One of the most interesting moments of the Spring Gala occurred when Amy got to the q&a portion of her talk on film interpretations of P&P. A hand went up, and a woman told how glad she was to hear someone defend Mrs. Bennet, a mother who was just doing the best she could in a tight situation. Person after person voiced their surprisingly passionate agreement. Austen wasn't mocking her, they agreed; she was just presenting her realistically as a concerned mother. The vehemence of their emotion was startling: the portrayal of Mrs. B. in the 1995 version hit a nerve.
Here's the thing, though: I'm not sure Austen was so generous and sympathetic to Mrs. B., or for that matter, Mr. Collins and Mary. They are ridiculous. Mary's pedantic one-liners are jokes; Mr. Collins exemplifies all that is pompous and small-minded; and I don't think there's ever a moment we really feel genuinely for Mrs. Bennet. Do you disagree? I want to know.
I tend to agree with Woolf, who said: "sometimes it seems as if her creatures were born merely to give [her] the supreme delight of slicing their heads off" (Common Reader, 144). Austen loves them, like Elizabeth loves her mother, but she acknowledges their foolishness. Like Elizabeth, Austen laughs at what is ridiculous, but doesn't tear anyone down just for the sport of it: "I hope I never ridicule what is wise or good. Follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies do divert me, I own, and I laugh at them whenever I can" (P&P, 50).
I think Austen was adept at identifying the follies of people and exposing them sharply in her novels. She wasn't necessarily compassionate, but she wasn't cruel.
I didn't watch much of Drag Race, but I'm glad Jinkx Monsoon won. She was one of the few who didn't get into that "reading" culture that is briefly amusing, but quickly becomes tiresome. Most gay men I know love Mean Girls but seem to have missed the point of the movie. After years of being taunted in high school, they hope to be the popular, clever girls now, and try to do it with saucy quips that make people feel beneath them. Like Caroline Bingley, basically. Or Alyssa Edwards. And look where that got them. No Darcy, no crown. Crown? Do they win a crown in Drag Race?
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
The End of P&P and the Common Reader
Yesterday I finished Pride and Prejudice. It was a terribly slow day at work, so I had plenty of time to devote to the Bennet sisters and their admirers. I spent the last pages just smiling--the ending was no less delightful the second time.
Today Christopher and I went to Winnemac Park and while he napped I wrote about P&P. I found myself trying again and again to articulate what made "good art." I know all too often that I try to force a conclusion while I'm still on the journey, and that I find comfort in labels, though they are limiting. So without making any grand statements, I want to put down a few things about Austen and why I want to spend my summer with her.
I've seen two works of art recently that for different reasons, I did not enjoy. In one I was too aware of the craft--I could see the glue and nails and it distracted me from the picture as a whole. In the other, it was all visual spectacle and nothing else. The symbolism was too opaque, and while I knew I was seeing something stunning that has inspired a cult following, I was bored. I kept wondering if I had time to get a candy bar, but since there was no narrative I had no sense of when the end would come.
P&P continued to evoke reactions from me the second time around. I still felt that punch-in-the-gut shame when Elizabeth read the letter that spoke the painful truth about her family; Mr. Collins makes me roll my eyes but his condescending letters make me angry*; and the joy of lovers reuniting still makes me grin. In other words, I was never bored. P&P makes me feel. I recognize the characters, and I recognize myself in the characters. Most shocking of all, I "just" enjoy reading it. I can appreciate the craft of the novel, but I don't need to; I can glide along with it and simply enjoy. I like that Austen can be brilliant and fun at the same time.
Virginia Woolf loved Austen for her artistry as well as for her simple appeal. Woolf wrote a collection of essays about reading for enjoyment, not for critique, and called the collection The Common Reader. Woolf's essay on Austen is insightful and lively. I love her characterizations of Austen--the baby whisked about by a fairy; the impartial guide with her staff, delineating fancy from reality; the satirist who creates characters merely to behead them; and, my personal favorite: the birdlike creature who carefully and quietly builds a little nest out of small, dusty twigs. Woolf says Austen had: "an impeccable sense of human values." Those values seem unconstrained by time.
