{"id":515,"date":"2006-06-13T07:13:13","date_gmt":"2006-06-13T11:13:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/?p=515"},"modified":"2006-10-07T12:29:36","modified_gmt":"2006-10-07T16:29:36","slug":"pym-in-cambridge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/?p=515","title":{"rendered":"Pym in Cambridge"},"content":{"rendered":"

Perhaps you missed the announcement, but the Barbara Pym Society of North America<\/a> will host a “Barbara Pym Garden F\u00c3\u00aate” on Sunday, June 25, 3 to 5 p.m. at 10 Chester Street, Cambridge. Pym fans who are in the area should send e-mail to Tom Sopko at jtsopko@speakeasy.net<\/p>\n

I love the way Pym illuminates human character in very few words — as in this passage from An Academic Question,<\/em> her novel from 1970. The narrator Caro is chatting with Iris, whom Caro suspects of having an affair with her husband Alan:<\/p>\n

‘Tell me about Coco Jeffreys,’ said Iris. ‘I believe you and he are great<\/em> friends.’<\/p>\n

‘Yes, we are friends,’ I began.<\/p>\n

‘But not lovers, I imagine. No, not that, obviously! What is<\/em> Coco exactly?– I mean, sexually.’<\/p>\n

‘Well, nothing, really,’ I said, embarrassed.<\/p>\n

‘But he must be something<\/em>.’ A note of irritation had now come into Iris’s voice — irritation and impatience of my ignorant stupidity.<\/p>\n

‘You mean hetero or homosexual?’<\/p>\n

‘Of course that’s what I mean,’ she mocked. ‘Surely you<\/em> must know.’<\/p>\n

‘We’ve never talked about it. In any case, are people to be classified as simply that? Some people just love themselves.’<\/p>\n

Iris frowned into her empty glass. I could see my vagueness worried her….<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Those who attend the Barbara Pym Garden F\u00c3\u00aate “are asked to bring finger food \u00c3\u00a1 la Pym, or suitable beverages.” I imagine this means there will be sherry. But I have a hard time imagining the kind of people who would attend such an event. Unfortunately, I am committed to attending my denomination’s annual General Assembly; otherwise, I would go myself to the Pym Garden F\u00c3\u00aate to see what kinds of people turn up.<\/p>\n

If you go, please write and tell me who is there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Perhaps you missed the announcement, but the Barbara Pym Society of North America will host a “Barbara Pym Garden F\u00c3\u00aate” on Sunday, June 25, 3 to 5 p.m. at 10 Chester Street, Cambridge. Pym fans who are in the area should send e-mail to Tom Sopko at jtsopko@speakeasy.net I love the way Pym illuminates human […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-culture","category-boston-cambridge"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}