Some Tame Gazelle (Virago Modern Classics)
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
SOME TAME GAZELLE is my personal favourite for its sparkling high comedy and its treasury of characters ... She makes me smile, laugh out loud, consider my own foibles and fantasies, and, above all, suffer real regret when I reach the final page. Of how many authors can you honestly say that? (Mavis Cheek )
Book Description
A charming and funny tale of parish life by an author whose many fans include Philip Larkin, Alexander McCall Smith and Jilly Cooper.
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
20 of 20 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Some Tame Gazelle is set in a village just as picturesque as St Mary Mead or any other literary village, but the characters are deeper and utterly credible. It is full of moments of recognition, such as Belinda's joy at making pasta, 'finer than the finest chamois leather' and who has not had sudden guests and felt guilty at the withered orange in the bowl? It gently and tellingly relays what has been described as the beauty of the unregarded life, and points out that romance is on offer, even there. It repays rereading, for the more subtle humour can be sometimes missed on a first read. It is a brilliant book, and its layers reveal themselves slowly as one becomes more and more drawn into the lives of the Bede sisters.
30 of 31 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio Cassette
In the early chapters of "Some Tame Gazelle" we are taken on a "Pym moments" romp through the day-to-day lives of the spinster sisters, Belinda and Harriet Bede. Timid, sentimental Belinda (another of Pym's "Excellent Women"), elder of the two, a faithful church worker, has loved the peevish, married Archdeacon Henry Hoccleve ("dear Henry") for over 30 years. Belinda quotes 18th Century poets, wears "sensible" shoes and longs for "some sympathetic person to whom she could say that Dr. Johnson had been so right when he had said that all change is of itself an evil." Plump ("attractive in a fat Teutonic way"), jolly and style-conscious Harriet, in her middle fifties, has a fondness for young curates to whom she serves boiled chicken suppers and makes presents of hand-knitted socks and home-made jellies. We meet: The Reverend Edgar Donne, the latest in a long line of young curates fussed over by Harriet; Edith Liversidge ("a kind of decayed gentlewoman"), the disheveled, blunt-speaking neighbor with an interest in sanitation arrangements; the dreary, snobbish Connie Aspinall, who basks in the memory of her glory days when she was companion to Lady Grudge of Belgrave Square ("a kind of relation of one of Queen Alexandra's Ladies-in-Waiting"); Miss Prior, the touchy sewing woman, in a tender and humorous episode involving cauliflower cheese; the melancholy Count Ricardo Bianco, who on a regular basis offers proposals of marriage to Harriet. There is Archdeacon Hoccleve, the object of Belinda's devotion ("her passion had mellowed into a comfortable feeling more like the cosiness of a winter evening by the fire than the uncertain rapture of a spring morning"), whose standoffish behavior and proclivity for choosing unsuitable prayers and for preaching obscure literary sermons no one understands win him little favor among the people in his parish. And there are more matchless Pym characters set against a quintessential Pym story, touching and funny and quite wonderful.
8 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I have really been enjoying the chance to discover Barbara Pym through the Virago re-issues. So far I have absolutely fallen in love with Jane and Prudence, Excellent Women and No Fond Return of Love. I am really looking forward to A Glass of Blessings and Less than Angels coming out. So the re-issue of Some Tame Gazelle this month was a cause of some excitment. However I have to say Some Tame Gazelle has been something of a disappointment.
It is not a bad book - I don't think Barbara Pym was capable of writing a bad book but I usually love the central character and I have to say I have found Belinda rather hard to like. I can't put my finger on it but I think she is more snobbish and obsessed with propriety than Pym's other heroines. In fact I don't remember Dulcie, Jane, Prudence or Mildred showing any of these traits... Another annoyance is her love for the Archdeacon. Her books are full of women who love rather selfish self-satisfied men. But usually the reader can see the attraction to the men (despite their faults) even if he or she does not share it. Whereas with the Archdeacon in 'Gazelle' whilst his self-love and pronoucements are often very funny - he himself is not a remotely likeable character. So much so that I found myself warming to his wife Agatha - despite the fact she is clearly not meant to be likeable and rather unkind to Belinda.
Maybe the problem with Some Tame Gazelle it is Pym's first book and she was still developing her unique voice. That said it is still worth reading.
It is not a bad book - I don't think Barbara Pym was capable of writing a bad book but I usually love the central character and I have to say I have found Belinda rather hard to like. I can't put my finger on it but I think she is more snobbish and obsessed with propriety than Pym's other heroines. In fact I don't remember Dulcie, Jane, Prudence or Mildred showing any of these traits... Another annoyance is her love for the Archdeacon. Her books are full of women who love rather selfish self-satisfied men. But usually the reader can see the attraction to the men (despite their faults) even if he or she does not share it. Whereas with the Archdeacon in 'Gazelle' whilst his self-love and pronoucements are often very funny - he himself is not a remotely likeable character. So much so that I found myself warming to his wife Agatha - despite the fact she is clearly not meant to be likeable and rather unkind to Belinda.
Maybe the problem with Some Tame Gazelle it is Pym's first book and she was still developing her unique voice. That said it is still worth reading.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
very enjoyable, but not her strongest work
Sixteen years in the making, according to the Introduction in the Virago Modern Classics edition - at least 16 years elapsed from the start of composition to the date of... Read more
Published 22 days ago by William Jordan
Gently funny
I have have read several Barbara Pym's novels and have found them all deeply satisfying. I think this is my favourite. Read more
Published 11 months ago by CAROLINE M
One of my favourite books!
Barbara Pym has been compared with Jane Austen and the comparison is a valid one. If you enjoy the latter, you will enjoy the former. Read more
Published 16 months ago by Jill Stanfield
A truth universally acknowledged
In the last part of the 20th century Barbara Pym was finally recognised as one of the most under-rated writers of her day. Read more
Published 20 months ago by The HR Headmistress
Dull
I know everyone loves Barbara Pym and she's been highly recommended to me but I have struggled with this. Basically I'm bored to tears reading it. Read more
Published on 6 Jan 2010 by bookpike
Spinsters & village life
Belinda & Harriet Bede are sisters living in an English village in the 1950s. They're happily unmarried, although Harriet has an admirer, Count Bianco, who proposes marriage at... Read more
Published on 23 Oct 2009 by Lynette Baines
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
