Publication
Virago (2022), 272 p.
Original publication date
1955
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Description
A tale of a woman's romantic entanglements with two anthropologists--and the odd mating habits of humans--from the author of Jane and Prudence. Catherine Oliphant writes for women's magazines and lives comfortably with anthropologist Tom Mallow--although she's starting to wonder if they'll ever get married. Then Tom drops his bombshell: He's leaving her for a nineteen-year-old student. Though stunned by Tom's betrayal, Catherine quickly becomes fascinated by another anthropologist, Alaric Lydgate, a reclusive eccentric recently returned from Africa. As Catherine starts to weigh her options, she must figure out who she is and what she really wants. With a lively cast of characters and a witty look at the insular world of academia, this novel from the much-loved author of Excellent Women and other modern classics is filled with poignant, playful observations about the traits that separate us from our anthropological forebears--far fewer than we may imagine. … (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member thorold
Anthropologists and librarians come into many of Pym's novels - not surprisingly, since she worked for the International African Institute in London - but this is the only one where anthropology is at the centre of the plot. Three women are in love with Tom, a good-looking anthropologist who has
As might be expected, there's a good deal of quiet fun to be had with all the little quirks and eccentricities of these people. Academics are always a good target, of course. It's interesting that Pym also brings in social class as a complicating factor here, something that usually plays very little role in her books. Both Tom and the professor come from distinctly upper-class backgrounds, which we are made to see as sitting uneasily with their choice of an unfashionable academic discipline (instead of a more traditional career in church, army or parliament). There is social awkwardness when a group of undergraduates are invited for a weekend at the professor's country house, and mutual incomprehension when Tom goes back to his home village in Shropshire.
Although the structure of the book is clearly Pym's own - the plot resists neat resolutions; characters are generally relieved to find themselves not paired off after all - the settings seem to owe something to P.G. Wodehouse. Instead of the usual bleak North London suburbia, we have a group of neighbouring houses in Putney, not a million miles from Wodehouse's beloved Valley Fields (Dulwich). Assignations are made and lawnmowers borrowed over the garden fence, and the grumpy retired anthropologist could easily be one of Wodehouse's colonels or ex-governors. Shropshire is also very much Wodehouse country, although Pym did come from Oswestry herself, so that might be merely coincidence.
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returned briefly from Africa to England to submit his thesis; several final-year undergraduates are manoeuvring to win a valuable research grant; a professor and a shady priest are courting a wealthy widow for sponsorship; and a retired anthropologist is sitting on a trunk full of unpublished notes.As might be expected, there's a good deal of quiet fun to be had with all the little quirks and eccentricities of these people. Academics are always a good target, of course. It's interesting that Pym also brings in social class as a complicating factor here, something that usually plays very little role in her books. Both Tom and the professor come from distinctly upper-class backgrounds, which we are made to see as sitting uneasily with their choice of an unfashionable academic discipline (instead of a more traditional career in church, army or parliament). There is social awkwardness when a group of undergraduates are invited for a weekend at the professor's country house, and mutual incomprehension when Tom goes back to his home village in Shropshire.
Although the structure of the book is clearly Pym's own - the plot resists neat resolutions; characters are generally relieved to find themselves not paired off after all - the settings seem to owe something to P.G. Wodehouse. Instead of the usual bleak North London suburbia, we have a group of neighbouring houses in Putney, not a million miles from Wodehouse's beloved Valley Fields (Dulwich). Assignations are made and lawnmowers borrowed over the garden fence, and the grumpy retired anthropologist could easily be one of Wodehouse's colonels or ex-governors. Shropshire is also very much Wodehouse country, although Pym did come from Oswestry herself, so that might be merely coincidence.
