SOURCE: A review of Some Tame Gazelle, in The New York Times, August 5, 1983, p. 19.

In the following review, Kakutani offers praise for Some Tame Gazelle.

About a third of the way through this lovely, muted novel, Belinda turns to her sister and declares, "Today has been rather trying, hasn't it really—too much happening." What has happened, it turns out, is that the archdeacon's wife has left on holiday that morning; and the archdeacon himself has come to pay the Bede sisters, Harriet and Belinda, a tea-time visit. So circumscribed are the lives of the English spinsters and clergymen who populate Barbara Pym's novels that such events pass as high drama and yet Miss Pym's depiction of these timid lives is so skillful that the reader not only cares enormously about what happens but also experiences, along with the characters, the significance of these everyday events.

Originally published...