Summary: In the chapter "A World of Spinsters" from his overview of Barbara Pym's work, Long focuses on the early novels Some Tame Gazelle and Excellent Women. He notes the highly allusive nature of the works and the reliance on classical form (e.g., "strict symmetries of her character relationships and her plot"). Long claims that Excellent Women is on a short list of the great 20th century British comic novels.
Quotation #1: "The ambiguousness of the portrait casts a doubt on the authority of the patriarch; and Father Busby, Father Malory, and Father Greatorex form a line of descent in which the upholders of the church are implied to be very much less than heroic." (Long 43)
Paraphrase #1: Father Busby's portrait may show him blessing the congregation or just admiring his own beard. The uncertainty of the portrait extends to the uncertain status of Busby's successors as worthy church leaders and the dubious value of patriarchies.
Evaluation #1: I like Long's inference from this humorous image. Many of the men in the novel are ineffectual and self-absorbed to the point of helplessness. Perhaps this comic treatment of male characters establishes Pym's ambivalent stance on the institution of marriage.
Quotation #2: "Ironically, her 'conversion' to the Learned Society will give her no more 'full' a life than her earlier immersion in the church. Her marriage to Everard will involve the suppression of her personality just as she had been held down earlier in her churchgoing self-denial." (Long 55)
Paraphrase #2: In agreeing to help Everard with his work, Mildred is merely replacing one regimented life with another. In both contexts, her sense of self is overpowered by the institution to which she devotes herself.
Evaluation #2: I'm not so sure I entirely agree with Long's conclusion here. I think one of Mildred's strengths is a genuine personality that cannot be entirely overpowered by the institutions or individuals around her. I do, however, agree with the point that the two contexts (religious and academic) are set up as parallels that offer limited opportunities for individual expression.
Quotation #3: "Does its emphasis fall on loneliness and bleakness? Or does Mildred's decency, ability to cope, and acceptance of life's absurdities work against such an envisioning of darkness, making the novel a testament to the power of survival of unembittered ordinary humanity? Its vision, which seems to me to be finally ambivalent, gives the work its tension and complexity and is typical of the poise with which Pym has treated her characters." (Long 59)
Paraphrase #3: Is the novel more about life's despairing emptiness or about the common decency of many ordinary people? The view is ambiguous enough to encompass both sides, and the conflict between the two is what gives the novel its energy.
Evaluation #3: These are important questions that I too wonder about. I lean towards the latter notion of a celebration of "ordinary humanity," but is that because I'm a bit of an optimist myself? The idea that Mildred is able to accept "life's absurdities" makes me wonder about connections to existentialism. I don't think Pym was an existentialist (too devoted to church life), but would be interested in pursuing her sympathies with that philosophy.
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