The Testing of Barbara Pym

<p><i>The Testing of Barbara Pym</i> a companion volume to <i>The Making of Barbara Pym</i> (Palgrave Macmillan 2021) completes a comprehensive analysis of Pym���s novels and her life focusing on her complex view of the necessity of change at both the individual and cultural levels. Newly published archival material supports this treatment of Pym���s vision of a changing world ��� a vision premised upon the principle of continuity a linking together of past present and future. In her novels published from 1955-1980 beginning with Britain���s emergence from post-war austerity Pym portrays in an optimistic fashion several changing aspects of British culture: expansion of the suburbs acceptance of homosexual men erosion of the class system inclusivity in the Anglican Church. But with these changes new strains emerge as well; the principle of continuity undergoes radical testing and is then emphatically reasserted. Likewise despite upheavals to established patterns in herlife chiefly the inability to publish her work Pym persisted in cultivating such elements of continuity as she could an effort rewarded while she was in rural retirement by a return to the publishing world. Thus in both Pym���s novels and her life continuity survives the duress of testing circumstances.<br></p>