What do you like about Austen?
*One of my favorite things on re-reading was that after Elizabeth and Jane read Collins' letter about Lydia, NOTHING WAS SAID. The story just moved on. It didn't talk about their reactions because it was obvious what was felt and Austen wasted no more time on his nauseating, pompous judgement. It was presented, and then left behind.
Today Christopher and I went to Winnemac Park and while he napped I wrote about P&P. I found myself trying again and again to articulate what made "good art." I know all too often that I try to force a conclusion while I'm still on the journey, and that I find comfort in labels, though they are limiting. So without making any grand statements, I want to put down a few things about Austen and why I want to spend my summer with her.
I've seen two works of art recently that for different reasons, I did not enjoy. In one I was too aware of the craft--I could see the glue and nails and it distracted me from the picture as a whole. In the other, it was all visual spectacle and nothing else. The symbolism was too opaque, and while I knew I was seeing something stunning that has inspired a cult following, I was bored. I kept wondering if I had time to get a candy bar, but since there was no narrative I had no sense of when the end would come.
P&P continued to evoke reactions from me the second time around. I still felt that punch-in-the-gut shame when Elizabeth read the letter that spoke the painful truth about her family; Mr. Collins makes me roll my eyes but his condescending letters make me angry*; and the joy of lovers reuniting still makes me grin. In other words, I was never bored. P&P makes me feel. I recognize the characters, and I recognize myself in the characters. Most shocking of all, I "just" enjoy reading it. I can appreciate the craft of the novel, but I don't need to; I can glide along with it and simply enjoy. I like that Austen can be brilliant and fun at the same time.
Virginia Woolf loved Austen for her artistry as well as for her simple appeal. Woolf wrote a collection of essays about reading for enjoyment, not for critique, and called the collection The Common Reader. Woolf's essay on Austen is insightful and lively. I love her characterizations of Austen--the baby whisked about by a fairy; the impartial guide with her staff, delineating fancy from reality; the satirist who creates characters merely to behead them; and, my personal favorite: the birdlike creature who carefully and quietly builds a little nest out of small, dusty twigs. Woolf says Austen had: "an impeccable sense of human values." Those values seem unconstrained by time.
What do you like about Austen?
*One of my favorite things on re-reading was that after Elizabeth and Jane read Collins' letter about Lydia, NOTHING WAS SAID. The story just moved on. It didn't talk about their reactions because it was obvious what was felt and Austen wasted no more time on his nauseating, pompous judgement. It was presented, and then left behind.
Saturday, May 11, 2013
Pride and Prejudice, 1980
I'm watching the 1980 adaptation of P&P that Amy Patterson mentioned in her Gala talk as including one of the most faithful portrayals of the Darcy character (puh-puh-puh-poker faced David Rintoul). The scene when Mrs. Bennet finds out Mr. Collins is engaged is ah-may-zing. She reminds me of Miss Piggy in A Muppets Christmas Carol.
And in searching for the date for this movie (series?), I read this post talking about a new movie called Longbourn, which tells the story from the servants' point of view. It's based on a book by Jo Baker, who says that if she had lived in Austen's time she wouldn't have been going to the ball, she'd be home sewing. Servants remain invisible in Austen's literature, as far as I know, so this must bring a new perspective. As long as it isn't just a Downstairs/Abbey sort of thing.
But back to P&P: Though some of the acting is just atrocious (Mr. Collins--seriously?) I am totally charmed by Elizabeth Garvie's portrayal of Elizabeth Bennet, and it is fun to see the story externalized. There are some things I could not have pictured, and so it's helpful to see in film. Like how dark it was at night, and how frizzy their hair was, but how lovely they still are.
And in searching for the date for this movie (series?), I read this post talking about a new movie called Longbourn, which tells the story from the servants' point of view. It's based on a book by Jo Baker, who says that if she had lived in Austen's time she wouldn't have been going to the ball, she'd be home sewing. Servants remain invisible in Austen's literature, as far as I know, so this must bring a new perspective. As long as it isn't just a Downstairs/Abbey sort of thing.