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LibraryThing member Kasthu
As a parallel to society as a whole, Barbara Pym tells the story of a group of anthropologists in London. Tom Mallow is an incredibly self-absorbed but brilliant anthropologist working on his thesis, and he has a convenient live-in arrangement with a magazine write named Catherine, who seems to be
Barbara Pym worked with anthropologists for many years, so they are a recurring theme in many of her books. Anthropologists make cameo appearances in some of Pym’s other novels (such as Everard Bone from Excellent Women, who has a cameo appearance in this book; Emma from A Few Green Leaves; and Tom Mallow is an early version of Rupert Stonebird from An Unsuitable Attachment), but Less Than Angels is really the only one in which the actual study of anthropology plays a major role. I loved the comparison that Pym makes between the studies of this group of people and observations of human society as a whole. There are a few stock characters that Pym went to again and again; in this one, she uses the young-spinster stereotype (Catherine), the cad, clergymen, and the eccentric academic (plenty of those in Less Than Angels, to be sure).
I also love the connections she makes between each of her books through the use of recurring characters (therefore I think it’s best that you read Pym’s books in order of publications, because she really built upon each book as she wrote them). Undoubtedly, our favorite character is meant to be Catherine, whose wisdom and sensibility is a contrast to Deirdre’s youthful naïveté.; and I got the feeling that Pym was silently mocking tom behind his back. But it’s so subtle that you almost don’t notice it. Less Than Angels is one of my favorite books by an author already favored.
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more of a friend, although it’s hinted that the two may have had a relationship in the past. Tom takes up with Deirdre, an earnest but naive anthropology student.Barbara Pym worked with anthropologists for many years, so they are a recurring theme in many of her books. Anthropologists make cameo appearances in some of Pym’s other novels (such as Everard Bone from Excellent Women, who has a cameo appearance in this book; Emma from A Few Green Leaves; and Tom Mallow is an early version of Rupert Stonebird from An Unsuitable Attachment), but Less Than Angels is really the only one in which the actual study of anthropology plays a major role. I loved the comparison that Pym makes between the studies of this group of people and observations of human society as a whole. There are a few stock characters that Pym went to again and again; in this one, she uses the young-spinster stereotype (Catherine), the cad, clergymen, and the eccentric academic (plenty of those in Less Than Angels, to be sure).
I also love the connections she makes between each of her books through the use of recurring characters (therefore I think it’s best that you read Pym’s books in order of publications, because she really built upon each book as she wrote them). Undoubtedly, our favorite character is meant to be Catherine, whose wisdom and sensibility is a contrast to Deirdre’s youthful naïveté.; and I got the feeling that Pym was silently mocking tom behind his back. But it’s so subtle that you almost don’t notice it. Less Than Angels is one of my favorite books by an author already favored.
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LibraryThing member brenzi
I don’t know anything about anthropology and I didn’t learn anything about it reading this book. However the story itself dealt with anthropologists and anthropology students. With this volume, Pym steered clear of her familiar stomping ground of “excellent” women (often unmarried) who lay
Within a group of anthropology students, Deirdre has fallen for Tom, who has just returned from studying tribal life in Africa. Tom is living with a slightly older woman, Catherine, who makes a living by writing romance fiction but e decides to move out and pursue a relationship with Deirdre. To further complicate matters, he still has feelings for his first love, Elaine. Students Digby and Mark are fairly passive observers but add some humorous moments as do Deidre’s mother and aunt, who scrutinize the world from their bedroom window. And the comic characters, Esther Clovis and Gertrude Lydgate, make a return appearance (previously seen in Excellent Women) and like to be thought of as a guiding force for the young people.
It’s all very light stuff, as is usually the case with Pym, until right near the end where she throws a curve that I never saw coming. I think it was supposed to allow for the resolution of some of the loose ends but, for me anyway, it served no purpose and was so unexpected that I can’t imagine what possessed her.
I hope my next Pym, A Glass of Blessings, is more like the other Pyms I’ve read.
