How NOT to Write About Motherhood

 MAY.10.2013 

Since Sunday is Mother's Day in the US; in Israel, alas, this day has already turned into "Family Day," I decided to use the opportunity to bring up a minor yet important point about motherhood and fiction.

Rereading Jane and Prudence  (1953) Barbara Pym’s third novel, I was surprised to read that  Jane, one of the heroines, states that she  does not feel much like a mother, since she only has one child. At first, this statement didn’t register,  I glossed over it. But then I kept thinking and  realized that this was a major error. Even in fiction, the feeling of motherhood does not depend on how many children you have. I believe  that  the narrator here reveals  the lack of knowledge and inexperience of the  author, who herself never married and had no children of her own.  

It is true that Jane, a clergyman’s wife, has romantic notions about her role and the life that comes with it. She regards her inability to produce a large family, like the ones exemplified in the clerical novels by Charlotte Yonge, as a personal failure.  However, to me this does not feel like an authentic emotion that could come from a mother.

Before our first daughter was born my husband and I took prenatal Lamaze classes. I remember that on the last class the instructor suggested, “before you go to the hospital to have the baby take a good look around your home, it will never be the same.” Although it seems like a  cliché, this statement could not have been more accurate. Coming back with our first baby life has never been the same. And I felt like a mother and could not feel stronger about it when I  had another child.

I don’t subscribe to the belief that in order to write about something you have to personally  experience it, although it does help as it provides a shortcut. But if I don’t have personal  experience about divorce, for example, I will have to compensate for it. Since it means that I don’t have  instincts or  intuitions to rely upon I will have to conduct  thorough research on divorce.

Moreover, because I don't have that personal experience, even when I do conduct thorough research, my knowledge will lack a certain depth and could never be equal to someone who had life experience. There  could always be surprises -- those issues that I didn’t even know  existed.

On the other hand, not going through the experience myself means that I am not bound by reality, granting me the freedom to write about the subject in a novel way. But I still have to be careful, since I cannot rely on my own experience and intuition I would likely want to consult with esxperts. The most obvious way is  to find an informed reader and  especially a good editor.

Barbara Pym does not make many mistakes, generally her information is reliable and the sentiments of her characters ring true, to the extent that her novels are often used as a source for social and church historians.

 In a way it is gratifying to find a flaw in an otherwise great writer. It encourages me that even Barbara Pym can  make such a silly mistake.

To The Queen of Understatement: Happy 100th Birthday Barbara Pym

On June 2nd 1913 the British author Barbara Pym was born in Oswestry, Shropshire. When I came across Pym’s first novel Some Tame Gazelle which she started writing in her 20s, I never imagined that this hilarious book, together with the rest of her work, would become such an important part of my life. 

It is hard to imagine a less likely pair than Barbara Pym and I: She is British and the queen of  understatement,  I am an Israeli who tends to exaggerate. Her views and social criticism are muted and subtle, and if you don’t read carefully you could easily miss them. I am judgmental and  make no secrets of my opinions.

Her fiction portrays a totally different world than mine, even when she writes about London it is  a parochial village, her early novels Some Tame Gazelle, Excellent Women, and Jane and Prudence center on the church and its activities. Her 1950s novels tell the story of a world  which is no longer there postwar Britain and the start of the welfare state.  Her women characters are very different from me and my friends, many of them are single women whose life is strongly connected with the church.

But she is witty and very funny and these qualities are universal; and as I was intrigued by her minimalistic style and curious about her world, when it was time for me to pick a topic for my PhD dissertation I knew rightaway that I wanted to write about Barbara Pym. My prospective advisor was not at all thrilled . She had read one of Pym’s books and was not impressed.  It was up to me to convince her that Pym’s work was a worthy PhD topic. It didn’t suffice that I told my advisor that in 1977, on the occasion of its 75th anniversary, the London Times Literary Supplement asked a number of prominent British writers to name the most underrated writer of the century. Only one author was named twice as having been too long neglected: Barbara Pym.

So I wrote a paper to persuade my advisor that Barbara Pym is indeed a great writer. I did it without any references using only th enovel itself. I am pasting it below:

Comparison and Contrast in the world of Wilmet Forsyth Of A Glass Of Blessings

The absurdity of a phone impinging during church service in the first scene of A Glass of Blessing, immediately establishes this book’s occupation with contrasts. The heroine and narrator Wilmet Forsyth is fascinated with the unexpected, the surprising and the unusual. Perhaps it is because her life has become routine and dull with her marriage to Rodney Forsyth whom she met when in her service with the Wrens in Italy.

