but it happens to all of us, and it's hilarious.
Rating:
Summary: A Book About Nothing--before Seinfeld
Review: All of Ms. Pym's books are excellent and worth reading over and over. Quartet in Autumn & The Sweet Dove Died are sad. All the others are humourous. About everyday life--stuff we've all been through, the people we put up with, the slights, the boredom. But through Ms. Pym's eyes, these tedious daily events are amusing set pieces. She's subtle...just describes the situation, makes a comment and lets you figure out just how funny your everyday life would be if you could stand back a little. As I said in the title of this review...her stories are like the sitcom Seinfeld: nothing ever happens, but it happens to all of us, and it's hilarious.
Rating:
Summary: The classic Barbara Pym novel
Review: Barbara Pym is an author who has gained in reputation since her death, and "Excellent Women" is the epitome of her writing. A comic novel with a delicate touch, it loses nothing by being set in the 1950s. We recognise the characters and situations. For me, the understated romance between Mildred Lathbury and Everard Bone carries echoes of Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice". I defy any woman not to enjoy it.
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Summary: Witty, perceptive, belongs on a syllabus somewhere
Review: Don't leap to the assumption that a book written fifty years ago about an unmarried do-gooding gentle woman would have nothing for a contemporary audience. Despite its London church parish setting well populated with the spinsterish "excellent women" of the title, Pym's book delivers sharp observations about men and women, together and apart, and society's expectations for all. Her truths are pungent a sexual revolution later.Relevancy aside, this is a good read. Pym lays out her well-defined world much as Jane Austen does, providing a critical and always witty tour. The characters are drawn as sharply as any Austen delivered. The novel is entertaining but rewardingly complex as it probes not only gender and social mores but also asks if Mildred Lathbury, the protagonist and narrator, is choosing the life of an excellent woman or if she is saddled with it. To use a contemporary phrase, it is about having a life, and this deceivingly gentle-seeming book is asking questions that are as rugged and significant as any asked in our less regulated times.
Rating:
Summary: Witty, perceptive, belongs on a syllabus somewhere
Review: Don't leap to the assumption that a book written fifty years ago about an unmarried do-gooding gentle woman would have nothing for a contemporary audience. Despite its London church parish setting well populated with the spinsterish "excellent women" of the title, Pym's book delivers sharp observations about men and women, together and apart, and society's expectations for all. Her truths are pungent a sexual revolution later. Relevancy aside, this is a good read. Pym lays out her well-defined world much as Jane Austen does, providing a critical and always witty tour. The characters are drawn as sharply as any Austen delivered. The novel is entertaining but rewardingly complex as it probes not only gender and social mores but also asks if Mildred Lathbury, the protagonist and narrator, is choosing the life of an excellent woman or if she is saddled with it. To use a contemporary phrase, it is about having a life, and this deceivingly gentle-seeming book is asking questions that are as rugged and significant as any asked in our less regulated times.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant and charming
Review: Excellent Women is, in my opinion, Pym's funniest novel. The writing is superb and the characters are endearing. The narrator, Mildred, charmed me with her honesty, wit and self-deprecation. Think of a cross between Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf, and P. G. Wodehouse!
Rating:
Summary: CAPTIVATING BRITISH SATIRE
Review: I enjoyed this book by Barbara Pym so much that I have re-read it numerous times. The characters are so true to form, for their social status and period, that they literally leap out of the pages at you. Nothing goes the way you would expect it to, however, when the characters are sorted out at the end and continue on their way, you cannot imagine it could have happened any other way. Ms Pym writes with a certain amount of "tongue in cheek" humor that is very understated, which makes it all that much more hilarious. If you enjoy a nice, gentle reading experience, interspersed with tears of laughter, this book is for you. An excellent addition to a library that includes Jane Austen. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
Rating:
Summary: CAPTIVATING BRITISH SATIRE
Review: I enjoyed this book by Barbara Pym so much that I have re-read it numerous times. The characters are so true to form, for their social status and period, that they literally leap out of the pages at you. Nothing goes the way you would expect it to, however, when the characters are sorted out at the end and continue on their way, you cannot imagine it could have happened any other way. Ms Pym writes with a certain amount of "tongue in cheek" humor that is very understated, which makes it all that much more hilarious. If you enjoy a nice, gentle reading experience, interspersed with tears of laughter, this book is for you. An excellent addition to a library that includes Jane Austen. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
Rating:
Summary: I was tickled by the turns of phrase
Review: I loved being privy to the thoughts of the fictional character, Miildred Lathbury. Her take on the events around her is vastly amusing. I giggled out loud so many times while reading this book, absolutely delighted by the author's finely tuned, brilliant wit.
Rating:
Summary: Life is Like This - Funny, Sad
Review: I thought many times while reading this book -- Yes, life is like this. The narrator, Mildred Lathbury, is 30+ years old, an orphan and single in the 1950s. She leads a solitary life -- of course that doesn't stop her from being intelligent and witty and understanding. What I realized near the end of the book is what Mildred didn't notice --- that the men around her would have loved her if she had encouraged their love (but she never picked up on it) She seemed to be learning near the end...and maybe there was hope for her and Everard Bone. Either way Mildred was going to turn out o.k. Her observations about the people around her are priceless.
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