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down life and limb for the men in their lives and volunteer endlessly for their church. Instead, we’re given a story without a protagonist. I’m not sure why she took this tack because, frankly, it didn’t work very well. Apparently, Pym actually spent time at London’s Africa Institute and probably based this book very loosely on experiences there.Within a group of anthropology students, Deirdre has fallen for Tom, who has just returned from studying tribal life in Africa. Tom is living with a slightly older woman, Catherine, who makes a living by writing romance fiction but e decides to move out and pursue a relationship with Deirdre. To further complicate matters, he still has feelings for his first love, Elaine. Students Digby and Mark are fairly passive observers but add some humorous moments as do Deidre’s mother and aunt, who scrutinize the world from their bedroom window. And the comic characters, Esther Clovis and Gertrude Lydgate, make a return appearance (previously seen in Excellent Women) and like to be thought of as a guiding force for the young people.
It’s all very light stuff, as is usually the case with Pym, until right near the end where she throws a curve that I never saw coming. I think it was supposed to allow for the resolution of some of the loose ends but, for me anyway, it served no purpose and was so unexpected that I can’t imagine what possessed her.
I hope my next Pym, A Glass of Blessings, is more like the other Pyms I’ve read.
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LibraryThing member SeriousGrace
My impression of the first 50 pages of Less Than Angels was that it's plot was very slow-moving, like a wide river with almost no perceptible action. Indeed, the first 50 pages are the reader's surface introduction to at least fifteen different characters and the very beginnings of a plot. Less
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Than Angels is a community of contrasts. Professors of Anthropology mingle with fledgling students. The aged and retired cast a skeptical eye on the young and impulsive. Frenchmen stand baffled by the British. At the center of the story is Tom Mallow, a distinguished yet vain anthropologist caught between a relationship with a sophisticated older journalist and a younger wide-eyed student. This is an excellent study of English culture (lots of tea-times and interesting meals) along with the typical social graces and faux pas. Show Less
LibraryThing member alexdaw
I think it's important to have small comforts in life, particularly at bedtime. I am always intrigued by people's night-time rituals. When I was a child it was always fun staying with friends and seeing what their families did. Little friend Deborah's Dad, known to me as Uncle Warren, would bring
I think I have found my "blanky" in Barbara Pym. God's in his Heaven (or hers) and all's well with the world when I read Barbara Pym. I am using her books as relief from some of my more worthy and good for you (like multi-grain bread) reads.
Less than Angels is my second Barbara Pym. I was delighted to find a reference to some of the characters from my first - [14407::Excellent Women] - but it is not necessary to have read it to follow the story. It just deals with a different group - a bit like those multi-layered films that are so popular these days like Shortcuts - where storylines slightly intersect.
A friend from bookclub has lent me four books from her Barbara Pym collection and lest I "forget" to return them, I assiduously returned this as soon as I had finished, so I'm sorry but I can't quote from it.
All I need say to encourage you to read it is that I laughed out loud and snorted on several occasions. Ms Pym has that marvellous ability to describe characters forced to live closely together in straitened circumstances - usually family members...and the way they carve out a modicum of privacy, self-determination and/or sanity in shared households. Her descriptions of the two sisters living together with one sister's adult son and daughter is classic. I'll leave it to you to guess which sister I wanted to smack on frequent occasions.
There's so much more I could say but doubtless others have waxed enthusiastic before me...if you haven't read Barbara Pym yet, don't waste another moment.
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each child (including guests) a cup of hot cocoa at bedtime and would soothe ruffled feathers, sibling rivalries and over-excited munchkins with firm but loving admonitions. Another friend would literally rock herself to sleep. She urged me to try it but I found it too exhausting. My mother always had a Georgette Heyer by the bed - somewhat guiltily - but it did the trick after a hard day of being a domestic goddess. I think I have found my "blanky" in Barbara Pym. God's in his Heaven (or hers) and all's well with the world when I read Barbara Pym. I am using her books as relief from some of my more worthy and good for you (like multi-grain bread) reads.
Less than Angels is my second Barbara Pym. I was delighted to find a reference to some of the characters from my first - [14407::Excellent Women] - but it is not necessary to have read it to follow the story. It just deals with a different group - a bit like those multi-layered films that are so popular these days like Shortcuts - where storylines slightly intersect.
