A VERY PRIVATE EYE: An Autobiography in Diaries and Letters

by Barbara Pym ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 1984

If the late Barbara Pym was an unfairly neglected (and unpublished) writer in the Sixties and Seventies, she has now perhaps become a slightly overblown cult figure--a touchstone for readers who see themselves as modern-day Jane Austen/Barbara Pym heroines. And this gathering of diary entries and letters is likely to enchant some cultists and perplex some others, while more discriminating Pym admirers will be only intermittently engaged. The bulk of the book is devoted to the Thirties and Forties, before Pym (b. 1913) started to get her begun-early, much-revised novels into print. Part I, 1932-1939, is ""Oxford""--where student Barbara is a surprisingly gushy, flapper-ish, crying/laughing commentator on her two doomed loves: one for her ""beautiful Lorenzo,"" a.k.a. Henry Stanley Harvey, who marries someone else; the other, when she's 26, for 19-year-old ""Jay."" True, Pym's murmurous irony shines through here and there: Lorenzo has ""twinkling (but not pleasantly twinkling) hazel-brown eyes, like a duck's I think."" Yet the overall effect is faintly disturbing and pathetic, especially in the many letters to Lorenzo-and-wife (from ""the unhappy lover, Miss Pym""), where giddy playfulness hardly masks bitterness and self-pity. Then comes Part II, ""The War""--which brings Pym amusingly detailed service in the WRNS and another hopeless entanglement. (""Gordon doesn't really love me as I love him and will never ask me to marry him when he's free."") So, by the time that Pym settles into spinsterhood in the Fifties, one has the feeling--especially with so few concrete facts to go on here--that this was inevitable from the start: an un-addressed psychological puzzle. And far easier to relate to are Pym's ups and downs, 1946-1980, as published, rejected, and rediscovered novelist, in Part III: the few diary entries are working notes; most of the letters (many to Philip Larkin, her prime re-discoverer) lament her inability to get published in the Sixties or ponder her non-commercial, low-key style. ""What is wrong with being obsessed with trivia? . . .What are the minds of my critics filled with? What nobler and more worthwhile things? . . .If only one could write about Margaret-Drabble-like characters!"" A very uneven, ultimately unsatisfying compilation, then--but with enough wit, style, and pluck (Pym faces terminal cancer with great aplomb) to please Pym devotees, who'll also enjoy some curious background-detail on the novels.

Pub Date: June 1, 1984

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Dutton

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1984

Categories: NONFICTION