By her later novels, Barbara Pym had become less funny and
more melancholy. Quartet in Autumn
features two women and two men who are nearing retirement from menial
office jobs in London. They all live alone. Edwin is a widower; Norman,
Letty, and Marcia never married.
Their lives are isolated and restricted. Marcia is odd and hostile.
Norman is suspicious and bristly, his only connection a brother-in-law
he dislikes. The milder Letty is unsettled after plans to share a
cottage with a lifelong friend fall through. Edwin at least has the
church, which consumes his out-of-work time.
They have worked together for years yet aren’t friends. After the two
women retire first, getting together socially is an awkward duty more
than a pleasure.
Quartet in Autumn is a
poignant look at aging and isolation but not overly depressing because
Pym is never judgmental toward her characters. Only Marcia, who hoards
empty milk bottles and tins of food she doesn’t open, might be seen as
pitiful. She slips through the social-care net, and one might wonder
whether the system failed her, even though she refused a social
worker’s overtures.
The other three carry on. When Norman decides not to live in the house
Marcia leaves him, and Letty hesitates when her friend wants to share
her home after all, they realize that reduced lives still have choices.
The last words of the novel are
“ . . . life still held infinite possibilities for change.”
Quartet in Autumn was Pym’s
first publication after 17 years of publisher rejections when her
comedies of manners were deemed out of style. It was praised by critics
and shortlisted for Britain’s Booker Prize.
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