Editing Quartet in Autumn (section)

==Intertextuality transformed==
Pym customarily recycled her characters in various ways,<ref>Alan W. Bellringer, "A Fistful of Pyms: Barbara Pym's Use of Cross-over Characters", ''The Yearbook of English Studies'' Vol. 26 (1996), [https://www.jstor.org/stable/3508658 pp. 199-207]</ref> but in this very different novel it is only glancingly as Edwin recalls Father Thames and Father Bode from ''[[A Glass of Blessings]]'' (1958).

While in earlier novels much more is made of occasions of social interaction, of eating and drinking together, it is the isolation of the characters that is emphasised here. On only one occasion do the four former colleagues meet for a meal after the women's retirement, and holidays like Christmas only serve to underline for them their sense of isolation. Paradoxically, the gathering of Letty, Norman and Edwin in the reclusive Marcia's house after her death becomes a turning point for them. The tins of food hoarded by lonely Marcia serve as the basis for a shared meal and an occasion to open the bottle of sherry that they discover there too. It is not so long afterwards that Letty, no longer diffident, subverts the expected pattern by proposing to the men the adventure of a trip together into the country.<ref>Ellen M. Tsagaris, ''The Subversion of Romance in the Novels of Barbara Pym'', Bowling Green State University, 1998, [https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Subversion_of_Romance_in_the_Novels/4_H8eFtGyM0C?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=rejected+%22Quartet+in+Autumn%22&pg=PA139&printsec=frontcover pp. 139-144]</ref>

The novel also subjects traditional certainties that are left unquestioned in her earlier novels to a more stringent examination. The charitable duties encouraged by Christianity are openly felt as burdensome, even by the most pious of the characters, and Father G. admits that he prefers visiting the homes of parishioners after their death rather than before. The task of social welfare is now perceived as succeeding to the post-war state, but as personified by the well-meaning Janice seems equally ineffectual in operation. Her thought processes are restricted by the training manual and the language of the official report. Pym's novels often add to their humour by making fun of organisations and their organisers. This one also examines tentatively how humanity can be discovered in a personal capacity in a changing social landscape.<ref>Deborah Donato, ''Reading Barbara Pym'', Fairleigh Dickinson University, 2005, [https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Reading_Barbara_Pym/Bpy3u11yFJsC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=rejected+%22Quartet+in+Autumn%22&pg=PA53&printsec=frontcover pp. 50ff]</ref>