Life then in Italy was so exciting that Wilmet even missed the comforting boredom of England, and married “Rodney and those peculiarly English qualities which had seemed so loveable when we had first met in Italy during the war and I had been homesick for damp green English churchyards and intellectual walks and talks in the park on a Saturday afternoon”(13).

Today ten years later on her thirty third birthday, she is sitting in church, listening to the unexpected phone ringing and thinking on ways to liven up her life. Wilmet does not have a job, a hobby or even children. She explains that she does not have a job because of her husband’s wish, but knows herself well enough to admit that she hates to be “tied down to a routine”(17-18). She does not do any volunteer work like Mary Beamish, does not have children like her friend Rowena and she plans to make Piers Longridg, Rowena’s brother into her hobby, autumn project  (18).

 Wilmet constantly compares and contrasts herself and her position in life to others. Measuring herself up against Mary Beamish she reaches conclusions about her worth:” Mary Beamish was the kind of person who always made me feel particularly useless- she was so very much immersed in good works, so splendid, everyone said. She was about my age, but small and rather dowdily dressed, presumably because she had neither the wish nor than ability to make the most of herself” (19).  In spite of everyone’s admiration to the fine Mary, Wilmet has no wish to become like Mary. Moreover she does not even want to socialize with her because of Mary’s splendid qualities. Wilmet does take great deal of trouble with her appearance and does not wish to become any less useless.

 Wilmet used to share great intimacy with her great friend Rowena, with whom she served in Italy; now their situations are very different. While Rowena lives in the suburb with her husband and three children, Wilmet lives in town with her husband and his unusual mother Sybil. Wilmet’s visit to her friend provides her with more contrasting perceptions. While in the country, all the women guests wear black; as Rowena puts it: “like a kind of uniform, Wilmet wears” a sort of mole-coloured velvet dress” (41). Rowena’s rough hands make Wilmet sad to the point of tears. Rowena’s hands when they were “ young and gay Wren officers in Italy” used to be soft and smooth. (42). Rowena, the mother and the suburban wife, presents another alternative that does not appeal to Wilmet.

 Although Sybil, Rodney’s mother is much older than Wilmet and her peers Mary and Rowena, she is the liveliest of the three.  Sybil, vivacious and teeming with interests is game for any adventure. In contrast with the detachment she displays towards her husband, Wilmet is much closer to his mother. It seems almost paradoxical that the respectable dull Rodney will have such a nonconformist mother. In the relationship of the two women, the mother is the leader, Sybil suggests taking Portuguese and Wilmet follows suit. The contrast in their beliefs allows the reader to gain a glimpse into the reason for Wilmet’s religious belief. Sybil, an agnostic, does not attend church, and Wilmet admires her courage to face the consequences of her convictions: “there was something about my mother- in – law’s bleakly courageous agnosticism that I admired. It seemed rather brave for somebody nearing the end of life to hold such views. I wondered if she was ever afraid when she woke up in the small hours of the night and thought of death”(14). Here too, although Wilmet looks up to Sybil, she has no real desire to do the charity work Sybil does, to be interested in archeological topics or even to practice Portuguese grammar. The contrast between the two women is a statement rather than an inspiration for self-improvement

While the women characters serve as a measuring stick for Wilmet’s personality, she further contrasts and compares the men in her life.  While Harry and Rodney are the reliable types, they are contrasted with the legendary, exciting Rocky (to be met again later in Excellent Women) and with the moody Piers. Harry is deemed so dull that Wilmet is certain that Piers must be the one who has sent her the beautiful Victorian box. Father Thames who has style, taste and probably some money is contrasted with the dumpy yet worthy Father Bode. Wilmet’s constant comparison of the men does not give her any insight into their world. By juxtaposing them and opposing them one against the other, she does not seem to gain any more understanding of their inner world. Contrasting seems as a convenient way for her to form her impressions and an amusing way to pass the time.

