Quartet in Autumn

I have been re-reading Barbara Pym's Quartet in Autumn.  I noticed that I reviewed this book in a blogpost in 2012.  So I guess it has even more power and melancholy than the last time I read it.  And it is still funny - this is Barbara Pym after all.  It is another page turner.  And what really is the point of a book that isn't?

But for me this is her masterpiece, well along with Some Tame Gazelle and Excellent Women of course.

Back then, when I first wrote about it, I was at the same stage as Letty and Marcia - at the beginning of retirement.  Now I am way beyond that, and both amazed and grateful that not only are we still here, but are continuing to find life so interesting. 

I was just reading some reviews of Quartet online, and it seems that most people found Marcia the character that most affected them. And her decline into dottiness and then dementia is wonderfully depicted.  But I find that Letty and her courage in coping with what life has dealt her, which is very very little, is the one who touches me most.

The quartet of characters are all wonderfully drawn though.  

I am now re-reading - and enjoying - the last Pym A Few Green Leaves.  Critics are mixed about that. And it ought not to be the first Pym that you read.  But I am enjoying it, and noting what a valiant book it is. She was dying when she wrote it, and death is a recurring theme in various ways, none of them at all self-pitying.  But although it contains all the cosy day to day themes of the ordinary lives that Pym does so well, it is also surely about the futility of our lives as they are now - born dying.

Talking of old age and - gulp - the rest of it, the medical merry-go-round is still underway. So though I ought to be - and am - very very grateful for the medical care, I can't claim to be as self-pity free as Barbara Pym was.

And it seems sadly appropriate that on Friday morning we visited Jacks in her Care Home.  It is a great place, like a good hotel.  In fact, the first thing I noticed was how beautifully the grass in the large gardens is kept. And the inside was in harmony with that. We took Jacks the 2026 orchid calendar, and plan to go back next week with some chocolates, which she said she would like.  But it occurs to me that I will probably have to have them vetted by Staff before offering them to Jacks...

We do miss her so much. We would spend every Saturday night together, and have lots of days out, usually in London. We could both travel in those days. Col of course still can, thank God.  But we were able to talk over old times, which was quite consoling. And even laugh about quite a lot of things, as we always used to.

And when our visit ended and we couldn't find the way out, the staff opened the doors for us and let us go.  How much longer before they decide we are escapees and try to escort us back to our rooms?

I attended Dawn's Memorial on Saturday - via Zoom, as Col was away a'detectoring.  The talk was both comforting and sad, of course.  She and her husband had such a long and happy marriage, they even worked together for many years.  In a world where marriages are collapsing everywhere and the relationship between men and women seems worse than ever, it must have made Jehovah very happy to see how Dawn and her husband honoured and valued the marriage arrangement.