But back to P&P: Though some of the acting is just atrocious (Mr. Collins--seriously?) I am totally charmed by Elizabeth Garvie's portrayal of Elizabeth Bennet, and it is fun to see the story externalized. There are some things I could not have pictured, and so it's helpful to see in film. Like how dark it was at night, and how frizzy their hair was, but how lovely they still are.
say again?
Lydia runs off and it's like they're speaking a different language...Scotland, hackney-coach (presumptuous!), Barnet road....though I do remember learning that Scotland was the Las Vegas of Jane's time.
Friday, May 10, 2013
Stephen King Setting, Jane Austen Interaction
Yesterday, on the way to volunteering, a train on the track next to us derailed. It was rather undramatic, though I'm sure it was shocking for those in the displaced compartment. We stopped and eventually the fire department turned off the power. Moments like that (or book groups or church-led mini retreats), I flash to Stephen King novels. I love how he throws people together in chance situations. Boarding the train, we didn't really see each other, though I did notice the slight, well-dressed man with no wedding band and the young guy with a Roman nose who looked like my old housemate Jon. But then, with the lights and air conditioning off and the heat and body odor rising, we looked up, and there we were, twenty strangers stuck together in a train compartment in the middle of a day early in May. It was like the beginning to a Stephen King story.
But it was Jane who was to be the author of the hour. After the initial surprise of the derailment, I placidly returned to Elizabeth's first sighting of Pemberly, and the shock of encountering Darcy, who proceeded to charm relations, reader, and Eliza at once. And then--"May I borrow your magazine?" the well-dressed lawyer man was looking at me.
"Why, certainly," I would've said if I were Elizabeth, startled from my novel.
"Oh, sure," was what I actually said, and then, seeing him flip through the pages aimlessly, I directed him to Ariel Levy's piece on cat breeding. He was appalled at the mention of half-eaten siamese cat heads, and told me he had a chihuahua, which he would be devastated to find eaten by a thirty-pound cat.
When people started filling our car from the derailed train, he moved to sit with me, which was considerate, seeing as he was holding my New Yorker. "I saw you reading her," he gestured to P&P, "And I thought: There's someone prepared for the CTA! She's one of my favorite authors." What a delight! With Jane, you can find a friend anywhere, I think. He told me Emma was his favorite, which garnered my instant respect, as I've recently been impressed with Deresiewicz's appraisal of it. To my exclaiming on the subtlety of her masterpiece, he sort of shrugged and said: "I just liked the story." He read Northanger Abbey last summer, and when I praised its humor he responded with his pleasure in the fact that it all ended up ok.
There are as many ways to enjoy Austen as there are people you will encounter in a stalled train.
But it was Jane who was to be the author of the hour. After the initial surprise of the derailment, I placidly returned to Elizabeth's first sighting of Pemberly, and the shock of encountering Darcy, who proceeded to charm relations, reader, and Eliza at once. And then--"May I borrow your magazine?" the well-dressed lawyer man was looking at me.
"Why, certainly," I would've said if I were Elizabeth, startled from my novel.
"Oh, sure," was what I actually said, and then, seeing him flip through the pages aimlessly, I directed him to Ariel Levy's piece on cat breeding. He was appalled at the mention of half-eaten siamese cat heads, and told me he had a chihuahua, which he would be devastated to find eaten by a thirty-pound cat.
When people started filling our car from the derailed train, he moved to sit with me, which was considerate, seeing as he was holding my New Yorker. "I saw you reading her," he gestured to P&P, "And I thought: There's someone prepared for the CTA! She's one of my favorite authors." What a delight! With Jane, you can find a friend anywhere, I think. He told me Emma was his favorite, which garnered my instant respect, as I've recently been impressed with Deresiewicz's appraisal of it. To my exclaiming on the subtlety of her masterpiece, he sort of shrugged and said: "I just liked the story." He read Northanger Abbey last summer, and when I praised its humor he responded with his pleasure in the fact that it all ended up ok.
There are as many ways to enjoy Austen as there are people you will encounter in a stalled train.