 Other aspects in Wilmet’s life are also presented as a series of comparisons and contrasts. There are the two types of the Anglican church: the favoured high church, and the despised low church, and different religious practices: celibacy: the choice of Father Thames, Father Bode and the unfortunate Father Sainsbury versus getting married:  Father Ransome’s choice.  Houses are compared: Rowena’s house in the country with Wilmet’s home.  Other interiors are contrasted: Rowena’s rooms with Miss Prideaux crowded bed-sitter. Voices are compared: Keith’s voice is described ironically by Piers as “not quite our kind of voice” or “not [as] a colleague’s voice” by Wilmet, as opposed to the “cultured male voice” of Piers as described by Rodney (160, 90).  Wilmet pays attention to the tiniest details and she even chooses to comment on the different kinds of tea as indication to style, taste and occasion.  In addition to categorizing and classifying new information, this binary view reveals some of the preferences and the prejudices of Wilmet, and probably also those of her social class.

 Art objects too are admired by Wilmet and are subsequently contrasted; such an example provides the Faberge egg, Father Thames’ prize possession. In a comical scene when Mr. Coleman informs Wilmet about the incident with the egg, she compares between the egg and Mr. Coleman’s precious car “Husky” (171).

“‘Amazing what people will spend their money on, isn’t it?’  Said Mr. Coleman.

‘It’s all according to one’s taste’, I said wondering whether I myself would prefer a Faberge egg or a Husky and not being absolutely sure”(172).

 In addition to the pecuniary value of the two objects, the egg has more meanings. Although Wilmet wonders what she would prefer, it becomes evident that in Wilmet’s world the Faberge egg is far superior to the  “Husky” car. The egg is ultimately meant for people’s enjoyment. Father Thames reveals himself to be a true Christian; he was aware of the fact the Mr. Bason used to “borrow” the egg and understood and accepted Bason’s aesthetic need to be surrounded by beautiful objects. Mr. Coleman’s is obsessed with material possession, whereas Father Thames is generous and understanding.

 In a way, borrowing Wilmet’s view of her world as a series of oppositions, Wilmet herself is a lot like the Faberge egg. She is Rodney‘s prize possession, and, yet does not seem to mind being borrowed by someone else. She is static, ornamental, highly stylized, elegant and beautiful.  She derives her worth from the admiration of other; like the egg she seems to be hollow and with no real substance. The egg has some religious connotation, being made especially for Easter, but the religion is mostly ceremonial, on the surface. Wilmet also practices religion, but without any depth. The egg is a symbol of a passing world that does not exist any more, Wilmet too is conservative and seems to be a relic of a bygone era.

 Wilmet’s world is made of passive comparisons and contrasts. Experiences are relative, they are either measured against her or against something else, and nothing has an absolute value. She usually draws no conclusion from her painstaking examinations of the world around her, but rather remains almost blind to what lies behind her observations. Other people are able to take action while she remains passive and lets life pulls her along. The dowdy Mary schemes and gets Father Ransome, as her brother Gerald claims (255). Sybil takes actions, marries Arnold and actually goes to Portugal. The lazy Piers find a boyfriend, Mr. Bason lands a new job, and even the reliable Rodney has some kind of a liaison. All the while, Wilmet remains the static center of the book, the world around her keeps revolving without her participation.  She, who looks to other to get her justification for being, eventually becomes disappointed. Her project Piers who was going to be her whole raison d’etre proved to be a major fiasco, he did not need to be loved and cared by her. It seemed that every one, but her knew about him, but since Wilmet never takes actions, or risks, even her failures remain unknown to everyone but herself.

 Work Cited: Pym, Barbara. A Glass Of Blessing. Perennial Library, Harper &Row.  1981.

After reading this short paper, my advisor agreed with me that Barbara Pym was a good choice for a PhD dissertation. I don’t believe that Barbara Pym has ever become her “cup of tea” but she was an attentive and excellent advisor for this project.  And on the day when I submitted my dissertation she said “now is the time to find a publisher for the book t” and I did.

And about Barbara Pym, perhaps because she is underrated, and therefore a well- kept secret, reading  her for me is always a discovery -- an understated adventure.

Happy 100 Birthday Barbara Pym!

“I Don't Want To Spoil The Party": Some Unpleasant Facts about Barbara Pym's Biography

 JUN.02.2013

I have been debating whether her 100th birthday is an appropriate opportunity to discuss some unpleasant facts in Barbara Pym’s biography.  But since Barbara Pym herself loved to expose different types of unpleasantness I decided that I might as well do it now. 

