I was first drawn to Barbara Pym for her idiosyncrasies, fancying the idea of reading about jumble sales, pale curates, and squabbles over floral arrangements on church altars. The incongruity of her fictional world with my own was charming, and I also appreciated how its crises tended to be the kind at least partly mitigated by somebody putting on the kettle. (According to the protagonist of *No Fond Return of Love*, “Life’s problems are often eased by hot milky drinks.”) Pym’s comic novels, on the surface, are simple, sometimes even silly, stories about sisters, village life, petty church and office politics, and the quiet lives of maiden aunts.…