Winding down...book discussions and Persuasion.

I appreciated this hot day, and I will enjoy the ones that are to follow, but I have to face reality: Summer is winding down, and with it, mah blurg. I've read eight full books, three essays, and a smattering of assorted Austen-related goodies, and written about a fraction of them.

Today was really special. I had a book discussion on Northanger Abbey with four intelligent, well-read friends. We shared tea, cheese and crackers, and cookies while talking over our favorite things about NA (the "case for innocence," the punctuation and "tastefully ornamental" sentences, and of course, her sharp irony) and differing opinions on Henry Tilney (by turns a "dreamy" educator who really helps improve Catherine's worldview and "a condescending man-splainer"--but nowhere near as bad as this guy). I felt really lucky to have friends who wanted to spend time talking about Austen. And another exciting thing that came from this: We will be meeting in a few months to discuss Mansfield Park! It was a lovely afternoon. I felt so happy before the discussion, after picking up flowers and walking home with a bag of cookies from a local bakery in my hand. I was happy that this was my life: Baked goods, fresh-cut flowers, and a book discussion.

So, to rewind: While on vacation I read Persuasion, which was the first Austen work I read, back with the brilliant Mr. Youngblood in my high-school English class (and apart from his intelligence and influence, he is a total silver fox). I wanted to read it last for that reason (not the silver fox reason), but also because it was her last novel, her oldest heroine, and her most "autumnal." It's important to be seasonal, as anyone who has seen the costumes in Far From Heaven can tell you.

Rocking the fall color palette. 

It was difficult to find time to read on the vacation. I started the novel on the ride to St. John, but once there had trouble reading more than a page or two at a time. What with the views, the people, and the claims of the salt-water pools (where you could open your eyes underwater without it burning!), it was hard to read more than a paragraph without losing my place. And if I decided to really SIT DOWN AND READ, I did so in a hammock, where I promptly fell asleep. But boy, I tried! I took it everywhere--by the pool, on the boat, to various beaches. In a box, with a fox....One of my parents used it as a coaster when I wasn't looking. And it's not even my book, so keep that in mind if I ask to borrow a book.

Maybe it was the distractions, but I had a bit of trouble keeping track of people in this book. Coming off of E, especially, it seemed there were more families and groupings than usual. I found myself confusing the Crofts and the Harvilles--there were so many navy characters!

I liked that Anne Elliot, who was passive, calm, and reserved, was drawn to men who were warm and forthright. She was more suspicious of charm than the younger Austen heroines, who are initially drawn in by the Wickhams, Willoughbys, and Churchills. Anne observed of her cousin: "[He] was rational, discreet, polished--but he was not open. There was never any burst of feeling, any warmth of indignation or delight, at the evil or good of others. This, to Anne, was a decided imperfection. [...] She felt that she could so much more depend upon the sincerity of those who sometimes looked or said a careless or a hasty thing, than of those whose presence of mind never varied, whose tongue never slipped" (end of chap. 17). I like this sum-up of personality quite a bit, and find it interesting that Anne herself is such a composed, private person, unlike Louisa or Henrietta, the girls who you could view as warm and frank, but are seen as imprudent. I think that the above observation is something that holds true in almost all of Austen's novels--the men who are the most lovable are the ones who are the least polished, and they're often awkward.

Amy Smith, in her travelogue All Roads Lead to Austen, talks about how the men in Austen are never Prince Charming, rather, what makes them the hero is more a question of "fit;" a yin-yang match for the heroine. A partner who can balance and improve the other is the ideal. The Crofts provide an example of a happy couple: they do everything together, they are true partners. Mrs. Croft corrects the enthusiastic but sometimes careless driving of the Admiral, and he....I'm not quite sure what he does for her, but provide liveliness and good cheer. I love that scene, and the depiction of the Crofts. I like that characters are decidedly imperfect, but the romance comes from the idea that a union between people can bring them all closer to perfection.

Austen on Illness

Since finishing Sense and Sensibility a few month ago, I have been interested in the use of illness in Austen's work. Some of her most ridiculous characters suffer from or fear illness (often imaginary), and use it to control situations (like Mrs. Bennet and her "nerves"; the hypochondriac Mr. Woodhouse; and the tyrannical Mrs. Churchill, whose illnesses "never occurred but for her own convenience"). On the other hand, bright, lively, and "too" romantic characters suffer life-threatening illnesses and emerge transformed (Marianne Dashwood and Tom Bertram; Col. Brandon's first love is a notable exemption from the "re-emerged"). Illness is often used as a sort of punishment for high living, unhealthy ideas about romance, or betraying social values. Sound familiar? It's like how every prostitute from Manon Lescaut to Marguerite Gautier dies from tuberculous (usually). Illness is still today linked with punishment, unfortunately. Just look at what people continue to say about AIDS. And if you went to that link and feel a little sick, here is a tonic: Blanche tells Rose "AIDS is not a bad person's disease." I'm still surprised and a little sad that line doesn't receive a standing ovation. Austen uses this familiar message of illness and punishment, but allows her characters to face death and repent, albeit their lives proceed more subdued and responsible than before.

In her essay "On Being Ill," Virginia Woolf writes about the transformative aspect of illness. It reveals undiscovered places within ourselves; precipices and flowering valleys, that sort of thing. Illness can change our relation to the world. Through a feverish lens, "friends have changed, some putting on a strange beauty, others deformed to the squatness of toads, while the whole landscape of life lies remote and fair, like the shore seen from a ship far out at sea." It is akin to a religious experience; we see, for the first time, things that have always been there, such as the clouds moving and changing shape, and we speak the truth of our body. "Illness is the great confessional."