Thursday, May 9, 2013
"Very little is needed to make a happy life"
...reads a fortune cookie I got after dinner with Christopher. That night is a good example of the cookie's maxim. We were off and we had enough money to enjoy a good dinner out. I was so happy to be out with Christopher I was giddy. We returned to the first restaurant where we ate when Christopher first moved to Chicago. I ordered a Pink Lady 'cause there are worse things I could do, but quickly realized I would've preferred a vodka stinger. However, that was a minor disappointment, something that only provided contrast to the fun of dinner out: overhearing conversations, watching the characters that came in; the jacket he wore and was she out with her mother dressed like that? Not to mention the food! But what I really took away from the evening was the fortune cookie that told me what I needed to hear: "Very little is needed." Just the basics, plus a good book, and someone to love, be it sister, friend, or lover. Maybe? That list is in the works.
I keep coming back to Dersiewicz's chapter on Emma and everyday matters. Up until this morning it was tangled in my mind with what a high school classmate said recently via a Facebook post: "Are people who focus on politics and their children's health and future really the same as those who indulge themselves in personal activities like reading, writing and drinking (a lot!)? Or are the former more mature and ambitious?" She clearly favored her lifestyle, or maybe felt the need to defend it. Unfortunately, she caught me up in her classic troll technique of presenting a dichotomy and as though there were only those two types of people (superior and inferior).
For a couple days I thought about what I saw as the inward vs. outward lifestyle. I've chosen the quiet life, I thought. At least for now. I decided against flight attendant training, something I'd been working towards for months. A career in customer service, the irregular schedule, and my own introverted tendencies detracted from the appeal, but also, importantly, I didn't want to give up the peaceful little life I had going.
The day I received the email inviting me again to attend training, I had finally gone to a yoga class. It felt great--so good to move my body. Afterwards, I had a vegan lunch with the cute instructor and we talked easily about books and dogs and volunteering. I left feeling invigorated, and this lunch was the impetus for me to volunteer at the cat shelter.
When I got home I took a hot bath and read Ulysses. Afterwards, propped up on a pile of pillows, surrounded by unfolded laundry, happy, and excited about my life, I checked my email and saw the invitation.
I didn't know what to do. I knew I was supposed to feel excited, but I didn't. I really was happy with life. After my surgery put off training initially, I had accepted the fact that I wasn't going to be able to go. I felt conscious of a metamorphous; that I was resting before I grew into something really beautiful and good, and I wasn't sure a life (or a few years) as a flight attendant would help me along that path. If I didn't do it, though, I'd need a really good reason to stay. Or did I? Was being happy enough?
I was concerned that if I didn't choose the more active, adventurous life, I would be "missing out;" my life would be dull, and as a consequence, I would be dull. The prospect of future regret was terrifying. And what would I do instead, really? Continue working this minimum-wage job, fading away to a nobody? While Elise and Christopher strove to meet their goals, coming home exhausted from long days of work and school, sometimes not even sleeping because there was still that paper to write...I would be there, having spent the better part of my day cleaning the kitchen and reading. How would that feel? Would life be intolerably empty? What would I have to offer anyone?
"[Austen's] genius began with the recognition that such lives as hers [which seemed uneventful compared to her aunt's or cousin's or brothers'] were very eventful indeed--that every life is eventful, if only you know how to look at it. She did not think that her existence was quiet or trivial or boring; she thought it was delightful and enthralling, and she wanted us to see that our own are, too. She understood that what fills our days should fill our hearts, and what fills our hearts should fill our novels" (Deresiewicz, 27).
And really, this isn't about an outward/inward, quiet/active life. There is no such dichotomy. Our lives--all of our lives; butcher, baker, and sex toy maker--are too rich to be crammed into some label. Let's take a note from Jane Austen and that fortune cookie, and just appreciate how good life is, how much happens every day. There's a real humility, and a kindness towards people when you believe that every life is eventful, and it's exalting.
