Some Tame GazelleSome Tame Gazelle, or some gentle dove:Something to love, oh something to love!(Thomas Haynes Bayly)My first read of 2013, and the first read of two reading challenges. Some Tame Gazelle fitted into my month of re-reading, and the Barbara Pym centenary readalong with members of the Libraryuthing Virago group and other Pym fans.Some Tame Gazelle was Barbara Pym’s first published novel; published in 1950 it was in fact written much earlier. Pym was writing the novel while she herself was still a very young woman, she wrote about herself her sister and their circle of friends as she imagined they might be in another thirty years. Belinda and Harriet Bede are spinster sisters in late middle age, living together in a tiny English village sometime during the first half of the twentieth century. Each of the sisters is preoccupied by local clergy, Harriet by ministering to a series of pale young curates who live in lodgings nearby and for whom she knits socks and makes apple jelly, and Belinda for the pompous self-important Archdeacon Henry Hoccleve who she first knew thirty years earlier.Belinda, having loved the Archdeacon when she was twenty and not having found anyone to replace him since, had naturally got into the habit of loving him, though with the years her passion had mellowed into a comfortable feeling, more like the cosiness of a winter evening by the fire than the uncertain rapture of a spring morning.Belinda’s rapturous loyalty to Henry and her dislike of his wife Agatha is a full time occupation. Harriet’s time meanwhile is taken up with wondering whether it is too soon to invite the curate to supper again, and gently fending off marriage proposals from Count Ricardo Bianco – a regular event she has come to depend upon. When Henry’s wife Agatha goes on holiday for a month without her husband it heralds small changes in their community."When the day came for Agatha to go away, Belinda and Harriet watched her departure out of Belinda's bedroom window. From here there was an excellent view of the vicarage drive and gate. Belinda had brought some brass with her to clean and in the intervals when she stopped her vigorous rubbing to look out of the window, was careful to display the duster in her hand. Harriet stared out quite unashamedly, with nothing in her hand to excuse her presence there. She even had a pair of binoculars, which she was now trying to focus."Soon after Agatha leaves, a visiting librarian and later a Bishop arrive in the village bringing unsettling feelings with them. Each of these two men is quickly woven into the small group of people who surround the sisters, each of them threatening in their way to upset the comfortable way of life the sister lead.Barbara Pym’s novels are generally described as social comedies, like Jane Austen and Elizabeth Taylor her canvases are small. Here we have a small English community of middle and upper middle class people, their small traditions and absurdities laid bare. Her humour is gentle, clever and beautifully observed. Barbara Pym’s world is not a world I see around me – even in English villages I don’t think it exists anymore – if it ever did, and yet, it is a world which is peculiarly recognisable.
Barbara Pym started writing this, her first novel, in her twenties. Basing the characters on herself and her sister and friends, she placed them, middle-aged, in a parochial setting in the countryside. Sisters Belinda (Pym) and Harriet (Pym's sister Hilary) are confirmed spinsters sharing a house and a life filled with gardening, church activities and endless speculation about other people's comings and goings. Belinda carries a torch for the Archdeacon, who is unhappily married to prickly Agatha, while Harriet regularly turns down proposals from a sweet Italian count. Agatha's departure to a German spa, and the arrival of a famous librarian (back then, famous librarians walked the earth) and a bishop from Africa shake things up. There is so much for Belinda to worry about: her inappropriate attachment to the Archdeacon (who is as arrogant as real-life Henry), the risk of Harriet being lured into marriage by one of the many suitors skulking about, the proper lunch for the visiting seamstress (lesson learnt: if the cauliflower served contains a huge caterpillar, the guest may be compensated with a boiled egg). A delightful, funny, sharp and thoroughly entertaining comedy. I am in awe of this woman. She wrote most of this in her early twenties, and already possessed so much wit, smarts and knowledge of human nature. Her satirical eye gently observes the peculiarities of her fellow men. Here the bishop shares his African experience with the parishioners, singing and playing native instruments: 'Imagine yourselves taking part in a Mbawawa wedding'.'I do not feel myself equal to that', whispered Edith to Belinda. 'Death would have been a better choice, or even birth'. The voice of the Bishop rang out through the hall in song. Many handkerchiefs were taken out hastily, especially among the younger members of the audience, for the noise which filled the hall was quite unexpected. Even Belinda, who had heard the Bishop sing as a curate, was a little unprepared. And yet perhaps the Mbawawa did have voices like that and it was wrong to feel one wanted to laugh.After this ordeal , it is time for the next instrument, the characteristic Hmwoq:Everyone looked with interest at the curiously shaped object which had had now appeared on the screen. It was certainly a very peculiar shape and there was more giggling from the back of the hall. It could hardly be what it seemed to be, thought Belinda doubtfully, though one knew that among primitive peoples one might find almost anything. The anthropologist who went among them must go with an open mind... The Bishop turned towards the screen and prodded it uncertainly. Then he advanced toward the edge of the platform and said in a loud clear voice, 'I think that slide is upside down'.Ah, the British.