In S&S, after her life-threatening illness, Marianne tells her sister that it gave her time to reflect: "It has given me leisure and calmness for serious recollection," and the result is her resolution to "atone" to God and her family, and to live less selfishly. She sees her illness as her fault: "brought on by myself," but her survival was a rebirth, and a chance for change. Contrast this with Col. Brandon's first love, the doomed Eliza, who was "seduced" into "a life of sin" and consequently "faded" and became "worn down by acute suffering of every kind," finally dying, of course, of "consumption." Her sins were greater than Marianne's, and her tragic life serves as a warning against the allure of sensual libertines. But it isn't a clear-cut anecdote. Eliza's story is as much a tragedy about awful marriages, where an unkind husband whose "pleasures were not what they ought to have been" can send a young and inexperienced woman with a lively mind into the arms of another man. And then another and another. And yet part of me smirks at the story-within-a-story. It is so over the top, not to mention cliched, that it seems like a joke. Coupled with Brandon's tiresome and maudlin delivery, I have to wonder if it is inserted as a sort of reminder of the tragic Romances that would have been popular with girls like Marianne; this is the sort of pulp they eat up, but also, this sensibility destroys lives.

In MP, Tom Bertram's illness also provides a renewal: "He was the better for ever for his illness. He had suffered, and he had learnt to think, two advantages that he had never known before." He became "useful," "steady and quiet," and learned to "not [live] merely for himself." But first it was necessary to suffer, which Austen views as an advantage. True suffering humbles the extravagant, and the ones who can and will repent, do.

Tom and Marianne made the most out of their time away from the world, whereas others, like Mrs. Bennet, Mr. Woodhouse, and Mrs. Churchill, fake illness as an escape. Woolf writes about the opportunity for escape in illness, saying: "We cease to be soldiers in the army of the upright." The ill are deserters, and escape the daily drudge. That release from responsibility can be appealing to those who are unhappy or just childish and selfish. It is also a way for those with little or no power to exert their influence.

This use of illness as a punishment is uncomfortable with me, after all the garbage I've heard about STDs through the past decade, but it is worth looking at as a plot device. In Austen's world, every action has a consequence, and yet I don't believe illness is used merely as a punishment. The emphasis is on the somewhat spiritual suffering the characters undergo to develop and grow. Fevers are a good way to externalize that suffering. If I were a historian or new more about 19th century literature, I'm sure I could write a more nuanced perspective on this topic. It might be a fun dissertation.

Emma's Gay Best Friend

Frank Churchill is such a stereotypical gay best friend. Fashionable, charming, and witty, he shares in Emma's jokes and suspicions, and even criticizes people's hairstyles with her. They have an easy intimacy, with no romantic interest coming from his side. Really, it is sort of brilliant that his Clueless incarnation is this guy reading William Burroughs:

"Dyed in the wool homosexual."

Emma

I'm reading what is considered by some as Austen's masterpiece, with its heroine that Austen said no one but herself would like very much. It's a Dover Thrift Edition that was free from the Jane Austen Society of Louisiana--thank you! I'm enjoying it more than I did the first time around. It's funnier than I remember, with such gems as: "What is passable in youth is detestable in later age," said by the self-assured Emma to her friend Harriet. I agree with her there. Just looking out the window from a store in Boystown I see plenty of Peter Pan Gays.
And I really like Austen's joke about female writing, said again by Emma: "[the writing] is not the style of a woman; no, certainly, it is too strong and concise; not diffuse enough for a woman," which is what people said of Austen's novels before they knew she was a woman. Clueless, indeed.
But it's taking me a lot longer to read than with her other novels. I'm not sure why. I read bits at work, but it's hard to pay attention and there are other things I have to do, but also I'm not making time. I spend my free time sleeping, lunching, and watching Orange is the New Black. But enough with excuses! Gonna do better this week.

The lost sex scenes of Jane Austen

It's been awhile since I posted anything substantial, but I am working on a few things, they just aren't "there yet." I had a lot of time to read on our family vacation, and I've finished both Sense and Sensibility and Northanger Abbey. Right now I'm reading Amy Elizabeth Smith's All Roads Lead to Austen: a memoir about her travels in South America, hosting Austen book groups and looking for the "Austens" of Latin America. Sort of despite myself I've gotten sucked in and I am really enjoying it. More on that later.

I really wanted to post about my enthusiasm for Pride and Promiscuity, which Smith mentioned a few pages back. The lost sex scenes of Jane Austen? That sounds hilarious. I want! And as if just THAT weren't enough, I read this stuffy review by "Jennie," whose blog is called "The Bennett Sisters," that made me want it more:

"What is an amusing tribute to Jane Austen’s work in a fresh, quirky way, quickly becomes a one-part-pornography-one-part-erotic-fiction disaster that leaves you feeling a little nauseous.  Indeed, I put the challenge to anyone to read it without blushing. "

Without blushing? My god, who is this woman? I think the joke sailed her right by, bye bye. But then she comes out with things like "the language is just one step too far down trash-lane" and "The author's husband is an ex-gigolo," (like that has anything to do with it). I detect a hint of slut-shaming disapproval, do you? The reviewer also identifies the most with Emma of all Austen characters. I'm just going to leave it there.

Here is a much more favorable review by Elsa Solender, and with considerable more insight.

Has anyone read or seen this collection? What do you think? I can't wait to get my hands on a copy.

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.

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?

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.