A friend from bookclub has lent me four books from her Barbara Pym collection and lest I "forget" to return them, I assiduously returned this as soon as I had finished, so I'm sorry but I can't quote from it.
All I need say to encourage you to read it is that I laughed out loud and snorted on several occasions. Ms Pym has that marvellous ability to describe characters forced to live closely together in straitened circumstances - usually family members...and the way they carve out a modicum of privacy, self-determination and/or sanity in shared households. Her descriptions of the two sisters living together with one sister's adult son and daughter is classic. I'll leave it to you to guess which sister I wanted to smack on frequent occasions.
There's so much more I could say but doubtless others have waxed enthusiastic before me...if you haven't read Barbara Pym yet, don't waste another moment.
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LibraryThing member skwoodiwis
Less Than Angels
I stumbled upon Barbara Pym within the confines of Library Thing. Barbara Pym even has her own group within Library Thing.
I’m a member.
I couldn’t put the novel down and I hated the realization that I had finished. I’m a slow reader and Ms Pym’s work seemed to have the
Ms Pym’s ability to cut to the bone is phenomenal. With plane simple language and characters that seem almost ghost like in their actions I found my self writing words in the margin”
“Rude!”
“Despairing.”
“Funny.”
“Lonely.”
I often would scribble around the margins trying to answer the question why. Why with this writer’s ability to write with such agility and candor the sadness of our lives, do we still find ourselves with more knowledge and so little wisdom?
Within one scene, the aunt of a rather lost and self-centered anthropologist approaches his former lover. The scene was anguishing as the aunt realizes that her nephew has left his lover for a younger woman but the woman blunders on about a dance for her daughter and actually discusses the hopes that her nephew can supply suitable young men to dance with her overly tall daughter. The scene is underscored by the almost third person analytical attitude the jilted woman takes of the conversation. It seems as if she was watching her own amputation.
Each character had his or her own comic and tragic aspects – and again what impresses me so about Ms Pym’s novel is her ability to maintain the overall humanness of each character. Every page turned was an amazing read.
I have my next Pym novel waiting in the wings, A Few Green Leaves, and I’m very much looking forward to it. According to the cover, this novel was her last. A last novel does not depress me – and I know as I approach grim old age, I’ll re read Ms Pym’s work. The world is a better place with her work in it.
I am also resolved to discovered more about this authors life. That alone should signify the immense impression this woman has made upon me with her writing. Not very often am I intrigued enough about a book as to where I want to learn about the person behind the fiction.
Thank you Barbara Pym. Thank you very much.
I stumbled upon Barbara Pym within the confines of Library Thing. Barbara Pym even has her own group within Library Thing.
I’m a member.
I couldn’t put the novel down and I hated the realization that I had finished. I’m a slow reader and Ms Pym’s work seemed to have the
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ability to slow me down more. Her style is a quiet, unobtrusive nearly a meandering float down the river. Yet right away beneath the think bottom of our boat, do we feel the strong current in her river of words. I’m a scribbler too – I don’t trade out my books simply because I don’t trust the notes and ranting I leave in the margins. And no fear my notes take just fine in my Sony Reader.Ms Pym’s ability to cut to the bone is phenomenal. With plane simple language and characters that seem almost ghost like in their actions I found my self writing words in the margin”
“Rude!”
“Despairing.”
“Funny.”
“Lonely.”
I often would scribble around the margins trying to answer the question why. Why with this writer’s ability to write with such agility and candor the sadness of our lives, do we still find ourselves with more knowledge and so little wisdom?
Within one scene, the aunt of a rather lost and self-centered anthropologist approaches his former lover. The scene was anguishing as the aunt realizes that her nephew has left his lover for a younger woman but the woman blunders on about a dance for her daughter and actually discusses the hopes that her nephew can supply suitable young men to dance with her overly tall daughter. The scene is underscored by the almost third person analytical attitude the jilted woman takes of the conversation. It seems as if she was watching her own amputation.
