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.

"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.”