 I shall start with a personal story.

In 2004 when I wrote my PhD dissertation on Barbara Pym’s 1950s novels I stayed in Oxford Britain for 3 weeks to work on her manuscripts.  For days I sat at  “Modern Papers”  a special material room at the Bodleian Library. One day I came across an early version of, what later became, her first novel  Some Tame Gazelle. It tells the story of two sisters Barbara and Hilary and they are portrayed as two middle-aged spinsters. In the scene below they are knitting  for the poor Nazis who, having  lost the war, are in exile in Africa:

 Miscellaneous papers, 1973, n.d. Shelfmark: MS. Pym 99 Extent: i + 173 leaves

 “‘Oh dear’, sighed Barbara, putting down the vest she was knitting for the Nazi exiles in Africa”. . . Of course it had been rather extravagant of her to use such an expensive wool to knit a Charity garment , but she excused herself by remarking that after all the Nazis were rather “special people” Friedbert had been a Nazi. “Dear Friedbert”, she murmured, rolling her eyes.She was wondering whether to wear her little swastika brooch or not.  Dear Friedbert had been so pleased at this sign of her presumable sympathy with the National Socialist Party. ‘Die Deutche ugend liebt ihr Vaterland’. . . how did the rest of it go, something about following the Fuhrer, anyway she had it written on the speech of Hitler’s that Friedbert had sent her once, such a long time ago. Liebfraumilch always reminded Barbara of the Rhineland which she had visited in the spring when she was twenty. The Nazis were young and arrogant then and she had hardly known which she liked best Hans of Friedbert.  “The sad state of the poor Nazis in Africa is a subject very dear to my heart’ ‘Yes’ said Mr. Harvey ‘ we must do all we can for them. Of course I suppose everyone realized that the Nazi regime could not last for- ever. Hitler was a powerful personality, but after he went there was really no one to lead them’. Barbara had always thought that Friedbert would make a good Fuhrer, and much handsomer than Hitler.   

Nothing had prepared me for the shock and the nausea which I felt upon reading this passage. In the mid-1930s Pym, among others in her Oxford social milieu, was apparently infatuated with the outward symbols of Nazism. At this period in her life she can almost be considered a Nazi sympathizer. This part of Pym’s biography has not been fully explored or satisfactorily accounted for.  According to her biographer Anne Wyatt Brown, she never fully explained that episode in her personal history. Yet Brown mentions that Pym was an impressionable 20 year old and apparently in love with a German student at the time (1992: 33).

 Although I read in her biography that Pym has been to Germany 5 times from 1934 to 1938, it did not register. But this flippant (almost silly) passage of fiction with its seemingly innocuous information was too sinister  for me.  At one point during that summer I even considered dropping the project altogether. I tried to calm down by reminding myself that Pym was very young at the time, I read books which could help me understand the zeitgeist in 1938. But one book of newspapers clippings from 1938 convinced me that one had to be quite blind not to see what was growing in Germany at the time. Still many chose not to see, even Jews like my grandparents refused to believe and stayed in Berlin.

 So I decided not to judge the young Barbara Pym too harshly and completed the dissertation.

 In the six post-war novels, Germany and the Holocaust are not mentioned even once. Pym may have been uneasy about her past attitudes, but instead of dealing with the existence of evil she has created an alternative church-centered world, where civility rules and where evil is replaced with human faults which are humorously criticized and ultimately forgiven. No doubt, this is a much more pleasant world.

On Remaining Unpublished, or The Most Underrated Novelist of the 20th Century

JUL.04.2013 

What could you do if you fall out of favor all of a sudden, or somehow become irrelevant?  A poignant example is the rejection experienced by the British novelist Barbara Pym (1913—1980) after publishing six novels from 1949—1960.

Barbara Pym did not write bestsellers,  but she enjoyed a steady success (we have to take into account that in the 1950s most people borrowed books from the library: Excellent Women sold 6577 copies, Jane and Prudence 5052, Less Than Angels 3569 and A Glass of Blessing 3071), and got favorable reviews. Hazel Holt, Pym’s biographer and literary executor, argues that her books never lost her publisher, Jonathan Cape, any money.

Thus, as a published author of six books, Pym must have felt that she had arrived; she knew her audience and understood what they wanted to read.  I suppose that she had every reason to believe that her writing career was on a safe and steady path.

