Crampton Hodnet

Finally published in 1980 after Barbara Pym's career revival, Crampton Hodnet was actually written in the 1930s and put aside because of the war. I think it was Pym's very first novel, and it contains all the classic Pym ingredients -- spinsters and widows, busy with good works, clergymen, foolish academics and young women who are way too good for them. It's set in North Oxford, which I'm acquainted with through Penelope Lively's The House in Norham Gardens, where much is made of the tall dark brooding house. The house where Miss Doggett and Jessie Morrow live is described as 'ugly,' and from the cover, it's definitely the same kind of house!

What I especially love about Barbara Pym is that, at the end of the day, nothing much actually happens. Even grand schemes of elopement fizzle out; people somehow find themselves embroiled in love affairs without actually feeling that keen; misunderstandings abound; proposals of marriage are made and dismissed almost in the same breath. If Quartet in Autumn was melancholic, Crampton Hodnet is bursting with low-key joy. It's very funny and I laughed out loud a couple of times, whereas Pym's novels usually provoke a wry smile.