Review: Jane and Prudence by Barbara Pym

My Interest

I discovered Barbara Pym by reading Excellent Women. Now I want to read all of her books–not all in one go, of course, but eventually. I was looking online for an available e-audio book and Jane and Prudence popped up as “available” so I grabbed it. I then felt silly for thinking they were too old or not old enough to be on audio. I was so wrong!

The Story

“If it is true that men only want one thing, Jane asked herself, is it perhaps just to be left to themselves with their soap animals or some other harmless little trifle?”

Vicar’s wife Jane, and best friend, single lady Prudence (ok, “spinster”) have been friends either since secondary school “College” or since their “College” at Oxford. [If my confusion got this wrong, please correct me in the comments]. Jane has taken the traditional route and married clergyman Nicholas, with whom she has a daughter, Flora, starting Oxford in the Autumn. Their financial state is less than rosy and she is known to wear a tweed coat that “could only be worn in a husband’s presence.”

Prudence has played the field and lost. She adores her Professor boss at the university where she works and has fond memories of a few other men as well–including poor Philip who was killed in the war because he “knew about tanks.” She owns a lush velvet garment that may or may not be a dressing gown and could or could not be a housecoat. It might possibly be enticing to a certain gentleman or it might not.

The lives of these two women are filled with ennui. In fact, that should be the subtitle of the book–ennui. Not that it is a boring book–not at all. It’s simply that post-war life and the age of the women, the circumstances of their relationships all join together to create a sort of miasm-like fog of ennui over their energy and ambition.

My Thoughts

I think the reader could have been better for this audio version. She was sometimes a drag even if the story wasn’t! I liked Jane. I liked that she simply would not be a model clergy wife. I also liked her thoughts that she wasn’t really that much of a mother because she only had one child. Or trying to imagine having winter and summer curtains for the drawing-room instead of her own “just curtains” that do not fit the window properly and do not close.

I didn’t like everything about Jane. For example, she doesn’t cook, and that does bother me. She’s not from a grand enough family to be ignorant of necessary tasks. And, I agree with Prudence if Nicholas was my clergyman husband, his things would be laid out Saturday night to keep Sunday morning calm. But, I liked her nonetheless. Prudence. I felt Pru should have gone to an unscrupulous doctor and gotten a diaphragm [“Dutch Cap”] and lived a lot more on her holidays!

Jane and Prudence by Barbara Pym

 

A Nonfiction Pairing

 

 

I bought myself this one with a Christmas gift card. I dip into it a few pages at a time and try to imagine being these people. This is set during the war, so a few years before Jane and Prudence, but it is close enough to be an interesting companion piece for the novel. A Vicar’s Wife in Oxford 1938–1943.