The shock came in 1963 when  her  seventh novel,  An Unsuitable Attachment, was rejected by Jonathan Cape, and she could not find another publisher for the work. For 15 years, all her new writings remained unpublished.

Pym was totally unprepared for the rejection; as her world had remained unchanged, she could not have predicted that her writing would become irrelevant in the 1960s.

I cannot begin to imagine her reaction, her distress. She must have started to doubt her whole perception of reality, how could she have been so wrong? What about her loyal readers? Had they stopped being interested in what she had to say? Moreover, writing was her whole life; she had never married or had children.  

Pym was 50 year old when she encountered rejection. I know from experience that this is an age when women start to feel invisible. My female friends report that no one sees them, and  I sense  that Pym’s  rejection may have augmented the feelings of being transparent.

Still being invisible has its advantages. A friend of mine says that since no one sees you, you are free to do whatever you choose. Pym did just that, she did not cave in but kept writing novels  in her own style, and did not try to please anyone but herself. 

Like in fairy tales, Pym’ s consistency and hard work were rewarded.  For its  75th anniversary, the Times Literary Supplement issued a list of the most underrated writers of the century, drawn up by forty-three eminent literary figures. Pym was the only living writer to be named by two people – the poet Philip Larkin, and the historian and biographer Lord David Cecil.

This nomination brought about a revived interest in Pym; her novels were reissued and Quartet in Autumn (1977) was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.

 So like in Greek tragedies, in which the greater good always takes precedent over the fate of the individual: order was restored;  Pym was rediscovered. However, for her success came too late,  and she did not have long to enjoy the fruits of this triumph as she died of cancer in 1980.

"An Unfortunate Reference:" Marks & Spencer vs. Barbara Pym

 JUL.20.2013 

Walking around the center of Enfield town this morning I saw a Marks & Spencer store. All of a sudden, I remembered how while reading through Barbara Pym’s manuscripts at the Bodleian Library in Oxford, I discovered a Pym scandal. Perhaps it was only a storm in a teacup, but the Legal Department at Marks & Spencer took it very seriously.

It all started with what Barbara Pym called a “completely innocent" sentence from her new novel, at the time, Jane and Prudence.

“‘Oh yes’ Jane agreed; ‘When we become distressed we shall be glad of an old dress from Marks and Spencer’s, as we’ve never been used to anything better!’

 Mrs. Doggett did not answer, and Jane remembered that of course she went to her dressmaker for fittings and ordered hats from Marshall’s and Debenhams.’”

On 30th October 1953m a letter arrived from the Legal Department of Marks & Spencer: addressed to Barbara Pym  c/o  Messrs. Jonathan Cape. The content was a comment on p. 125 of Jane and Prudence.

“This reference is clearly derogatory of this company as both in terms and by implication it suggests that dresses sold by the company are of inferior quality, and unfit for wear by persons of the class who buy their hats from Marshall’s and Debenhams’

We are proud of the quality of the goods sold by us , and take great exception to this passage in a book which being a Book Society’s recommendation and being written by an author whose work, according to the publishers’ ‘ blurb’ on the dust cover is at times “worthy of Jane Austen” no doubt enjoys a large circulation.

We must, therefore, ask you to inform us at once what steps you propose to take to correct the harm done by the publication of this matter and to prevent further publications.”

Wren Howard, Pym’s editor from Jonathan Cape, suggested that Pym not reply, and after consulting with the company’s solicitors H.F. Rubinstein wrote a letter to Marks & Spencer ’s Legal Department, dated 5th November, 1953

“We would point out, however, that, in its context the allusion in question is not derogatory of goods sold by your Company, of which, if we may say so, you have every reason to be proud. We suggest that if you will reconsider the passage quoted in your letter, in the light of the general atmosphere and characterization of Miss Pym’s novel, you will appreciate an ironical note underlying the dialogue and the implications of snobbishness betrayed by Miss Doggett, arising precisely out of the fact that the name of your firm is a ‘household word’ for goods remarkable no less for their inexpensiveness than for their high quality. . .

P.S. Since writing the above, we have received a letter from Miss Barbara Pym, in which she says;-

“I need hardly tell you that I certainly never intended anything derogatory to Marks & Spencer, for whom I have the greatest respect. The ironical thing is that I regularly buy and wear their clothes and think them excellent!”

