No Fond Return of Love
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Average rating3.5
Three lonely people come together in this poignant, witty novel of star-crossed romance from the New York Times–bestselling author of Jane and Prudence. After being jilted by her fiancé, Dulcie Mainwaring despairs of ever finding true love. For a distraction, she goes to a publishing conference, where she meets Viola Dace, a dramatic woman who refuses to live without romance, as well as Aylwin Forbes, an editor whom Viola adores. The fact that Aylwin is married doesn’t stop Viola. When her amorous pursuit prompts Aylwin’s wife to leave him, the academic heartthrob is wide open to Viola’s romantic attentions. That is, until Dulcie’s eighteen-year-old niece moves in with Viola, and the young girl soon catches Aylwin’s roving eye. Set in London in the early 1960s, No Fond Return of Love is a delightful comedy of manners that comes full circle as Dulcie discovers a love as unexpected as it is liberating.
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Another understatedly comic novel from Barbara Pym, this one with a number of self-referential “metafictional” touches – the people (who don't know they are characters in a novel) talk about how different things would be if they were in a novel, and so forth. One of Pym's own books is found in a bookcase, characters from a previous novel make a brief appearance, and an unnamed woman novelist visits a hotel the characters are frequenting (and who else could it be but Pym herself?). I've enjoyed all the novels from Pym's first publishing phase, and will now take a break before tackling the ones published after her long exile from the literary scene.
