I read quite a few books by Barbara Pym way back in the 1970s but not this one. Barbara Pym died in 1980 and this book was published posthumously in 1986. She wrote to the poet Philip Larkin about the book in 1971 and was still tinkering with it in 1972 when she started writing her better known book Quartet in Autumn and An Academic Question was abandoned.

Generally her books were set in small villages and were about the lives of the inhabitants, sort of updated Jane Austen, vicars and all.

As you would expect from the title, An Academic Question is set in a university, not a lofty prestigious one but one of the then new ‘red brick’ universities founded in the late 60s and generally thought of as jumped up techs at the time. It’s the 70s so the students are revolting!

Caroline Grimstone is the wife of a young lecturer who is hoping that the research paper he is about to publish will make his name in the realms of ethnohistory. Caroline isn’t in love with her husband Alan but after seven years of marriage she is just getting on with it whilst worrying about being a good enough mother to her small daughter and how she can help further Alan’s career. Caroline is aware of how disappointed her own mother is by her choice of husband. You know what Larkin said ‘They f*** you up, your mum and dad.‘

This is an interesting read although not as good as I remember Quartet in Autumn or Excellent Women to have been. There is some wit, I enjoyed the characters of Coco and Kitty especially as I knew a mother and son combination exactly like them, but the book has a very dated feeling for some reason. I’m certainly no stranger to older books and I was a young thing in the 70s and started working then but I had half forgotten how things were for women in the workplace then, very much second class!

The blurb on the back says ‘Will be read in decades hence for its good writing as much as for its offbeat sociological interest’ TIME OUT

And they were so right. I had completely forgotten about cigarette coupons and people collecting them, having to smoke thousands of fags to exchange the coupons in the packets for pyrex dishes and such, things that they could have bought for about the price of two packets of ciggies – crazy!

Anyway the setting was a bit of a nostalgia trip for me, back to the 1970s of university and the library and it was a very quick read at just 182 pages.