Quartet in Autumn by Barbara Pym

Description:

In 1970s London, Edwin, Norman, Letty and Marcia work in the same office and suffer the same problem – loneliness.

Lovingly and with delightful humour, Barbara Pym conducts us through their day-to-day existence: their preoccupations, their irritations, their judgements, and – perhaps most keenly felt – their worries about having somehow missed out on life as post-war Britain shifted around them. In 1970s London, Edwin, Norman, Letty and Marcia work in the same office and suffer the same problem – loneliness.

I’ve enjoyed a few of Barbara Pym’s books – Excellent Women, Jane and Prudence, A Glass of Blessings and now Quartet in Autumn, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize when it was published in 1977. She had written six books between 1950 – 1961. Then she was rejected by her publisher, only to be accepted after an article in the TLS in 1977, when both Philip Larkin and Lord David Cecil nominated her as ‘the most underrated writer‘. It is a darker novel than the other two books of hers that I’ve read and the saddest, covering the themes of loneliness and the feeling of being isolated that can happen as one ages.

It’s a quiet novella about the everyday lives of Edwin, Letty, Marcia and Norman who have little in common, except that they have worked in the same office for many years. We never find what their jobs actually are, nor who they work for. Despite their loneliness they never met outside work and revealed little of their personal lives to each other. They are ordinary, but individual and eccentric people. They’re conscious of the way the post girl looked at them,

perhaps seeing Edwin, large and bald with a pinkish face, Norman, small and wiry with his bristly gray hair, Marcia with her general look of oddness, Letty, fluffy and faded, a Home Counties type, still making an effort with her clothes. (page 7)

Edwin is the only one who was married. He is now a widower, with a son and a grandson, and spends his spare time attending different churches. Letty is the only one who has a friend, Marjorie who is a widow. They had planned to share a cottage in the country when Letty retired. But when Marjorie announces she is getting married to a clergyman, younger than herself, that all changes and Letty is left on her own in her bedsitter.

Marcia is anti-social, avoiding contact with anyone, including the social worker who visits her after she’d had a serious operation. She was not a whole woman; some vital part of her had been taken away, though whether breast or womb was not generally known‘. She’s a hoarder, collecting empty milk bottles, storing them in her garden shed, keeping plastic bags neatly folded in a drawer and although she buys plenty of tinned food, she rarely eats any of it. Marcia thinks Norman is a ‘rather silly little man‘, who fusses over his shopping, reading out his shopping lists in the office. He doesn’t know what to do with himself when he’s not working; an angry, cynical and sarcastic man.

The characters are the main focus of the book, each one, springing to life as I read on. Pym is such a keen observer of human nature, giving the little details that bring the characters to life. The narrative alternates between each of them, following their daily lives and revealing more of their background. They are all elderly and looking forward with trepidation to what comes next after they reach retiring age. But they are isolated from each other until a crisis brings three of them together at the end of the book. It is a melancholy book, lightened at times with a little humour and ending on an optimistic note as Letty realises that ‘life still held infinite possibilities for change‘.

I enjoyed it and would like to read more of her books.

A Quartet in Autumn is my Classics Club Spin book to be read by 4th October 2026.