Complete Reviews of Recent Jane Austen Reads
I recently went of a Jane Austen and Jane-related binge read. Here are my thoughts.
Jane Austen’s Guide to Good Manners by Josephine Ross (133 pages) Written based on the works of Jane Austen, Ross creates a period (though thoroughly accessible to modern readers) guide to manners and behavior of Regency England. Clever use of examples from Jane’s works and the underlying theme of kindness and empathy that motivates the rules of a seemingly rigid society helps this book to make Jane’s foreign world understandable. Cute illustrations make this a charming read. Grade: A-
"If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more."
Emma by Jane Austen (301 pages) My third time reading my fifth favorite of Jane's brilliant novels; this was in preparation for the new miniseries. Though far from my favorite Austen work, Emma is still laugh-out-loud hilarious in its ironic and witty prose and dead-on-accurate portrayal of human behavior, character, psychology, and society. Emma is certainly Jane's most social novel, dealing so greatly with class and courtship, the definitions of proper behavior and manners. It also has her most deeply flawed heroine in Emma Woodhouse, a brilliant, imaginative, yet snobbish, shallow, and socially-retarded (as in, she is oblivious to social cues) young woman who knows next to nothing about the human heart, least of all her own yet so delights in creative matchmaking. Luckily, Emma is contrasted with Miss Bates, who knows and understands all, and her love-interest, Mr. Knightly, who tries desperately to guide her behavior. Though Emma has been criticized due to its class-consciousness and its seeming sexism (i.e. in Emma's treatment at Mr. Knightly's hands), these are unjust when Emma's character development is traced. Emma also has the distinction of boasting Jane's most charming "villain" in Frank Churchill, the gentleman who delights a little too much in deceit. Emma is absolute Jane, but certainly not my favorite (Persuasion, Pride and Prejudice, and Sense and Sensibility, and Northanger Abbey come far ahead), but it's Jane. It's charming, it's thought-provoking, it's hilarious, it's introspective, it's filled with all-too familiar characters. So, what more can you ask for? Grade: A
"The only good biographies are to be found in novels."--George Gissing "...the genuine arc of a human life, that it can perhaps be presented more authentically in fiction than in the genre of biography."
"The true subject of serious fiction is not 'current events'...but the search of an individual for his or her true home."
"But what did marriage mean in the context of these novels? Not a mere exchange of vows repeated in church. Marriage reached beyond its moment of rhetoric and gestured, eloquently and also innocently, toward the only pledge a young woman was capable of giving. She had one change in her life to say 'I do,' and these words rhyme psychologically with the phrase: I am, I exist."
"And in one of his judgments brother Henry was far too moderate. Jane Austen's works, he prophesied would eventually be 'placed on the same shelf as the world of a D'Arblay and an Edgeworth.' How far from the mark he was. Not only would she outdistance those all-but-forgotten names, but she would also find herself comfortably on the same shelf and in the good and steady company of Chaucer and Shakespeare."
Jane Austen by Carol Shields (185 pages) A short and engaging biography of the beloved author that deals not in mundane details or idle speculation, but in attempting to draw a portrait of Jane, her life, and her works. Refraining from drawing tedious or melodramatic parallels between her life and her work, the biography instead attempts to understand how a spunky, quiet, reclusive spinster, alone in the country at a time of female repression and the birth of the novel as an art form, was able to write some of the most beloved, extraordinary, realistic, psychological novels of the English language. Jane was definitely a member of the suffering and unappreciated genius club. Part biography, part literary criticism, this book is a great read. Grade: A+
Lady Susan by Jane Austen (with introduction) (103 pages) Obviously written by a young Jane Austen, this epistolary novel details the machinations of the cruel and scheming Lady Jane who wants to marry one man, has an affair with a married one, and plans to marry her innocent daughter to a silly man. Though constrained by the epistolary form (and so lacking her trademark ironic wit that come with her distanced omniscient narrator of her later works), the novel is interesting due to its main character who foreshadows Austen's later villains, such as Mary Crawford. Grade: B
"I would rather be a teacher at a school (and I can think of nothing worse) than marry a man I did not like."
