barbara pym

ok, so one of my middle child's roommates suggested that if liked jane austen i might like barbara pym.....i can see after finishing my third volume of prose why she has a cult following......for starts, her plots do not involve death......folks who find pleasure in rereading an author do not want to relive the upcoming demise of someone in the known plotline......a major explanation of why i have yet to reread iris murdoch.....her way with words is certainly edgier, but iris seemed to delight in killing off a major character if for no other reason than she could.......but knowing ahead of time who is to die takes away from the savoring of the rest of the book again, and again......pym is also atuned to the need of her readers to be unclear as to the exact way that the ends of her plot lines are tied up at the end.....there is enough vagueness about her last chapters as to appease any possible ending that her readers would have chosen if they themselves were the heroine (always unmarried but with superior intellect)......who couldn't put herself in the place of these lovely women that pym has described with just the right amount of nuance and mystery as to avoid downright alienation of readers who don't quite fit that description.......i must interject at this moment that these are not romance novels.......not by any interpretation of that genre.....the women pym spotlights can do very well for themselves without romance.....and mostly they see the heartbreaks of those who held out for the fairytale rather than the functional relationship.......yes, i can see women rereading and rereading pym to catch every last innuendo........now all i have to do is to order the remaining titles online.......before i start my rereads.......