Less than Angels / Barbara Pym

Less than Angels by Barbara Pym
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Thus far, I have really enjoyed Barbara Pym's work. Mind you, I’ve read only three books, but I've purchased a stack of them to be enjoyed (I hope) in the future. Less Than Angels seems to explore the opposite end of life to Quartet in Autumn, studying university students instead of retiring civil servants. Having been an undergraduate and having taken a number of archaeology & anthropology courses, I remembered some of my own experiences and realize that I was just as green as these young people.

Pym's experience as assistant editor of the anthropological journal Africa is on display in this novel. She writes confidently about departmental politics and finances, relations between faculty members, and the unacknowledged underpinning of single female secretaries & assistants who make the whole thing run smoothly. I wonder if Edith Clovis was based on someone she knew?

Usually, Pym's observations are quite gentle, but this novel seems a bit more ruthless, somehow. As when she has one of the young men comment on Tom & Catherine's common law relationship:

""It would be a reciprocal relationship--the woman giving the food and shelter and doing some typing for him, and the man giving the priceless gift of himself," said Mark, swaying a little and bumping into a tree. "It is commoner in our society than many people would suppose."

Apparently male entitlement was fully recognized in 1955!

Pym would have been in her early 40s when this was published and have been living with her formerly-married sister, Rhoda to her sister's Mabel in terms of this book. Still young yet, which may have been the source of the observation of Deirdre: “She was as yet too young to have learned that women of her aunt's age could still be interested in men; she would have many years to go before the rather dreadful suspicion that one probably never does cease to be interested.”

Tom, the highly sought after anthropology student, would have been far more comfortable in a polygamous society where he could have been amourously attached to all three young women. The reactions of Digby & Mark on their interview weekend when their prof indicated that they should be celibate in the field was telling too. Oh, the good old double standard, where women are supposed to be chaste and put up with men who are not!

This is not the dark, distant past, but still it seems far from our reality. I love my glimpses into this world through the shrewd eyes of Miss Pym. Human nature doesn't change, so her observations still hit the mark for me.


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