What do You think about Some Tame Gazelle (1999)?
Rereading Barbara Pym periodically is enlightening. When I first encountered her books I thought they were somewhat amusing but not in the least profound. As I grow older I recognize how perceptive her depiction is of unmarried middle aged women whose lives have constricted to the daily round and the common task with its small pleasures and pains.Pym was born in 1913 and was 37 when Some Tame Gazelle was published in 1950, but she showed a remarkable sensitivity to women in their 50s, spinsters, “old maids” and in this as in many of her books, the “odd women,” those whose men, the men they would have married, were killed in the First World War. Later in her life Pym and her sister lived together in a cottage in a small village as the sisters Belinda and Harriet Bede do in this novel.The title comes from an obscure early 19th century poet, Thomas Haynes Bayly,Some tame gazelle, or some gentle dove:Something to love, oh, something to love. Belinda, through whose eyes we see most of the story, quotes this couplet, understanding that her sister’s doting on a series of young curates and her own holding fast for 25 years to her love of Archdeacon Hoccleve demonstrate this need to love someone, something.The plot is simple. The archdeacon’s wife, Agatha, goes on vacation to a German spa without her husband in what is clearly an attempt to get away from the self-centered, lazy, and uncaring cleric. He uses this time to remind Belinda that they were once in love and that perhaps he made the wrong choice in marrying Agatha, something that is on Belinda’s mind at all times and which, coming from the archdeacon, pleases her but makes her uncomfortable.Some old friends visit the archdeacon and one of them proposes to Harriet but is spurned. Then Agatha returns bringing with her the Bishop of Mbawawa who in his youth was one of the first of Harriet’s coddled curates. Belinda expects him, too, to propose to Harriet and fears that Harriet will accept. But Belinda is in for a surprise. Though the book ends with two marriages they are presented with humor and not a little irony rather than satisfaction. Pym does not provide traditionally happy endings.2011 No 55 Coming soon: Lady’s Maid, by Margaret Forster
—Mary Ronan Drew
Absolutely delightful! If Jane Austen had been alive and writing in the 1930s, this is just the type of book she might write. Middle-aged spinster Belinda Bede lives with her sister Harriet in a small English village. She's been in love with the vicar since they were in college together, but he's married to someone else; and Harriet gets crushes on each curate in turn. I loved how the characters are all middle-aged, but get as silly and have as many proposals and marriages as the young people in Austen's novels. It was interesting reading it shortly after indulging in a binge of Dorothy L. Sayers' Wimsey novels--the ones with Harriet Vane. In Gaudy Night, Harriet thinks about one of her friends who had been a brilliant scholar, but never did anything with it, and how her life had become circumscribed--and these ladies are very much like that, having college degrees but just living off their bit of family money in a retired village, but you don't feel sorry for them. They are happy in their lives. And Belinda is a fantastic character--I just loved her. This book was smart, funny, and I loved it. This was the first of Barbara Pym's books I've read, but I think more are in my future.
—Margaret Sullivan
Barbara Pym is not for everyone...Her main characters are always maiden ladies of a certain age living in small villages in England sometime after WWII. They are engaged in fastidious (yet hilarious) tasks usually involving the parsonage and a young, unsuspecting curate who will need to eat their boiled chicken dinners before he leaves for another post. They dissect all encounters with food, neighbors, men, clothing, dust, and the garden. There is the upmost respect for librarians and anyone who works at the university. They turn down suitors and life goes on. A perfect read with sherry on a cold, fall evening when you've had enough of the year.
—Lydia