Each character had his or her own comic and tragic aspects – and again what impresses me so about Ms Pym’s novel is her ability to maintain the overall humanness of each character. Every page turned was an amazing read.
I have my next Pym novel waiting in the wings, A Few Green Leaves, and I’m very much looking forward to it. According to the cover, this novel was her last. A last novel does not depress me – and I know as I approach grim old age, I’ll re read Ms Pym’s work. The world is a better place with her work in it.
I am also resolved to discovered more about this authors life. That alone should signify the immense impression this woman has made upon me with her writing. Not very often am I intrigued enough about a book as to where I want to learn about the person behind the fiction.
Thank you Barbara Pym. Thank you very much.
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LibraryThing member veracite
Barbara Pym seems to have this deft touch of differentiating people who are really very much the same. Middle class British anthropology students in the Fifties, and their families, are pinned out delicately like butterflies.
LibraryThing member rainpebble
Less Than Angels by Barbara Pym
I didn't know a thing about anthropology except what it was when beginning this book and still don't. But I know that wasn't the purpose of the book. Pym has strayed from her middle aged spinsters of the Vicar's club to a younger group while keeping some of her
Though this book didn't work for me on many levels I still had to give it 3 stars as Pym's writing is always perfection no matter the storyline.
I didn't know a thing about anthropology except what it was when beginning this book and still don't. But I know that wasn't the purpose of the book. Pym has strayed from her middle aged spinsters of the Vicar's club to a younger group while keeping some of her
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stylistic threads running throughout the book. I must admit that while I always enjoy her writing, this book just didn't do it for me. Catherine and Tom's relationship seemed strange to me from the beginning and while I did like Catherine's character, Tom was rather namby pamby. But there again, I am sure that Ms. Pym intended it that way. Deirdre drove me nuts. I found her very needy and immature. However I must say that I enjoyed Digby and Mark and absolutely loved the interaction between Catherine and Mr. Lydgate. Their burning of his trunks of anthropological notes left me with a stitch my side from laughter. Though this book didn't work for me on many levels I still had to give it 3 stars as Pym's writing is always perfection no matter the storyline.
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LibraryThing member leslie.98
Excellent writing and the satire about anthropologists was a lot of fun, though the book is more about the relations between men & women in my opinion. I would guess that this is semi-autobiographical based on the little I know about Pym's life... maybe that is why she can hit the mark so
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accurately! Show Less
LibraryThing member pgchuis
Just excellent - the author is able to show characters with all their faults and yet make us sympathize with them. It was also very funny in places: I laughed aloud at the scene where Mark and Digby fear they are going to have to treat Miss Clovis and Miss Lydgate to lunch.
LibraryThing member KayCliff
Less than angels, 1953-4, features anthropology and anthropologists: their feuds, the production of their learned journal, their quest for funds and grants. In the talk Pym gave on BBC radio in 1978, she spoke of how closely this novel drew on her life: `about anthropologists working at a research
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centre in London, and the suburban background of Deirdre ... and her life with her mother and her aunt. There's a little church life in it too, so that it could be said to be a mixture of all the worlds I had experience of'. Show Less
LibraryThing member ParadisePorch
This 1955 novel is an incisive social satire that opens a window onto the insular world of London’s anthropologic community & its students.
Tongue firmly in check, Pym writes:
"Felix had explained so clearly what it was that anthropologists did (. . .) They went out to remote places and studied the
In addition to the observations of those returned from Africa, Pym observes the townies observing their suburbanite brothers, women observing men, students observing graduates . . . all the word’s a foreign culture to someone. 4 stars
Read this if: you want to try one of Pym’s gentle satires that doesn’t concern the Anglican (or any other) church.
Tongue firmly in check, Pym writes:
"Felix had explained so clearly what it was that anthropologists did (. . .) They went out to remote places and studied the
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customs and languages of the peoples living there. Then they came back and wrote books and articles about what they had observed (. . .) It was as simple as that. And it was a very good thing that these languages and customs should be known, firstly because they were interesting in themselves and in danger of being forgotten, and secondly because it was helpful to missionaries and government officials to know as much as possible about the people they sought to evangelize or govern"In addition to the observations of those returned from Africa, Pym observes the townies observing their suburbanite brothers, women observing men, students observing graduates . . . all the word’s a foreign culture to someone. 4 stars
Read this if: you want to try one of Pym’s gentle satires that doesn’t concern the Anglican (or any other) church.
