Quartet in AutumnShortlisted for the 1977 Booker Prize This is the story of four people in late middle-age - Edwin, Norman, Letty and Marcia - whose chief point of contact is that they work in the same office and they suffer the same problem - loneliness. Lovingly, poignantly, satirically and with much humour, Pym conducts us through their small lives and the facade they erect to defend themselves against the outside world. There is nevertheless an obstinate optimism in her characters, allowing them in their different ways to win through to a kind of hope. Barbara Pym's sensitive wit and artistry are at their most sparkling in "Quartet in Autumn". "An exquisite, even magnificent work of art" - Observer "'Barbara Pym has a sharp eye for the exact nuances of social behaviour" - The Times "The wit and style of a twentieth century Jane Austen" - Harpers & Queen "Barbara Pym's unpretentious, subtle, accomplished novels are for me the finest examples of high comedy to have appeared in England during the past 75 years ...spectacular" - Sunday Times "Very funny and keenly observant of the ridiculous as well as the pathetic in humanity" - Financial Times. |
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anyway arrangement bed-sitter bed-sitting room Beth Doughty Boxing Day British Museum brought certainly Christmas church Clapham Common clothes coffee course cup of tea David Lydell doctor door drink Edwin and Norman elderly Father G feeling flowers garden girl glass gone hair Harley Street holiday hospital hypothermia idea imagine Janice Brabner jelly babies kind of thing kitchen knew ladies Letty and Marcia Letty thought Letty's lived looked lunch luncheon vouchers lunchtime Marcia's house Marjorie Marjorie's married mastectomy meal milk bottles Miss Crowe Miss Embrey Miss Ivory morning mother never nice Nigel notice Olatunde Orvieto perhaps person Pope Pope's Priscilla QUARTET IN AUTUMN realised remember reminded retirement round Sainsbury's seemed sherry smiled social worker sort Strong suppose sure there's walk woman women wondered young young doctors