Reviews for No fond return of love

The average rating for No fond return of love based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2011-04-01 00:00:00 C�line Crettenand Anyone who has a fondness for the repressed English middle class should find this enchanting. With characters who glory in names like Dulcie Mainwaring, Viola Dace and Aylwin Forbes, you know you are in the territory of comedy of manners. Pym has been compared to Austen, which is unfair on anyone, but whereas Austen dealt in a society of strict rules, Pym's London of the turn of the 60's deals in much more vague customs and therein lies the comedy: the etiquette of the church jumble sale, who to invite to dinner parties, dare one mention a mutual acquaintance who might be thought to be a libertine? This is a comfortable read: lovely, sweet and heart-warming, like a cup of tea after a bracing walk. But it is a level above comfort reading, because the details are just right: in cup of tea terms, the china pot has been warmed properly and the porcelain cup is spot on. Someone has even made a fire in the hearth. Come on in and make yourself comfortable.

Review # 2 was written on 2009-01-25 00:00:00 Barbara Benoy “There are various ways of mending a broken heart, but perhaps going to a learned conference is one of the more unusual.” How could a novel with such an opening sentence not be anything but wonderful? I already had an idea that No Fond Return of Love, (along with Jane and Prudence) – was my favourite Pym, I’m now convinced of it. Shortly after her engagement is broken off, Dulcie Mainwaring attends a conference at a girl’s boarding school in Derbyshire. Clustered together are a strange group of scholars, indexers and proof readers. Dulcie is given a room next to Viola Dace, who has been holding a bit of a torch for Aylwin Forbes, who will speaking during the weekend, and for whom she has previously done some indexing work. Aylwin becomes something of a fascinating figure for both women, but increasingly for Dulcie. Once the conference is over, and everyone back home, Aylwin a handsome scholar separated from his wife becomes the focus for Dulcie’s fantasies and fairly thorough investigations. Dulcie is living alone in a large house she once shared with her parents, she is soon joined by her eighteen year old niece Laurel, and not long after that, Viola Dace – in need of a temporary home also moves in. Dulcie begins to indulge in what today we would not hesitate to call fairly intensive stalking. With the help of various directories and who’s who – Dulcie tracks down, Aylwin’s mother-in-law, and Anglican priest brother. Viola rather aids and abets Dulcie – the two of them discussing the Forbes family at length, neither of them thinking it in the least odd for Dulcie to visit her Aunt and Uncle so that she has an excuse to go home via Aylwin’s brother’s church. Meanwhile Dulcie’s niece Laurel has started a tentative relationship with the boy next door – while longing to move out of Dulcie’s house and into a bedsitter – where she can lead a bachelor girl kind of life and eat in coffee bars. It is while she is in the midst of this transition that she first comes to the notice of Aylwin Forbes himself, despite his being older than her father. Thus the scene is set for a fabulous comedy of manners, and unrequited love. Part of Barbara Pym’s genius lays in the minutely observed everyday situations of her upper middle class characters, we may never have lived their lives, yet somehow they are peculiarly recognisable. There is a delicious dry humour to Pym’s writing that is comforting and subtly profound. Her dialogue and interactions between characters is, as ever spot on, some of the scene just brilliantly acute. The awkwardness of a hotel dining room, the worry of whether a cauliflower cheese will stretch, avoiding someone at a station, Barbara Pym portrays all these curious little things with absolute perfection. “Sitting aimlessly in bedrooms- often on the bed itself- is another characteristic feature of the English holidays. The meal was over and it was only twenty five past seven. 'The evening stretches before us,' Viola said gloomily.” I love the way Pym manages to expose those wicked little thoughts we all have from time to time. I think many readers have found that there is very much more to Miss Pym than meets the eye. Of course one of the things regular readers of Pym’s novel adore – is how she drops characters from other novels into the story, here we glimpse characters from A Glass of Blessings.