Some Tame Gazelle

Harriet and Belinda Bede are middle-aged sisters who have only two things in common: their spinsterhood and their love for each other. Harriet is a bubbly, chubby coquette. Belinda is a meek, thin romantic who, since her youth, has nurtured an unrequited love for the town's vicar. Barbara Pym provides her heroines with a memorable clique of admirers: Archdeacon Hoccleve, a pompous man of the cloth whose sermons remain mysteries to his parishioners; Edgar Donne the young church curate who, taken under Harriet's wing, is fed enough chicken to last a lifetime; and Count Ricardo Bianco, a nice old man who periodically proposes to, and is turned down by, Harriet. In many ways, Some Tame Gazelle, Barbara Pym's first novel, presents the reverse image of village life portrayed in A Few Green Leaves, her last novel. Where that was reflective, this is hopeful, gay, and turned to the future. The world of Barbara Pym may be as provincial as an English country village, but it is alive and ready for the seizing.