In his letter to the solicitor, Howard phrased this sentiment a little different:  “I suggest that it could be argued that the passage is in no way intended to be derogatory of the goods sold by Messrs. Marks & Spencer, which, however, are notoriously inexpensive and that furthermore, the business is now so well-known as to have become a household word.”

The matter went on for a while, and in a letter to Pym Howard referred to Marks & Spencer  as "these tiresome people.”

 Finally Pym sent her editor an alternative sentence

“‘Oh, yes,’ Jane agreed; ‘when we become distressed we shan’t expect to receive anything very grand, considering the sort of clothes we’re wearing now!’.”

As a result of this unpleasant incident, Pym became extra careful with her references.  Two of the main topics in A Glass of Blessings are the clergy and the wine trade, and here is her description about choosing names:

“I can truthfully say that I have been most careful to check as far as possible, I have not used names belonging to real people. I have looked up all the clergy in the latest Crockford and have also consulted the London telephone directory for their names and those of other characters. I have even (today) consulted the directories of London and Oporto to make sure that one character (whose parents were in the wine trade) has no counterpart in reality. I am not sure that I have actually written anything that could be considered as a libel about anybody, even supposing that the name did have the bad luck to coincide with a real one, but I can assure that I have been very careful with the names.”

“As to ‘giving offenses’. . . I shall be very careful in going through the proofs, but I cannot at that moment remember anything that might offend anybody. I have no wish to get involved in any unpleasantness myself. I haven’t forgotten the worry over Jane and Prudence and my unfortunate reference to Marks and Spencer, so completely innocent on my part.”

When In Rome Do As The Romans Do

Last week Johnny and I visited Rome for several days. I love the city not only for the obvious reasons of beauty and history, but also since it is so easy to get everywhere by foot.  We stayed at a small hotel near Trevi Fountain and walked. One of my favorite destinations is Santa Maria Maggiore. Its imposing architecture and the golden splendour  is very different from anything I am used to in Judaism.

I have already visited the church, in my early twenties with my husband Tzvi. It was our first journey abroad and we started in Rome. On Sunday we went to Santa Maria Maggiore in time for Mass. It was held in one of the small chapels and the congregation stood around in a circle. The service was beautiful and moving, although we understood nothing.  At the end the  priest went around offering the congregation the host. We didn’t know what to do, on the one hand, the Holy Bread was clearly not for us to receive, on the other hand, could we refuse it? There was no time to discuss what to do, but we were anxious: when in Rome do as the Romans do etc.  However, when the priest stood close by he elegantly skipped us and gave it to the next person.

We were amazed, it is not as though we were the only tourists in the crowd, as most of  the congregation was not Italian. We didn’t look or dress differently from the rest of the people and we were as solemn as everyone else. How did the priest know? At the time we didn't comprehend the gravity and the significance of the ceremony and took the matter quite lightly.

Only years later when I studied the Church for my doctorate on Barbara Pym, I learnt that in Catholicism the Holy Eucharist was the most important of the seven sacraments. Pym was not Roman Catholic but Anglo-Catholic, a faction of the Church of England which  is deeply influenced by Roman Catholicism. Thus the Anglo Catholic High Mass is also a sensual experience with vivid colors, candles, organ music, singing, incense, and fresh flowers and the clergy wear embroidered and eucharistic vestment.

The Church, with all its ceremonies, is an important part Pym's world and it is the setting of many of the scenes in her novels. In A Glass of Blessings, for example, an Anglo-Catholic service is compared by the protagonist to an Italian opera,

“The procession round the church with lighted candles reminded me of a scene from an Italian opera – Tosca, I suppose. There was something daring and Romish about the whole thing which added to one’s enjoyment."

In  P.D. James’ novel Death in Holy Orders, which is devoted to the Church, abuse of the holy bread at a small theological college in the remote coast of East Anglia is literally a cause for murder.

I am not sure how the priest knew that we didn’t belong, perhaps our body language revealed our reluctance. Non-verbal  cues are not easy to explain,  but I was relieved and thankful that the astute priest did not put us in a position that would have showed lack of respect to his faith.

Keywords:

Life Through A Small Window

In my last year of high-school when I was supposed to study for the matriculation examinations, I discovered life. It came in the shape of a tiny studio apartment  on the ground floor in the building where my best friend used to live.