The Watsons (fragment) by Jane Austen (52 pages) Emma Watson, raised by a wealthy aunt into manners and culture, returns to live with her penniless family. Her unique charm, kindness, and spirit gains the attention of rakish Tom Musgrave and snooty Lord Osbourne. Her eyes, though, are set on the bookish and gentlemanly Mr. Howard. The fragment tragically ends all too soon, but, if it were finished, was sure to have been a Jane Austen standard. Emma Watson, plump and brown-complexioned, spirited, lively, kind and mannered, though tragically poor, would certainly have been a heroine the likes of the Dashwood sisters, Elizabeth Bennet, Anne Elliot, Catherine Morland, or Emma Woodhouse. Austen-aficionados will always be left painfully wondering how Mr. Howard would have stacked up against Jane other heroes. Still, the fragment is an enjoyable read, though tantalizingly short and pure Austen. Grade: A-
Sandition (fragment) by Jane Austen (59 pages) In this fragment, left unfinished at Jane Austen's death, a sea-side town is slowly evolving into a vacation and health destination. The large cast of characters and the satirical tone seems more like Elizabeth Glaskell or Charles Dickens rather than Jane Austen. The fragment is more of a portrait of the characters, most of which are hypochondriacs or melodramatic Romantics. Grade: B
"She agreed to it all for she did not think he deserved the compliment of rationale opposition."
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen (228 pages) Wow, I love this book. Fourth time reading this, my second favorite Austen, and I am convinced more than ever that it is Jane's work that I most identify with. It is the perfect example of Jane's amazing ability to weave an endearing, charming, realistic romantic tale, complete with irony and humor, but to do all that with such a timeless, perfect, genius eye to human sociology and psychology that elevates her literature into greatness. Her characters are some of the most human to grace the pages of literature, and yet they stand for universal models of human psychology. Marianne and Elinor, together, embody the war within everyone: that between the head and the heart, between rationale and emotional, between romance and realism, between sense and sensibility. Marianne, a slave to her emotions, falls head-over-heels in love with a man that abandons her due to the demands of his pocketbook. Elinor, meanwhile, nurses a broken heart over a kind, constant, "boring" guy. Love and marriage, as always in Austen, mean so much more than just that. They are symbols of lessons learned, of the psychological fulfillment, of self actualization. Though S&S may be the most melodramatic, most soap opera-ish of Jane's works, it is deeply satisfying because of her realism and her clever twist on the complex theme: the utter need for balance between the head and heart. Grade: A+
"Thank heaven! I am going tomorrow where I shall find a man who has not one agreeable quality, who has neither manner nor sense to recommend him. Stupid men are the only ones worth knowing, after all."
"One has all the goodness, and the other al the appearance of it."
"I am quite sorry, Lizzy, that you should be forced to have that disagreeable man all to yourself."
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (335 pages) With the exception of the Harry Potter series, I have read this book more times than any other book. Needless to say, it is one of my most favorite, most beloved books ever. Even reading it for the eighth time, I laughed, I teared up, I thought, and I sighed. Jane Austen, who's every penned letter I adore and--in the words of EM Forster am "slightly imbecile about", is never more ironic, more fun, more funny, more true, more insightful, more beautiful, more brilliant than in this, her masterpiece. I still bow before her amazing ability to take great themes of human character and psychology and turn them into brilliant, humorous, beautiful, clever, and deeply real and human romances. Romances of the mind, soul, and heart. Elizabeth's pride allows her only to love men that flatter and pay her attention. Darcy's pride makes him a snob without manners. This, of course, is ironic, as it causes Darcy to fall in love with Elizabeth, but not to win her. His pride (and prejudice against the world) wounds hers and makes her prejudiced. Would you ever think that two such human characteristics would be so entertaining, so fascinating, so enchanting? His goodness, though, eventually improves him and allows for the coming together of one of literature's greatest love stories. Darcy is Jane's most flawed, most complex, and most heroic heroes (not to mention, sexy). Elizabeth is her most modern, most spirited, wittiest, and cleverest heroines. P&P is by far her most hilarious novel, and it is one of the greatest works of the English language. I love and adore this book. Grade: A++++