Men on Austen

[sartorias]

D. A. Miller’s Jane Austen, or the Secret of Style is a very short book, extremely well written, dense with fascinating thought. Disquieting thought, even, as I find myself wanting to explain, excuse, make everything nice when he discusses the comfortable het world’s assumptions about Austen's books from a non-het POV. Like his analysis of the

Comments

[oracne]

Both of those essays sound really, really interesting. The latter one invites someone to write the Austen equivalent of WICKED.

[sartorias]

Ooooh, YES!!!

[dichroic]

Yup. And the only difference marriage made is that I was able to make that response to complaints about husbands as well as to complaints about men in general. My feeling is that women who treat men as a separate (and less understanding) species are encouraging them to behave that way, and vice versa.

I've known women who didn't want their husbands to have female friends. I don't think I'd want one who didn't. How else would he have learned that people are defined by much more than plumbing?

[deborahjross]

And then, I'm delighted that my husband's very dearest friend is a woman.

[sartorias]

Where as I am still celebrating the fact that my best friend (a guy) found the woman in his life who is so, so, so very perfect for him that she's become his best friend as well as his wife.

OMG BLISS

[tharain]

A post COMPLETELY About Jane Austen.

I'll weigh in, after I check my work email and all. I'm girding my loins about the first essayist.

[fiveandfour]

This posting reminded me of the late, great Male Voices in Praise of Jane Austen web site that discussed things such as these books you mention. I unfortunately found it after the webmaster decided to stop hosting it, so I could only read and not participate in the discussions. (I think it's been completely pulled now so you can't even read it any more, which is a shame.)

It is quite fascinating to me how very dense JA's books are with details that, if not read closely, can give the reader one impression of a character or situation that could be quite false. Mr. Woodhouse is a great example of that, I think: in a casual reading he seems mostly kindly and doting, but if you dig a little deeper, he comes off as quite selfish with his illnesses - you wonder if he's really ill or just wants others to live for his convenience.

[sartorias]

Oh, I would have loved that site!

[kalimac]

Archive of Male Voices in Praise of Jane Austen. You're welcome.

[fiveandfour]

Oh, that's tooooo fabulous. I've saved it as a favorite and expect many future hours of lost time as I re-visit all those interesting conversations on Jane.

[handworn]

Pathetically, I've read no Jane Austen at all. I bet I'd like her, though.

[sartorias]

I think you might--but given your extensive reading in 18th C lit, you'd really see just how staggeringly innovative her novels were.

[handworn]

Would that my reading in 18th c. lit were that extensive, but unfortunately most of the novels of the era I haven't read yet. My reading from that century has been more like correspondence (like M.W. Montagu) and works of nonfiction. But I'm starting to see patterns in novel-writing. I read Mrs. Centlivre's 1707 play A Bold Stroke For A Wife about a year ago, and the parallels between the structure of plays then and what novels came to be are emerging.