I keep coming back to Dersiewicz's chapter on Emma and everyday matters. Up until this morning it was tangled in my mind with what a high school classmate said recently via a Facebook post: "Are people who focus on politics and their children's health and future really the same as those who indulge themselves in personal activities like reading, writing and drinking (a lot!)? Or are the former more mature and ambitious?" She clearly favored her lifestyle, or maybe felt the need to defend it. Unfortunately, she caught me up in her classic troll technique of presenting a dichotomy and as though there were only those two types of people (superior and inferior).
For a couple days I thought about what I saw as the inward vs. outward lifestyle. I've chosen the quiet life, I thought. At least for now. I decided against flight attendant training, something I'd been working towards for months. A career in customer service, the irregular schedule, and my own introverted tendencies detracted from the appeal, but also, importantly, I didn't want to give up the peaceful little life I had going.
The day I received the email inviting me again to attend training, I had finally gone to a yoga class. It felt great--so good to move my body. Afterwards, I had a vegan lunch with the cute instructor and we talked easily about books and dogs and volunteering. I left feeling invigorated, and this lunch was the impetus for me to volunteer at the cat shelter.
When I got home I took a hot bath and read Ulysses. Afterwards, propped up on a pile of pillows, surrounded by unfolded laundry, happy, and excited about my life, I checked my email and saw the invitation.
I didn't know what to do. I knew I was supposed to feel excited, but I didn't. I really was happy with life. After my surgery put off training initially, I had accepted the fact that I wasn't going to be able to go. I felt conscious of a metamorphous; that I was resting before I grew into something really beautiful and good, and I wasn't sure a life (or a few years) as a flight attendant would help me along that path. If I didn't do it, though, I'd need a really good reason to stay. Or did I? Was being happy enough?
I was concerned that if I didn't choose the more active, adventurous life, I would be "missing out;" my life would be dull, and as a consequence, I would be dull. The prospect of future regret was terrifying. And what would I do instead, really? Continue working this minimum-wage job, fading away to a nobody? While Elise and Christopher strove to meet their goals, coming home exhausted from long days of work and school, sometimes not even sleeping because there was still that paper to write...I would be there, having spent the better part of my day cleaning the kitchen and reading. How would that feel? Would life be intolerably empty? What would I have to offer anyone?
"[Austen's] genius began with the recognition that such lives as hers [which seemed uneventful compared to her aunt's or cousin's or brothers'] were very eventful indeed--that every life is eventful, if only you know how to look at it. She did not think that her existence was quiet or trivial or boring; she thought it was delightful and enthralling, and she wanted us to see that our own are, too. She understood that what fills our days should fill our hearts, and what fills our hearts should fill our novels" (Deresiewicz, 27).
And really, this isn't about an outward/inward, quiet/active life. There is no such dichotomy. Our lives--all of our lives; butcher, baker, and sex toy maker--are too rich to be crammed into some label. Let's take a note from Jane Austen and that fortune cookie, and just appreciate how good life is, how much happens every day. There's a real humility, and a kindness towards people when you believe that every life is eventful, and it's exalting.
Monday, May 6, 2013
A Jane Austen Education: Emma
Everything about A Jane Austen Education looks like it's geared towards women, from its typeface and effusive subtitle ("How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, and the Things That Really Matter") to its paper doll illustration on the soft lavender background. I was scanning it at the bookstore yesterday and it surprised me, on page two, to realize the author was a man (William Deresiewicz). Ok, well that was cool. I don't often hear about Jane Austen from men, so I was interested. And then surprised again on page to find this was a straight man. Sold!
His books is divided into seven chapters, six of which deal with a novel and a life lesson he learned while reading. The first chapter is on Emma, a novel that I trudged through a couple years ago, all the while preferring the Clueless version. Deresiewicz is much smarter than I am, because he fell in love with Austen while reading it, and informed me it is considered to be her masterpiece. Challenge accepted! I will try again.
Deresiewicz alternates between portraying his 26-year-old self as a raging sexist; totally arrogant and unlikeable, and observations on Emma and Austen that are touchingly passionate. I have a suspicion he's going overboard on how unlikable he was, as that is the current vogue in memoirs (Giles Harvey on the "Failure Memoir"), and he was obviously really intelligent. How else could he come to the conclusion while reading Emma that Austen incited a certain response in her readers, in order to expose them and show us our own "ugly face" (12)? And by the way, that observation blew my mind.
