”Life is cruel and we do terrible things to each other.”Humphrey, a widowed antiques dealer, and his nephew James, who he is attempting to teach about the antiques trade, meet this elegant, aging beauty named Leonora Eyre at a book sale. Meeting such a woman at such a place filled Humphrey with horror. ”A book sale was certainly no place for a woman; had it been a sale of pictures or porcelain, fetching the sort of inflated prices that made headline news, or an evening sale--perhaps being televised--to which a woman could be escorted after being suitably wined and dined--that might have been another matter altogether.”Humphrey is really a perfect match for Leonora because they both appreciate the finer things in life, objects are in many ways more important to them and certainly more reliable than people. They both understand the same rules of engagement and enjoy the simple, but luxurious aspects of society. Fulfillment comes from having things...just so.James sees the situation a different way from his Uncle. ”James thought his uncle was making rather a fool of himself. Miss Eyre was certainly of a suitable age for Humphrey to marry, if that was what he wanted. though he had been a widower for so long now that it seemed unlikely he would wish to improve on the convenient arrangements he already had and take such a drastic step as marriage.”The fool...marriage...at his age. Still, on paper, this potential relationship looks like an alliance that could garner that elusive trinity of a sustainable relationship: security, common interest, and mutual attraction.Except that Miss Eyre likes James better. Is it so crazy? She is older, granted, but she has taken care of herself, men of all ages still notice her. And James, well he is as malleable as Binx Bolling, remember him from The Moviegoer. With just the right amount of maneuvering James will do what she wants him to do.Leonora would have made a brilliant Roman Field Commander. Her grasp of battlefield tactics are put on display as she eviscerates her rivals with cool precision; and yet, with her ultimate designs artfully concealed. Phoebe, the English Literature major, who seduced James on an excursion to the country was one such victim. James was rather confused about how a drink led to such a vigorous romp in bed, part of his Binx like behavior of just accepting what others want. I rather liked awkward Phoebe with her baggy clothes making her the spoil to Leonora’s stellar elegance. There is this scene I just have to share.”One of the village cats had come into the room and jumped up on top of the big old-fashioned radio set which Phoebe turned on, making music for herself and warmth for the animal. A symphony was being played and as Phoebe lay watching the cat she had the fancy that its spreading body was like a great empty wineskin or bladder being filled with Mendelssohn. She began to think of a poem she would write for James.”It seems whenever James leaves Leonora’s sight he falls in bed with someone. He takes a jaunt through Europe to look at antique shops as part of his training and meets a young, well lets look a little closer, maybe not so young American named Ned. He like Phoebe is an English Literature major studying the minor poems of Keats. When he meets Leonora he is better prepared for her tactics as he is a veteran of many doomed love affairs, bedroom dramas, and the lies and manipulations that it takes to have cake and eat it too. Ned quotes a bit of poetry to Leonora over tea. ”I had a dove and the sweet dove died;and I have thought it died of grievingO, what could it grieve for? Its feet were tiedWith a single thread of my own hand’s weaving.”What a civilized world these people live in threatening each other with poetry. The rest of us are such Neanderthal’s with our guns, knives, clubs, and fists. Human behavior is explored and exposed with a grace that cloaks the wicked stab of wit and the pain of those charmed, but left in the wake of cooling desires. No one escapes without at least a few twinges of remorse, even Ned, the shallow pool swimmer, doesn’t take his final leave of Leonora (over tea of course) without a feeling of being something less than he should be. What makes this book a small masterpiece is Barbara Pym’s ability to use humor, style, and her perceptive writer’s eye to blunt the very worst of emotional circumstances. I also thought how refreshing to read a book that accepts homosexual relationships without a hint of homophobia. In 1977 Pym was named the most underrated writer of the century. I think we can change that, don’t you think, at least in the Goodreads universe.
“I had a dove, and the sweet dove died;And I have thought it died of grieving;O, what could it grieve for? Its feet were tiedWith a single thread of my own hand’s weaving.. ”(John Keats)The Sweet Dove Died does feel quite different to other Pym novels I think; there are I felt, touches of Elizabeth Taylor at times. There is less cosiness and rather more sharpness to this novel -and although there is mention of a jumble sale there are not the usual collection of either clergymen or anthropologists. At an antique fair the ageing elegantly dressed Leonora Eyre meets antique dealer Humphrey and his nephew James. Leonora is fragile and flirtatious with a love of Victoriana and beautiful things. Humphrey is instantly attracted to Leonora – while she is far more interested in James, despite the big age difference between them. Although Leonora’s intentions never progress beyond a small chaste kiss on the cheek – having done with “all that sort of thing” – she quickly places herself at the centre of James’s life.“Leonora had had romantic experiences in practically all the famous gardens of Europe, beginning with the Grossner gardens in Dresden where, as a schoolgirl before the war, she had been picked up by a White Russian prince. And yet nothing had come of these pickings up; she had remained unmarried, one could almost say untouched. It was all a very far cry from the dusty little park where she and James now walked.” Leonora takes it upon herself to help James manage the storing of his furniture, buys him expensive gifts – and contrives to evict her tenant so she can move James into the vacant flat above her, upon his return from Spain. However unknown to Leonora, just before James leaves on his Spanish trip, he meets the young and bookish Phoebe, young, badly dressed and sexually liberated, Phoebe is a very different kind of woman. When Leonora realises that in order to keep James under her spell she needs to dispense with young Phoebe, her critical eye appraises her as being no threat. However Leonora has not reckoned on wicked young American, Ned, who follows James back from Spain, and who is also quite adept at weaving a spell. Leonora is a wonderfully dreadful character, self-absorbed and blind to her own faults, she judges all other women against herself and under her gaze they just don’t measure up. Leonora is unaware how really quite like her friend Meg she is, Meg nursing an impossible affection for her friend Colin – who is gay. Old fashioned, slightly fussy Humphrey’s romantic intentions continue, although he is not unaware of Leonora’s preference for his nephew – and Leonora is quite happy to use Humphrey for a pleasant evening out. I really enjoyed my re-reading of this Barbara Pym novel – I actually fairly gulped it down this time. Leonora is not totally unsympathetic – although there were moments when I wanted to slap her slightly – she is hard to like. Many of the characters in this novel are manipulative or deluded, and it is in this that we see Pym’s superb sharpness. Those lines of Keats – quoted at the start of the book and even referred to by Ned, give the story real poignancy.
