book reviews
I recently (in the last week or two) read a couple of new books which relate (kind of) to one another, and so I wanted to review them together:
The first is A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, and the Things that Really Matter by William Deresiewicz
This book was recommended September 18, 2011 on Fareed Zakaria GPS which was enough to make me sit up and take notice, since the vast majority of the books he recommends are histories or scholarly works on economics rather than on literature.
I put it on my amazon wish list, but then I decided that instead I would request it from the local public library. Deresiewicz was a professor of literature at Yale until 2008 and this new book is really about his writing part of his doctoral thesis on some of Jane Austen's books, and the ways her books changed him during this time of his life (a time when he eventually fell in love and got married). His reading of her books is very personal, from his very personal point of view at the time, and does not fit with my reading of her books. But that is partly what made it so fascinating, he loved the books for completely different reasons than the ways I loved the books! I really feel that he has worthwhile things to say, and his writing style is a pleasure to read.
The second is P.D. James newest book Death Comes to Pemberly.
P.D. James is primarily known for her mystery novels featuring Detective Adam Dalgliesh; I have read a few of these but I found them too dark and depressing to pursue. I felt that she was an interesting writer, but she writes without much romance and really no humor, which ends up being the problem with Death Comes to Pemberly (imo). I've read a LOT of books by modern writers playing with Jane Austen's characters, and this is infinitely better than Pride and Prejudice and Zombies(!) but not as much fun as I had hoped. I assumed that it would be fun to read her take on the characters I loved until she began to twist those characters into her own world of dark psychologically complex misfits.... I found myself constantly taken out of the story by my desire to debate the spin she had put onto characters who I felt were well established in Jane Austen's much better book. In the end the biggest weakness was the huge Lydia shaped hole in the middle of the mystery, but it was still interesting enough for me to pass along to my friends.
The fact is that I will never tire of Jane Austen's novels and I'll always be curious about what others have to say about her and her characters.
The first is A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, and the Things that Really Matter by William Deresiewicz
This book was recommended September 18, 2011 on Fareed Zakaria GPS which was enough to make me sit up and take notice, since the vast majority of the books he recommends are histories or scholarly works on economics rather than on literature.
I put it on my amazon wish list, but then I decided that instead I would request it from the local public library. Deresiewicz was a professor of literature at Yale until 2008 and this new book is really about his writing part of his doctoral thesis on some of Jane Austen's books, and the ways her books changed him during this time of his life (a time when he eventually fell in love and got married). His reading of her books is very personal, from his very personal point of view at the time, and does not fit with my reading of her books. But that is partly what made it so fascinating, he loved the books for completely different reasons than the ways I loved the books! I really feel that he has worthwhile things to say, and his writing style is a pleasure to read.
The second is P.D. James newest book Death Comes to Pemberly.
P.D. James is primarily known for her mystery novels featuring Detective Adam Dalgliesh; I have read a few of these but I found them too dark and depressing to pursue. I felt that she was an interesting writer, but she writes without much romance and really no humor, which ends up being the problem with Death Comes to Pemberly (imo). I've read a LOT of books by modern writers playing with Jane Austen's characters, and this is infinitely better than Pride and Prejudice and Zombies(!) but not as much fun as I had hoped. I assumed that it would be fun to read her take on the characters I loved until she began to twist those characters into her own world of dark psychologically complex misfits.... I found myself constantly taken out of the story by my desire to debate the spin she had put onto characters who I felt were well established in Jane Austen's much better book. In the end the biggest weakness was the huge Lydia shaped hole in the middle of the mystery, but it was still interesting enough for me to pass along to my friends.
The fact is that I will never tire of Jane Austen's novels and I'll always be curious about what others have to say about her and her characters.