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Quartet in Autumn
 
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Quartet in Autumn (Paperback)

by Barbara Pym (Author)
4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Paperback: 176 pages
  • Publisher: Flamingo; New edition edition (22 Aug 1994)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 000654780X
  • ISBN-13: 978-0006547808
  • Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 13 x 1.1 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 797,533 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #53 in  Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > P > Pym, Barbara

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Product Description

Product Description
Brought together by their shared office life, faded Letty, small, wiry Norman, eccentric Marcia and devout Edwin, are an unlikely group of friends, but nevertheless find themselves drawn to discuss their different dreams and plans for the future. This book was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.

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Quartet in Autumn
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Customer Reviews

10 Reviews
5 star:
 (6)
4 star:
 (3)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.5 out of 5 stars (10 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A great opportunity, 31 Oct 2005
By A Customer
This review is from: Quartet in Autumn (Paperback)
Like the quartet of her novel, Barbara Pym during her writing career may have found herself swept away as if she had never been. She was one of the most underrated authors of the past 75 years, according to the Times Literary Supplement. It is ironic, then, that she created four such memorable characters, people in the autumn of their working lives who somehow survive the sensation of being phased out (of their jobs, their homes, their human ties) and provide us a glimpse of the heartening truth that even the most ordinary of lives hold infinite possibilities for change, all life, as the author points out being nothing so much as a great opportunity. Barbara Pym has given us a tale of solitude and a particular sort of intimacy which oscillates between understated tragedy and an irrepressible circumspect comedy. With a crisp pace not held back by unnecessary detail this book is a soothing antidote to all that is excessive in contemporary literature.
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20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Haunting work of art, 18 April 2006
By A Reader (United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Quartet in Autumn (Paperback)
Among the British novels of the last few decades I've read, this for me is easily one of the finest. Quartet in Autumn is written in an unshowy prose style, well poised and balanced. The four main characters are on the cusp of retirement - Letty, grumpy Norman, Marcia the eccentric collector of milk bottles, and church-obssessed Edwin. Sharing a drab office, they play off one another but none dominates, though Letty can be considered the book's centre of gravity. There are fine minor characters, Letty's friend Marjorie and Mrs Pope to name but two, who come vividly to life. There are laughs, but a vein of sadness of desolation runs through the work, gathering in intensity towards the end. Hidden in the quiet prose is a fairly savage critique of British society in the seventies, and particularly urban life, indifference to others, status distinction, narrowness. The four main characters are in no way sentimentalised. They're an odd unappealing bunch but the reader grows to love each of them almost grudgingly. In her own way Barbara Pym is worthy of the lineage of Austen and Dickens and in this novel has made a comparable achievement. We can't see this now, we're too dazzled by tinsel and glitter to pay homage to real writing: but in a century's time the book will hold up.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars This Novel is a Work of Art, 15 Jul 1999
By A Customer
Don't be put off by the title of this novel: there is nothing heavy or depressing about it. "Quartet in Autumn" is about ordinary old people in the 1970s and has not a shred of romance in it; it defies ALL the conventions of fiction, Victorian or modern; still it is a fascinating, hilarious, profound book--the best of Pym's novels, without a doubt. This novel is totally original and I highly recommend it!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars A Perfect Miniature
While it's true that this final novel has little of the high comedy that made her earlier works popular its elegaic tone is note-perfect. Read more
Published 13 days ago by Livia

4.0 out of 5 stars A delightful read
I am a great fan of Barbara Pym. She has the rare knack of creating an absorbing novel out of very ordinary characters doing ordinary things. Read more
Published 2 months ago by F. M. M. Stott

3.0 out of 5 stars Read the early novels first
Miss Pym published six delightful novels in the 50s and very early 60s before being cast aside by her publisher, Cape, as out of date in the swinging 60s. Read more
Published 5 months ago by S. B. Kelly

4.0 out of 5 stars Old age and reduced circumstances
Letty, Marcia, Norman and Edwin all work together in an office dealing with unspecified paperwork. Marcia has had a major operation and she and Letty are about to retire, leaving... Read more
Published 13 months ago by Damaskcat

5.0 out of 5 stars A lovely book
Beautifully observed, restrained and unsensational, a lovely book of life and change. A fine modern classic.
Published 15 months ago by Jack

5.0 out of 5 stars Quartet in Autumn
A bittersweet novel about growing older in an England which seems to have almost entirely vanished. Miss Pym's characters are often sad, sometimes eccentric, but always engaging... Read more
Published 22 months ago by Harriet BlueStocking

4.0 out of 5 stars We've come a long way, baby.....
I chose this title because I wanted something gentle from another era. Although this book was published as recently as the year of the Queen's Silver Jubilee, (exactly thirty... Read more
Published on 9 Jan 2007 by Puskas

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