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I discovered Barbara Pym last year when I was asked to read 'Excellent Women' because a literature class where I work were wanting a "young persons" opinion on her writing (I'm in my late twenties so not that young), and immediately fell in love with her prose.This is the second novel I have read by Pym and absolutely adored it, so much so, that I finished it in a day. She is one of those authors who deserves more recognition because her prose is just outstanding.This novel was witty, satirical and quite sad all at the same time. I could feel myself getting annoyed with some of the characters actions and personality traits, and then in the next sentence chuckling at the absurdity of the situations they have found themselves in. Pym's observations are subtle yet so excellently written, and her descriptions on a world/society that no longer exists are just captivating. I look forward to reading the rest of her work.
—Angela
I have long been a fan of Barbara Pym's superficially gentle (but actually quite robust) novels of English life in the post-Second World War years. Her body of work is not large - Pym wrote fewer than fifteen novels - and is noteworthy for its delicate, amusing and restrained examination of the life of a certain type of middle-class person who is searching for love. The world of the Anglo-Catholic church and its somewhat dreary social life of the time, of curates, of minor intellectuals and of unattached men and women forms the backdrop to Pym's beautifully observed stories. As poet and critic Anthony Thwaite put it: "Her characters are specimens in a lepidopterist's cabinet: some rare and exotic, some dim and dowdy, but all meticulously impaled on the delicate pins of a wit that is as scrupulous as it is deadly". 'The Sweet Dove Died' is one of Pym's later works. It is perhaps darker than some of her earlier novels. And it is not preoccupied with the clergy or with members of the Anglo-Catholic church. Indeed, church attendance and anything to do with it is wholly absent from the story. Instead, we have antiques dealer Humphrey Boyce and his young nephew James, both of whom work in Humphrey's shop in London's fashionable Sloane Square. The story opens as they are having lunch with Leonora Eyre, whom they have just met at a Bond Street auction room. Leonora is cool, poised, elegant and fastidious. Humphrey becomes very fond of her. But Leonora develops feelings for James. James, however, seems to be confused about his sexuality. He has a brief liaison with a young woman called Phoebe before meeting and falling for a young American man named Ned. That simple story is the plot in full. Leonora's love for James, who is less than half her age and who, because of his homosexuality, is unlikely to be able to return it, is the basis of a harrowing tale of unrequited passion. The underlying theme of 'The Sweet Dove Died' is the anxiety (and the desperation, even) that many of us experience as we get older about the increasingly limited opportunities available to us to find love. As always, Pym's characterisation is superb. Her prose is unfussy and supremely readable. And this wonderful writer brings her usual qualities of control and restraint to a world that she most definitely made her own in the field of English novels of the 20th century - that of the personal feelings, the emotions, the thwarted passions and the sadness that inhabit the lives of ordinary people. 'The Sweet Dove Died' may bring you to tears. Yet it is also curiously uplifting in the way that it so accurately recognizes and portrays the snobbery, the comedy and the pathos of the unremarkable lives that most of us lead. It's an excellent novel. 10/10.
—Roger Pettit
I read all of Pym's books because she was apparently a friend of Philip Larkin with whom I had an ill-starred affair. He was a very nasty man underneath it all. Even though he didn't smell too badly, smoked very cool cigarettes, and was fairly withdrawn. What was ugly about him was his attitude to women. His was the tendency to begrudge, his past horrors taken out aggressively in everyday speech in quiet when alone with his lover, rejections of food, and sick parodies of prayers. Still, I loved him. He was such a teddy at heart, at sick heart. So I turned to Barbara Pym for solace. I spent a pointless period of a fake prolonged illness out of the world and into Pym's miniatures. I didn't not show up for birthday parties, classes, life events. The ending of the Sweet Dove Died was so kind to me, I even saw my dark uncle redeemed. All my sins vindicated, breezily eradicated, brushed away in a gentle vision. Flowers to the reader! I saw the car approach through a high window in a run down rather regal Victorian house split up into tiny apartments, the street was covered with leafy dappled green shade and birch bark peelings ganged up at the curb. I fell asleep. I don't know how long, there was no one to ask.
—Hortense