Deresiewicz does offer the opinion of Austen I tried to articulate yesterday. To his modernist-loving younger self, Austen was the godmother of those boring 19th century British novels: "What could be duller [...] than a bunch of long, heavy novels, by women novelists, in stilted language, on trivial subjects?" (2) and he quotes Mark Twain on Austen, who said her work made him feel "'like a barkeep entering the kingdom of heaven.' 'It seems a great pity to me,' he taunted an Austen fan, 'that they allowed her to die a natural death.' 'Every time I read Pride and Prejudice,' he told another friend, 'I want to dig her up and hit her over the skull with her own shinbone'" (19).
And yet, this "'little old maid'" (19) would teach Deresiewicz, in his words: "everything I know about everything that matters" (1).
Well, ok.
It was exciting to read the first chapter, just because it's wonderful to read someone articulate why you love something. Like my former classmate, Maggie, said about P&P and E: "There's something comforting about them. Life gets real, but not in a overly horrific way" or the character Humberstall in Rudyard Kipling's "The Janeites:" "There's no one to touch Jane when you're in a tight place" (20). Yes, her writing is comforting. It's not big and dramatic, you aren't going to be dragged through the wringer, and they all have happy endings.
So what? When I put it that way, it does sound dull. But her novels absolutely are not. They are lively and fun, she is totally refreshing and on point, as when she describes dancing with an unappealing partner: "Mr. Collins, awkward and solemn, apologizing instead of attending, and often moving wrong without being aware of it, gave her all the shame and misery which a disagreeable partner for a couple of dances can give. The moment of her release from him was ecstasy (78-79, P&P). How charming is that? I could listen to that voice for hours, couldn't you?
His books is divided into seven chapters, six of which deal with a novel and a life lesson he learned while reading. The first chapter is on Emma, a novel that I trudged through a couple years ago, all the while preferring the Clueless version. Deresiewicz is much smarter than I am, because he fell in love with Austen while reading it, and informed me it is considered to be her masterpiece. Challenge accepted! I will try again.
Deresiewicz alternates between portraying his 26-year-old self as a raging sexist; totally arrogant and unlikeable, and observations on Emma and Austen that are touchingly passionate. I have a suspicion he's going overboard on how unlikable he was, as that is the current vogue in memoirs (Giles Harvey on the "Failure Memoir"), and he was obviously really intelligent. How else could he come to the conclusion while reading Emma that Austen incited a certain response in her readers, in order to expose them and show us our own "ugly face" (12)? And by the way, that observation blew my mind.
Deresiewicz does offer the opinion of Austen I tried to articulate yesterday. To his modernist-loving younger self, Austen was the godmother of those boring 19th century British novels: "What could be duller [...] than a bunch of long, heavy novels, by women novelists, in stilted language, on trivial subjects?" (2) and he quotes Mark Twain on Austen, who said her work made him feel "'like a barkeep entering the kingdom of heaven.' 'It seems a great pity to me,' he taunted an Austen fan, 'that they allowed her to die a natural death.' 'Every time I read Pride and Prejudice,' he told another friend, 'I want to dig her up and hit her over the skull with her own shinbone'" (19).
And yet, this "'little old maid'" (19) would teach Deresiewicz, in his words: "everything I know about everything that matters" (1).
Well, ok.
It was exciting to read the first chapter, just because it's wonderful to read someone articulate why you love something. Like my former classmate, Maggie, said about P&P and E: "There's something comforting about them. Life gets real, but not in a overly horrific way" or the character Humberstall in Rudyard Kipling's "The Janeites:" "There's no one to touch Jane when you're in a tight place" (20). Yes, her writing is comforting. It's not big and dramatic, you aren't going to be dragged through the wringer, and they all have happy endings.