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LibraryThing member wealhtheowwylfing
A snapshot of the lives of various people, predominantly middle class and all connected to an anthropology school in some way. Some are rather tiresome, like Tom, writing his thesis and strangely attractive to various women. I absolutely loved one--Catherine Oliphant, a writer of magazine articles
I don't know 1950s Britain in the least but this felt so true, like a window into reality. Pym has a wonderfully understated way of observing the world, and can sum up a great deal in just a few sentences.
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who loves Victorian poetry. And I became rather fond of others as their characters were revealed slowly over the course of this novel. I don't know 1950s Britain in the least but this felt so true, like a window into reality. Pym has a wonderfully understated way of observing the world, and can sum up a great deal in just a few sentences.
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LibraryThing member DrFuriosa
This intriguing examination of academia (from an anthropology department's perspective), of love triangles, and even of the beginnings of first love, is peppered with all the things that make up a Pym novel. There are also some terrific jabs at academics that I, an academic, found hilarious.
LibraryThing member krazy4katz
Less Than Angels was my first novel by Barbara Pym. I confess to being underwhelmed. Yes, the writing is beautiful, but the story didn't go anywhere. The characters may have learned something about themselves but it was all so subtle and somehow superficial even though the events should have caused
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some serious personal growth in someone. None of the characters was particularly likable or unlikable. There are some very funny lines so if you are a fan of British humor (which I normally am) you may enjoy this book. Just not my cup of tea, so to speak. Show Less
LibraryThing member japaul22
Another comforting and pleasant novel by Barbara Pym, and I do mean that as a compliment. This one is a bit less complex than some of her others, but I still enjoyed it. The story revolves around a group of anthropologists in various stages of their careers and the love entanglements that they get
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in to. I liked that there were various ages and stages of life represented here and some rather complex relationships. Overall, though, the characters were a bit flat compared to her other books. Show Less
LibraryThing member laytonwoman3rd
Another deceptively ordinary story of women and their "little" lives. So engrossing, so amusing, sometimes so profound. In this novel Pym gives us the academic world of anthropologists home from their field work, or preparing to go back to it, or hoping to get a grant to begin it....and the
Read and reviewed in 2013
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family/staff/girlfriends around the edges who seem to have a very foggy notion of what it's all about. As in every other Pym I've read, there were one or two scenes that crept up on me and hit me in the funny bone, making me laugh out loud when I least expected it. Pym also has a trick of making me sympathize in the end with a character she seemed to be setting up as the villain of the piece earlier on. And it's all so subtle.Read and reviewed in 2013
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LibraryThing member cbl_tn
Pym observes the observers in this novel populated mostly by anthropologists and anthropology students. Tom Mallow returns from two years of field work in Africa to finish writing his thesis. He resumes his live-in relationship with writer Catherine, only to soon take up with first-year student
This book raises the question of who is better equipped to observe and describe human nature – the anthropologist or the fiction writer? (Advantage: fiction writer. It’s obvious that Catherine understands Tom and his behavior better than Tom understands himself!) Pym gives several nods to her earlier novel, Excellent Women, with the reappearance of Esther Clovis and repeated mentions of Everard Bone and his wife Mildred. At a point of crisis, Catherine reflects that “I’m not one of those excellent women, who can just go home and eat a boiled egg and make a cup of tea and be very splendid…but how useful it would be if I were!”
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Deirdre.This book raises the question of who is better equipped to observe and describe human nature – the anthropologist or the fiction writer? (Advantage: fiction writer. It’s obvious that Catherine understands Tom and his behavior better than Tom understands himself!) Pym gives several nods to her earlier novel, Excellent Women, with the reappearance of Esther Clovis and repeated mentions of Everard Bone and his wife Mildred. At a point of crisis, Catherine reflects that “I’m not one of those excellent women, who can just go home and eat a boiled egg and make a cup of tea and be very splendid…but how useful it would be if I were!”
