"Oh Wilmet, life is perfect now! I've got everything that I could possibly want. I keep thinking that it's like a glass of blessings - life, I mean..." "That comes from a poem by George Herbert, doesn't it?" I said. 'When God at first made man, Having a glass of blessings standing by ...""But don't forget that other line ... how when all the other blessing had been bestowed, rest lay in the bottom of the glass...In ‘A Glass of Blessings’ we are back in the familiar parochial territory that we first encountered in Some Tame Gazelle, Jane and Prudence and Excellent Women. Wilmet Forsyth is our narrator, in her early thirties; she is a nicely mannered well-dressed attender of high Anglican services. She lives in her mother-in-laws house with her husband Rodney in a respectable suburb of London. Not having really very much to do, Wilmet likes to believe she is able to do good to others, accompanying her mother-in-law to The Settlement – an institution of some unspecified charitable kind – where the exceptionally good, but rather drab Mary Beamish is often to be found. However Wilmet is bored, her husband is slipping into comfortable middle-age – a little fatter and balder than when she had first met him, with his job in The Ministry that he disappears to each day. Wilmet contents herself with the company of three local unmarried priests - helping with the search of a new housekeeper for the clergy house, introducing them to Bason who had previously worked at The Ministry with her husband – a job Bason had proved unsuited for. “Now’ said Mr Bason moving us on like a guide. ‘I think we might take the merest peep in Father Thames’s study. I expect you would like to see that.’He had already opened the door before we could express any opinion and I crept forward rather guiltily as if expecting some kind of retribution to fall on me.The first impression was of a rather crowded museum, for there seemed to be a great many objects arranged in glass-fronted cabinets and on the mantelpiece. The room was dominated by an enormous desk of some rich-looking wood. This rather surprised me, for I had not hitherto had the impression that Father Thames was the scholarly type of clergyman; though, on thinking it over, I supposed that every parish priest must have a large desk, if only to answer his correspondence and prepare his sermons.” Also providing a welcome distraction – which starts to almost become a rather unsuitable infatuation – is Piers Longridge – the rather unsuccessful brother of Wilmet’s best friend Rowena. Piers works as a proof reader – and teaches Portuguese at night classes that Wilmet and Sybil –her mother-in-law decides to attend. Wilmet is a likeable character although she seems quite vain, constantly examining herself and her motivations, she often sees herself as not being quite as good as she might be. Wilmet often fails to understand the people around her including her husband and especially Piers, her imagination really running away with itself at times. As the novel progresses Wilmet begins to learn something about love and her relationships with the people in her life, beginning to appreciate the friendship of Mary Beamish rather more than she had done previously. Sybil provides a lively contrast to her daughter-in-law – living life to the full, springing a surprise of her own in the end and proving that she at least has a positive attitude to life and the living of it. Readers of previous Pym novels will be delighted with the references to characters from Excellent Women and Jane and Prudence – there is even a passing mention of Archbishop Hoccleve from Some Tame Gazelle. I was rather delighted that Wilmet and her friend Rowena had once nursed tender feelings for Rocky Napier. Pym’s wonderfully dry humour and keen observation help to recreate this world that must now surely be gone forever – if it ever really existed, yet it is a world I feel perfectly happy in.
I picked up this book because the author of Americanah was asked by the NY Times Book Review what she had read in 2013 and really enjoyed. “I discovered Barbara Pym’s ‘A Glass of Blessings’ this year and could not believe I had never read Pym. I loved it. It does that ancient, wonderful thing literature is supposed to do: instruct and delight. Pym is brilliant at portraying middle-class England in the 1950s, and even more so at honestly engaging with the ‘psychology of femaleness.’ It is a ‘slice of life’ sort of novel, serious without trying to be, very witty and very funny and very insightful, and it somehow manages to be both prim and subversive.” (12/27/2013). I had read Excellent Women many many years ago. I should read it again. In A Glass of Blessings, much of the story is about the Episcopal (Anglo-Catholic) church where she attends. Because I attend an Anglo-Catholic church, I understood much of the vocabulary. I know now "thurifer" and the M.C. of the service! This book was published in 1958. It feels dated, but also current. I guess because of the emotional openness of Wilmet - self-centered, but also sympathetic. Also, there is a gentle portrayal of gay characters without ever saying they are gay. Remember this is written in 1958 Britain. (Also, I read that Penelope Wilton (Downton Abbey) narrated this book for the BBC many years ago.) Next Pym for me. Jane and Prudence
What do You think about A Glass Of Blessings (1994)?
