Elizabeth's Top Ten: Jane Austen

[elizabeth_hoot]

A/N: I found this stuffed into a folder; it was a sort of series of irritable 'top ten' lists, so here's the first.

(10) Jane Austen did not write romances. She did not write proto-chick lit. She wrote, for lack of a better word, novels. (See Northanger Abbey for a better explanation

Comments

[phyloxena]

I didn't read a single Austen's novel yet (the closest I came was Nabokov's lectures on English literature), but I'll bear in mind.

[cressida0201]

Nabokov really damns Austen with faint praise. Don't let him put you off. He was a genius, but I don't think he really "got" Austen. Apparently he was of the school that saw her as a sweet spinster lady who wrote fluffy stories with happy endings where nobody ever gets into any sort of trouble that actually mattered. (This view was much more prevalent in his time than ours.)

[phyloxena]

Actually, he seemed rather excited about Austen, at least by his standards of praise and excitement. I was going to read Austen after reading that lecture, just didn't happen yet.

[cressida0201]

Well, I've always thought his comments on Mansfield Park sounded deeply patronizing. But if they don't put you off, then so much the better.

[cressida0201]

*Heartily applauds all of them!!*

Re #10: There seems to be a bit of a free-for-all going on about how Jane Austen is to be regarded. I think the chicklit and romance novelist people are claiming her partly in hope of borrowing her air of legitimacy for their own genres. But they're making a lot of noise, and I think they may be swaying popular views. Especially since people have associated her with "that guy that makes women hot" ever since the Colin Firth thing.

Re #4: THANK YOU. I have truly lost patience with the whole "It's X's fault that Y is such a jerk, because X didn't make Y change!" line of argument. Even if that's how the commenter truly sees things, can't they accept that Jane Austen didn't hold the same views?

[elizabeth_hoot]

Thank you, thank you. *bows

[cressida0201]

Honestly, the 'dear sweet Aunt Jane' thing, for all of its flaws, bothered me less than 'young hip one-of-us Jane.'

I know exactly what you mean! I was a fan of Jane Austen before that particular "wave" hit, and the further it's gone, the more out-of-touch I feel. I don't feel like I fit in with either the "fan club" or the ivory tower.

'but if he doesn't change, then Lizzy doesn't get credit for it!'

That's interesting, because I usually see people wanting to argue that Darcy really doesn't change. I think they feel like it would take away from his status as The Perfect Romance Hero if he had actual flaws at the beginning, rather than a misunderstood endearing shyness.

The idea of people getting credit for others' improvements (though nobody suggested Darcy should get credit for her post-Letter epiphany), or taking the blame for their lack of them, seem to me the consequences of the same basic idea.

I first came across it when my Jane Austen group read Evelina. The main character's grandfather made a disastrous marriage with

[elizabeth_hoot]

1 -- I sympathise. I have files for my hard-copy JA stuff, and have to actually divide them into two different folders: 'Jane Austen' and 'Jane Austen -- fandom'. It's this sort of crazy no-man's land. I went to fandom because the professional lit-crit was so exasperating, but it has its own slew of problems.

2 -- *blinks* We are definitely moving in different circles. My crew tends towards the 'Elizabeth is charming and perfect and delightful and she TRANSFORMS him and even so he is still not worthy of her wonderfulness.' Strangely, this seems to be part of the Great Romantic thing going on. Ick

[moonspinner]

Well said. I certainly agree with everything you've written here especially this:

‘light’ is not some obscure code for ‘voluptuous.’

It's a very good answer to all the criticism against Keira Knightley as a realistic portrayal of Elizabeth.

[elizabeth_hoot]

Thanks! You would not believe how many people I have heard argue that light really means curvy -- even though the narrator explains that Elizabeth runs faster than Jane because she's lighter. She's also thinner than Georgiana, whose figure is 'womanly' but no more