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LibraryThing member tzelman
Young English anthropologists studying one another--lightly amusing and well written
LibraryThing member therebelprince
I don't think I was quite prepared for Less than Angels, coming quite late in my Pym education. It is certainly classic Barbara Pym, with its disarming changes of perspective, its ironic and fierce (but rarely judgmental) observations of everyday figures, and its moments of heightened absurdity,
By focusing on the young (but, of course, Pym was hardly old when she wrote this novel), the author transmutes her usual world weary melancholy into a great sense of uncertainty: young people for whom it is still possible the world might yield up all of its cornucopia of treasures... even as we're aware that the middle-aged characters in the story have settled into their routines, half complacent and half unsatisfied.
There isn't really a central character here; Tom Mallow, he of the grey eyes and aristocratic bearing, seems like the most likely candidate, but we end up spending most of our time with Deirdre and Catherine, his two paramours. They both deliver in their own ways, especially when caught off-guard by a plot twist late in the novel that may be unique among Pym's works. The world here is again one of quietly Anglican lives and of the secular anthropologist, desperate for a grant equal to their intellectual talents but usually disappointed.
I suspect at this stage in my life I prefer Pym's more evidently amusing novels: Jane and Prudence, Some Tame Gazelle, Crampton Hodnet among them. But Less than Angels intrigues in its own way as a study of melancholy, and rewards with its cavalcade of characters attempting to follow etiquette but often grievously aware that others around them are taking liberties. Classic Pym in many ways.
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here the anthropologist performing ritual dances in an African mask in an otherwise calm English suburb. By focusing on the young (but, of course, Pym was hardly old when she wrote this novel), the author transmutes her usual world weary melancholy into a great sense of uncertainty: young people for whom it is still possible the world might yield up all of its cornucopia of treasures... even as we're aware that the middle-aged characters in the story have settled into their routines, half complacent and half unsatisfied.
There isn't really a central character here; Tom Mallow, he of the grey eyes and aristocratic bearing, seems like the most likely candidate, but we end up spending most of our time with Deirdre and Catherine, his two paramours. They both deliver in their own ways, especially when caught off-guard by a plot twist late in the novel that may be unique among Pym's works. The world here is again one of quietly Anglican lives and of the secular anthropologist, desperate for a grant equal to their intellectual talents but usually disappointed.
I suspect at this stage in my life I prefer Pym's more evidently amusing novels: Jane and Prudence, Some Tame Gazelle, Crampton Hodnet among them. But Less than Angels intrigues in its own way as a study of melancholy, and rewards with its cavalcade of characters attempting to follow etiquette but often grievously aware that others around them are taking liberties. Classic Pym in many ways.
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Media reviews
In ''Less Than Angels,'' published first in 1955 and now issued in America, anthropologists get the full treatment as Pym records their follies and pretensions with exasperated glee. Some bond of kinship, affection or self-interest ties the novel's characters to a research center in London. More a
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bemused observer than participant is Catherine, a hack writer, who stoically reflects, ''There are few of us who don't occasionally set a higher value on ourselves than Fate has done.'' Yet she delights in her busy, wayward solitude, relinquished from time to time when her young anthropologist lover, another fecklessly charming Tom, returns from the field. When an earnest young student from the suburbs falls for Catherine's Tom, relationships undergo uneasy realignments, while exotic new perspectives are opened, with bizarre backyard activities espied from upstairs windows. And throughout, whether in the leafy groves of outer London or the intellectual hotbed of the research center, where masterful women and evasive men grapple over grants, human couples of whatever sex demonstrate that there is generally one who must boss and one who must submit. Show Less
Language
Original language
English
ISBN
0349016119 / 9780349016115
Physical description
272 p.; 8.03 inches
Pages
272