Green Leaves: The Journal of the Barbara Pym Society, Vol. 10 No. 1, May 2004
All lovers of the novels of Barbara Pym will want it on their bookshelf. ... helpful and enlightening
Tregolwyn Book Reviews http://tregolwyn.tripod.com/id132.html
... detailed and intensively-researched articles ... it is difficult to read any of these articles without laughing out loud at least once.
The Alliance of Literary Societies
‘No Soft Incense’ is a must for anyone interested in the writings of Barbara Pym and the world she inhabited.
The Tablet, 21 May 2005
the entertaining and often learned contributors to this symposium ... This book is essential
reading for Pym fans.
reading for Pym fans.
The New Criterion, May 2005
This volume is a happy dipping book for fans.
Christian Librarian, Winter 2005
I really enjoyed reading this book.
Pascha Nostrum, Church of The Resurrection, New York, December 2007:
This little volume serves two constituencies: the Pym reader ... and the church-accustomed reader, who finds this topic fascinating.
Book Description
Thirteen essays about aspects of the Church in the novels of Barbara Pym.
Excerpted from No Soft Incense: Barbara Pym and the Church by Hazel K. Bell, Anna Brown Associates, Barbara Pym Society. Copyright © 2004. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Foreword
There are some seventy-five clergymen in the work of Barbara Pym, which averages out at 5.76 a novel. Quite what 0.76 of a clergyman might be like would, I think, have amused her. What could have marked the man down? Pomposity? Snobbery? Absence of humour? Or perhaps the simple thoughtlessness of having a wife. `Just imagine, a married curate,` says Harriet "in disgust" in Some Tame Gazelle. A young married clergyman simply isn't playing fair.
The churches themselves are sturdy Victorian buildings, Anglo-Catholic in temperament, filled with the lingering smell of incense and lit by low-wattage lamps and a few guttering candles. They offer the timeless reassurance of daily Holy Communion, Sung Eucharist on Sundays, Confession and the Reservation of the Blessed Sacrament. The clergy who officiate might be kindly, hapless, holy fools, or vain beyond measure; but they are invariably, as Kate Charles points out, `at ease with ladies.' It is how these women deal with the uniquely clerical mixture of pride and incompetence that makes up much of Pym's humour. Miss Morrow, in Crampton Hodnet, for example, finds herself being proposed to by a curate who cannot actually remember her Christian name:
`Oh, Miss Morrow - Janie,' he burst out suddenly.
`My name isn't Janie.'
`Well, it's something beginning with J,' he said impatiently. It was annoying to be held up by such a triviality. What did it matter what her name was at this moment?
There are some seventy-five clergymen in the work of Barbara Pym, which averages out at 5.76 a novel. Quite what 0.76 of a clergyman might be like would, I think, have amused her. What could have marked the man down? Pomposity? Snobbery? Absence of humour? Or perhaps the simple thoughtlessness of having a wife. `Just imagine, a married curate,` says Harriet "in disgust" in Some Tame Gazelle. A young married clergyman simply isn't playing fair.
The churches themselves are sturdy Victorian buildings, Anglo-Catholic in temperament, filled with the lingering smell of incense and lit by low-wattage lamps and a few guttering candles. They offer the timeless reassurance of daily Holy Communion, Sung Eucharist on Sundays, Confession and the Reservation of the Blessed Sacrament. The clergy who officiate might be kindly, hapless, holy fools, or vain beyond measure; but they are invariably, as Kate Charles points out, `at ease with ladies.' It is how these women deal with the uniquely clerical mixture of pride and incompetence that makes up much of Pym's humour. Miss Morrow, in Crampton Hodnet, for example, finds herself being proposed to by a curate who cannot actually remember her Christian name:
`Oh, Miss Morrow - Janie,' he burst out suddenly.
`My name isn't Janie.'
`Well, it's something beginning with J,' he said impatiently. It was annoying to be held up by such a triviality. What did it matter what her name was at this moment?
