[Barbara Pym possesses] the advantages of a subtle writer where everything is toned down as against the appalling crudity and obviousness, the outrageous barrage (with its law of diminishing returns) of so much contemporary literature, if literature it can be called, as Miss Pym would say….

[The] piano effects of Miss Pym's crisp comedy register; one cares for her characters and what happens to them, they are so real and truthfully rendered. Her books are a distillation of life; and if in watercolour, well, what better than the best English water-colours?

The novels are very lady-like—but so was Jane Austen—and what was wonderful about her is that, within the confines of a lady's view of the world, she understood everything about life: no illusions, knew perfectly what was what about people—rather better, in fact, than brute sensationalists.

The same is true of Miss Pym, for...