{"id":1709,"date":"2008-04-06T10:42:48","date_gmt":"2008-04-06T10:42:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/2008\/04\/06\/very_barbara_py\/"},"modified":"2008-04-06T10:42:48","modified_gmt":"2008-04-06T10:42:48","slug":"very_barbara_py","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/2008\/04\/06\/very_barbara_py\/","title":{"rendered":"Very Barbara Pym"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>It is these asides,<\/strong> I think, that make <i><a href=\"http:\/\/books.guardian.co.uk\/review\/story\/0,,2270925,00.html\"  title=\"review in the Guardian\">Excellent Women<\/a><\/strong><\/i> so beguiling. The plot itself is not without interest, but it is the narrator&#8217;s comments on her world and on the scraps of pleasure it allows her that are so utterly engaging; as where Mildred says, right at the beginning: &#8221; &#8216;I have to share a bathroom,&#8217; I had so often murmured, almost with shame, as if I personally had been found unworthy of a bathroom of my own.&#8221; To be found unworthy of having one&#8217;s own bathroom is such an unexpected notion, but it is amusing because it is a <i>cri de coeur<\/i> of frustrated ambition, of a desire to be something that fate will clearly never allow one to be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It is these asides, I think, that make Excellent Women so beguiling. The plot itself is not without interest, but it is the narrator&#8217;s comments on her world and on the scraps of pleasure it allows her that are so utterly engaging; as where Mildred says, right at the beginning: &#8221; &#8216;I have to share &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/2008\/04\/06\/very_barbara_py\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Very Barbara Pym&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ultracultural"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1709\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}