"Wilmet Forsyth is fairly young, good-looking, well dressed, well looked after, suitably husbanded and rather bored. Her interest wanders to the nearby Anglo-Catholic church and its three unmarried priests, and on to Piers Longridge whose enigmatic overtures are rather intriguing."The story of an innocent at large is, as usual, handled brilliantly and tactfully by a writer whose sense of social comedy, and whose penetration, are of the highest order."~~back coverI must have blinked, & missed something. I thought this book was dreadfully dull -- a boring account of a young woman with too much time on her hands and not enough to occupy herself with. Rather than throwing herself into good works, or taking up riding, or the WI as many English middle class women seem to do, Wilmet wanders aimlessly through her life, looking for something to rescue her and never quite knowing what that something might be. In the end, she wanders back to her husband, disconsolately, still unsure of her life and its intended direction. I didn't even find it much of a comedy of manners, and certainly nothing much happened to her (although it did to some of the other characters.)
—Kate
"Oh Wilmet, life is perfect now! I've got everything that I could possibly want. I keep thinking that it's like a glass of blessings - life, I mean..." "That comes from a poem by George Herbert, doesn't it?" I said. 'When God at first made man, Having a glass of blessings standing by ..." "But don't forget that other line ... how when all the other blessing had been bestowed, rest lay in the bottom of the glass..." (loc 3996)Barbara Pym novels have been my "comfort read" of choice for several years. After all, what could be more cozy than life revolving around tea drinking and church activities in a quaint English village? When Open Road Media asked if I'd like to review their recently released e-book of A Glass of Blessings, I jumped at the chance.From the opening paragraph, I was transported to familiar Pymsian surroundings and settled in to enjoy my visit. Before long, however, it became apparent that this story might be something a little different. Pym's characters in A Glass of Blessings display the expected entertaining array of human foibles, but Wilmet Forsyth is deeper and more complex than other Pym heroines. She is immensely likable, yet I often found myself growing frustrated with her. Over the course of the novel, Wilmet gains significant personal insights that eventually allow her to forge stronger relationships with both family and friends.A Glass of Blessings is my fourth, and new favorite, Barbara Pym novel, but I imagine some aspects must have shocked her readers in 1958. Kudos to Open Road Media for releasing the ebooks in time for Barbara Pym's Centenary and making her work available to a new generation of readers.My rating:4.5/5 stars
—JoAnn
It’s really a shame Pym isn’t read and talked about more often. Her writing evokes Anthony Trollope with his insights into people’s hearts crossed with a dollop of Jane Austen’s humor. Pym writes about middle class people going about their day to day activities just as Trollope and Austen did and just like them she makes the characters fascinating.The book is set in the 50’s and told from the viewpoint of a 29 year old childless woman named Wilmet as she tries to navigate growing older. (I suppose 29 was considered differently then.) Though she’s happy with her husband whom she met in Italy while serving as a WREN and he was a dashing soldier she still likes the attention of other men. She runs into them at innocuous places such as church and while visiting friends. Pym’s humor is understated. There are no mean undertones. She touches on homey things like knitting, helping a friend choose a new dress or hairdo, nights at home with her husband and mother in law, romantic memories of the war years and Italy, church gossip, and even listening to John Rutter on the radio directing Christmas carols sung by the King’s Cambridge choir. She invokes past authors such as Wilde and Woolf and Trollope. I hope I’m not giving the impression that this is a bit of fluff writing because it’s not. It’s immensely complex writing but I also keep wanting to describe it as delicate. The best part of her writing is having a front row seat at a cozy chat between friends where you get to see the subtext.read11-2-10reread11-7-12 with otherlit group
—Cynthia
