Put two people together and something will eventually cause friction between them. Once it does, one weighs the bad, weighs the good, and decides to accept, or tolerate, speak up in hopes of promoting change, or make an escape. This is probably obvious to most, not all. Mildred Lathbury, the narrator of Barbara Pym's early novel Excellent Women (1952), is beginning to think she's destined to be a drab lonely spinster. Her comic style provides one clue as to how it came to be. In her world, no one is quite desirable. Outwardly she remains polite and can be counted on to lend a helping hand whenever someone needs it. Everyone needs it and she hardly complains. Good old reliable Mildred. But she doesn't like Helena Napier. She doesn't like Allegra Gray. Winifred Malory is simple. Julian Malory does nothing for her. Dora Caldicote is irritating (and she insists on wearing that brown dress). William Caldicote is a gossip. Everard Bone has a gruff manner. Rocky Napier is superficial. Don't get her started on her past schoolmates. And she's unsparing of herself too. Her observations produce tart lines and consoling laughter from a comfortable distance, the bad at best negating the good, leaving her where she started, nowhere with anyone. She's the sort of person who can't get past the fact of human imperfection. I think of a scene from Seinfeld. At the coffee shop, George listens as Jerry details yet another silly cause for a breakup. Then, fed up with his own quibbles, he runs both hands through his hair and says with a sigh: "What kind of lives are these?" Not the kind conducive to romance.
For all her awareness of her faults, Lathbury doesn't face a similar realization. (Jerry learns nothing because that's the joke: "no hugging, no learning.") Awareness doesn't inevitably lead to forgiveness. Hyperawareness of faults or "faults" is antithetical to forgiveness. But then again, our narrator doesn't always quibble. At a planning meeting for a church function, she overhears an exchange:
"Really, Mr. Mallett, it's a good thing your wife isn't here," said Miss Statham indignantly. "Whatever would she think to hear you talking like that?"
"My good lady leaves the thinking to me," said Mr. Mallett, amid laughter from the men.
Later that same day, as the discussion winds down, she notes another separation between the genders.
The men went on smoking and chatting while we gathered the cups together and struggled to fill the heavy urn between us. They belonged to the generation that does not think of helping with domestic tasks.
Nor does Lathbury have routine contact with men besides these, in church, at work, or anywhere else. Another reason for persistent loneliness: few options to get excited about.
Lathbury is dismissive of her own physical appearance and taste in clothes, notices when she blends among other "excellent women," doesn't seem to have a record of getting approached by eligible bachelors. A third reason: the intriguing stranger from outside her routine never materializes and says hey. And a fourth: A disappointment so traumatic one loses years, decades to fear of a repeat of The Incident.
Together these form an imposing barrier to companionship. In presenting the situation, alongside such mundane problems as an uninspired meal or a shared bathroom or flowers that wilt upon turning around, Pym is as true to the melancholy in it as the comedy. But, whether as a concession to an audience demanding to go out on some uplift or in eagerness to rescue her character, she wraps up the book with a forced resolution. It isn't happy, precisely, but pat. I've known seemingly mismatched couples bonded together mysteriously and tenuously. It's hard to believe Mildred Lathbury, so skeptical and satirical, so exacting in her estimation of others (and rather unimpressed by her findings), and protective of her humble bit of independence, would settle for a mismatch so willingly, then suggest it'll last without a better explanation. Suddenly the fog breaks and the reader gets celestial choir and strings, technicolor Hollywood. Did Pym really want to end the novel like this? Excellent Women is good enough that I'd track down at least another of hers to see.
