Novelist Austen Not Presumptuous

Bob Sipchen’s “The Falsetto Novelists” (Dec. 29) described the efforts of four noted male novelists to write from the feminine point of view. I feel such works are impossible to do with a high degree of accuracy or believability.

One of my literature professors once pointed out that Jane Austen was the only consistently honest novelist he had discovered. Her books contain scenes with women characters only, and scenes with men and women, but she never attempted to contrive conversations between men only. Nor did she try to penetrate their thoughts.

Austen was content to understand that she simply did not know how men conversed among themselves, and she was not presumptuous enough to guess.

HARRY MAXWELL JR.

Claremont