An Academic Question

by Barbara Pym

Kate Saunders (Introduction)

A delightful comedy of manners with a touch of mystery, An Academic Question is prime Barbara Pym territory. In a provincial university town Caro Grimstone, a dissatisfied faculty wife, becomes the unwilling accomplice to her husband Alan's ambitions. When she volunteers as a reader to a blind, esteemed anthropologist, Alan seizes the opportunity to steal his papers - research that could both advance his reputation while refuting the findings of a respected colleague.

• ISBN10: 1844087239
• ISBN13: 9781844087235
• Publish Date: 3 May 2012 (first published 24 July 1986)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 19 May 2022
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
• Imprint: Virago Press Ltd
• Format: Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
• Pages: 224
• Language: English

Reviews

[MurderByDeath]

Pym is widely regarded as an Important Author in her time and genre, and as I've never read her I grabbed this at a library sale.  I knew going into it that it wasn't considered 'major Pym' but is was a dollar and I figured it would give me a general idea of what to expect from her other works, one of which is on the TBR cliff.   All I can say is I think I missed something.  Possibly, I missed everything.  The cover's pull quotes all talk about the comedy and the introduction, written by Kate Saunders, refers to it as a 'comic novel'.  I didn't see it.  It's not a cultural thing either, I don't think; I generally find the British sense of humour incredibly funny.     Caro is the wife of an academic, in what I think must be somewhere around mid-century?  70's maybe?, who is bored, dissatisfied with her life and disinclined to do anything about it (or maybe feels helpless to do anything about it - it's unclear).  She starts reading to a blind academic at the local old folks home, who happens to have a trunk full of papers that will advance her husband's career, so he visits with her one day and steals it.  And lets her bear the burden of the guilt. Apparently a comedy of errors ensues; apparently so subtly that it flew right past me without notice.   I thought about going 2.5 stars, because honestly nothing ever happens, but in spite of its unfinished feel, I didn't mind the writing.  I wasn't bored when I was reading it, and that has to be worth something, I guess.