Until then our days consisted of going to school and study, but all of a sudden a young man, who moved into that room  filled our dull existence with excitement and joy.

He was a university student about nine years older than us, at sixteen it was a huge difference, he was even older than my brother. To my mind in those nine years he managed to do everything: to  get married to be divorced, to almost complete his degree and to collect a huge number of exciting friends who packed the apartment day and night.

Although in theory he was still a student, at that time, he took some time off to reflect about life and to figure out what to do next. In the meantime, it seemed that, all he wanted to do was to have fun, and we were there to watch and admire.

The apartment had a window strategically positioned at the bottom of the stairs, where we could stand on the steps and peek in.

Thus even before I was ever let in, my friend his neighbour had met him first, I noticed that the walls of his room were covered with beautiful posters. It was 1971 and in Israel the sixties were still going strong.

 Through the window we could also listen to the music which was always playing, and to hear voices of people talking. As many of his  friends came to Israel from different counties the conversations were often in foreign languages.  Standing outside the window we could often smell a sweet scent in addition to that of  regular cigarettes.

As there was no phone, that window also helped  deciding how to act, if you saw people inside, it was a sign that you could come in. If the window was closed and you heard music but also muffled voices  it meant that our friend  was busy and should not be disturbed.

Although I spent time inside the apartment,  there was nothing like the pang of excitement and anticipation that I got from standing on the steps and looking through the window. And often it was safer just to stay outside.

In a way  that window was also the opening to my adult life, growing up in a quiet neighborhood on the Carmel Mountain in Haifa we had  never met people like those who filled the apartment. They were doing things that we only read about in books, and the sights, sounds and smell were all new and exciting. 

But what I saw through the window was not really my life, not at that time and not later. It was a short year and then I graduated high-school, enlisted to the army and left home. Sadly, that wonderful apartment remained behind and was no longer the center of my being

Still there were consequences; since I hardly studied my grades suffered, and I didn’t do so well on my matriculation exams. As a result I couldn’t major in what I had  originally planned  to study and took literature instead.

As I could not imagine my life without literature, this digression was probably for the best, and of course I don't regret the most exciting period of my youth.

  

PS. Although slightly different, Barbara Pym has a beautiful passage about being inside and outside the window: In a talk given in February 1956  on  “The Novelist’s Use of Every Day Life,” she said  : “Everyday life is not for every novelist, but . . . each one must make use of some of it. . .  Many people enjoy the kind of novel that they might be living in themselves, and that constantly reminds them of their own lives; more amusing, more interesting perhaps, but familiar. And sometimes much worse, but still probable – the kind of thing that could happen, but fortunately doesn’t very often. I always think that reading these novels is like looking in through a window. You’re interested in what is going on in the house but glad not to be inside it."

So What Is It About The Phone?

We were the last in our building to install a telephone in the apartment; my father had resisted  as long as he could. And once it was there, after a whole year of waiting, he never once picked up the receiver. My father rightly argued that no one ever called him, and besides, he had enough phone calls at work.

At the time a phone was a rare commodity and only people with connections, or Taxi stations, could obtain an easy phone number. It cost a small fortune to make a local call, even more to call long distance, and over-sea calls were out of the question.  On my wedding day when my brother called us up  from Britain, we stopped everything and gathered around taking turns talking to him; it was a celebration.

It was only when we left Israel for Toronto several years later that we had our own phone; it was simple in the new world. But even then, calling the old world was too expensive for graduate students, and was saved for special occasion, the rest of the time we just wrote letters.

That same year, at the University of Toronto, I was privileged to hear a lecture about the telephone by one of our professors -- Marshal McLuhan. He was a charismatic and exciting lecturer, it was 1979 and a year later he died. He refered to the telephone as a device which promoted alienation, and used the word anonymity. Since at that time,  people did not (yet) see the other person on the line, they took liberties and said things that they normally wouldn’t.

It may seem a bit off, but reflecting now about McLuhan’s theory of anonymity brings to mind another important researcher who studied the same topic from a slightly different angle, at around the same time. The social psychologist Philip Zimbardo tested the propensity of “the man in the street,” or bystander, to misbehave and even to commit vandalism. In his experiment he parked an automobile with no license plates and the hood up in a Bronx neighborhood and a second automobile in the same condition he positioned in Palo Alto, California. The car in the Bronx was attacked by vandals within minutes while in contrast, the vehicle in California was untouched for over a week.