So what? When I put it that way, it does sound dull. But her novels absolutely are not. They are lively and fun, she is totally refreshing and on point, as when she describes dancing with an unappealing partner: "Mr. Collins, awkward and solemn, apologizing instead of attending, and often moving wrong without being aware of it, gave her all the shame and misery which a disagreeable partner for a couple of dances can give. The moment of her release from him was ecstasy (78-79, P&P). How charming is that? I could listen to that voice for hours, couldn't you?
In her talk at the Spring Gala, Amy Patterson spoke about the escapism of romance novels, with their studly heroes and supermodel heroines, and said instead of that, Austen encourages us to uncover what in our life is romantic. Mentioning Austen in the same breath as Jesus and Socrates, Deresiewicz says she was teaching us in her own version of parables that the "little particulars" in our life really mattered; "That, she was telling us, is what the fabric of our years really consists of. That is what life is really about" (13). She is the anti-escapist. And if you "got" her, he says, "you felt like you'd joined a secret club, with its own code words and special signs and degrees of initiation" (19). That's how it felt Saturday at the Gala. The same way it feels to go to a leather convention, or a Comic Con I imagine. I guess what I'm saying, is that people love Austen like some people love fisting or Batman. Like fisting, Austen is quiet, peaceful, and attentive to small details. She is intimate and slow-paced, and as with fisting, enjoying an Austen novel can be as elevating as a religious service.
Saturday I knew I was an outsider. I knew just enough to have a conversation; I had the love but not the deep knowledge or experience to be a part of the Janeites. Plus, I didn't have a fabulous hat. But it wasn't like attending CLAW, where I felt like an outsider, appreciating the community but knowing I wasn't ever going to be a part of it. At the Gala I felt I was with people I wanted to be with for a long time. Austen holds a real appeal to me; in her quietness, her wit, her intelligence, and her selection of the everyday over the epic.
I haven't felt this inspired in awhile.
Sunday, May 5, 2013
The Jane Austen Spring Gala and the Beginning
Today at work a customer noticed I was reading Pride and Prejudice. I suddenly became very uncomfortable as I blabbered about how much I loved Austen and how great the Austen Spring Gala was yesterday and Amy Patterson's inspiring talk on the Darcy Character in film.
I had never felt exposed the way I did then, talking about Austen surrounded by dildos. Though I talk about sex toys all the time with total strangers, I had never talked about Austen, an author I love partially for her un-visceral quality.
She said she loved Austen, too, which surprised me, I don't know why. I thought she had been judging me but the whole time she was agreeing. She said: "But who doesn't love Austen?" and I countered with; "Some people think she's dull and unoriginal," or some other equally unfounded statement. She responded: "That's because she started everything. She wrote the screenplay for every romantic comedy ever."
Funny, because though Austen is so associated with romance, that's not why I love her.
After work I went to a bookstore, where an enthusiastic young lady helped me choose two books on reading Austen. People who love Austen love Austen. I could've bought them yesterday, but instead I got Austen-inspired postcards and decided to be responsible and save my money.
Until today, when I bought coffee and a cinnamon roll and then spent thirty dollars on books. I just deferred my impulse buying.
To make it worth it, I'm going to devote this summer to Jane Austen.
No, but seriously. I am.
I had never felt exposed the way I did then, talking about Austen surrounded by dildos. Though I talk about sex toys all the time with total strangers, I had never talked about Austen, an author I love partially for her un-visceral quality.
She said she loved Austen, too, which surprised me, I don't know why. I thought she had been judging me but the whole time she was agreeing. She said: "But who doesn't love Austen?" and I countered with; "Some people think she's dull and unoriginal," or some other equally unfounded statement. She responded: "That's because she started everything. She wrote the screenplay for every romantic comedy ever."
Funny, because though Austen is so associated with romance, that's not why I love her.
After work I went to a bookstore, where an enthusiastic young lady helped me choose two books on reading Austen. People who love Austen love Austen. I could've bought them yesterday, but instead I got Austen-inspired postcards and decided to be responsible and save my money.
Until today, when I bought coffee and a cinnamon roll and then spent thirty dollars on books. I just deferred my impulse buying.
To make it worth it, I'm going to devote this summer to Jane Austen.
No, but seriously. I am.
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