 McLuhan argued and Zimbardo proved that human commitment to one another  diminishes when there is no face to face interaction and annonimity kicks in. While people in Palo Alto knew their neighbours so they exhibited social respobibility, in the Bronx they were alienated from one another and did not care. Similarly, as there is no face to face interaction on the phone it leads to detachment.

While in the late 1970s the phone was a device which threatened intimacy, McLuhan’s  theory has quickly become dated, almost irrelevant. The invention of the internet, and with it so many other communication devices, has changed the status of the phone and made it seem almost warm in comparison to others.

Barbara Pym’s novel A Glass Of Blessings (1957) opens with the ring of a phone amidst a lunchtime church service. At that time it was an unusual event, which in the world of the novel signified that changes were about to follow.  However, today’s reader is bothered by the ring of the phone at funerals, movies and lecture halls, among others, and consequently would hardly notice the oddity of the event.

So what is it about the phone that makes it still powerful? Of course there is the element of surprise: when it rings without warning it usually catches us off guard.  I often think of the phone as that stranger who appears out of nowhere at the beginning of a drama, invades the lives of the people and threatens existing order. With its sudden shrill ring, the phone has the ability to startle and to make us stop everything we do. It can spoil the moment ,but also transform it. And as is with the case of the stranger, when life finally resumes it is often no longer the same.

Excellent Women Visit Cambridge MA

Excellent Women: The Barbara Pym Society North American Conference

Sitting on the train out of Boston, after a most enjoyable weekend at a Barbara Pym Society 16th Annual North American Conference dedicated to Excellent Women (1952), I reflect about literary societies and their role in promoting the love of literature. 

The aim of a scholar, or a group of scholars, in researching an author is to study the text objectively and impartially. In contrast, a literay society of that same author, would be the product of love and admiration. This type of devotion is often regarded in the academic world as a silly idol worshipping.

My own advisor suspected me of being such a devotee, when I told her that I wanted to write my PhD dissertation about the great author—Barbara Pym. In order to check my impartiality she first asked me to write an academic paper about Pym. This was an interesting challege, luckily I passed the test.

In 2004 as a graduate student I was chosen to represent my institution: The Hebrew University, in the Dickens Project at the Univesity of California Santa Cruz. Like a literary society it was devoted to one writer, but  it was held at the university campus. The lecturers were graduate students and faculty members from different universities in the US and around the world, and the participants were Dickens lovers from the community. Many of them  knew more about the writer than either the graduate students or the faculty. Unlike the academics, they were partial to Dickens and openly loved him. My task was to lead a group of participants, and  at first I kept wondering: what am  I doing here? they surely know Dickens more than me, what have I got to contribute? When I shared these worries with the group, the members kindly assured me that that there was always something new to learn about Dickens.

This curiosity about a beloved writer, the conviction that there is always something new to learn is typical of members of a literary society. And this is what I love most about the Barbara Pym Society and their conferences. Instead of efficiently dividing the 100 people present into small groups and giving as many  papers as possible, as so often is the case in academic conferences, we only had 4 papers a day and each lasted an hour. For me it was such a luxury to deliver my paper calmly without encountering  the worried face of the moderator handing me a note with the number 5 on in indicating that my time was almost up.

In the Barbara Pym conference, the organizer Dr. Kathy Ackley a "bona fide" Pym scholar, had asked each of the speakers a non scholarly question about their attitude to Pym's work. She later used the answers as part of her delightful introductions to their talks. I found the presentations at the conference inspiring, and thought provoking. Moreover, since all the speakers loved Pym and were not ashamed to show it, the delivery was lively and engaging.

Talking about my topic "friendship among women in Excellent Women," on Saturday, I  felt that it was a privilege to share my paper with a group of like-minded people who were always eager to find out something new about a beloved author. As I talked it was clear that the audience (which consisted mostly of excellent women and only a few excellent men) was familiar with every quote from the book and cared deeply about the issue at hand.

I don’t believe that I should be impartial about books; to paraphrase Dryden they are meant to instruct and delight us. So for me there is no going back to scholarly academic conferences,  I don’t want to be objective and detached about literature—it is just too boring.