“How quick come the reasons for approving what we like” Jane Austen
What is it about fans of Jane Austen? They blather on about keen social observations and witty dialogue and automatically assume that like them you would have read and re-read her books and of course you too are a massive fan. If you say you aren’t one they seem to think you are a heretic and hate all books! They just simply believe that because their never ending fan club boasts the likes of JK Rowling and Rudyard Kipling that everybody in the world must feel the same way.
Well I love books, and I am not a heretic! I get it that Jane Austen is lauded as one of the worlds all time great writers. I’m not stopping you reading the 6 books she managed to cobble together. I am just saying that I don’t like them. I think they are over hyped and that NO…I’m not a fan.
I find all 6 books a trifle tedious. I am sure that my early exposure to Jane Austen has resulted in my permanently unmarried status. I have almost made it my mission to have something more rewarding to do with my time than be inspired by books wherein all the female characters spend their days dreaming of being married, scheming to be married or lamenting that they are not married.
Of course that’s not entirely fair, Jane Austen did have a poke around social position and responsibility – all that stuff about considering how many peoples happiness are in your guardianship. But the fact remains she was preoccupied with getting that ring on your finger before 30. I find it almost impossible to understand why anyone could be worshipper of books in which so little else concerns the narrative.
I think a writer’s job is to (with words) take a snapshot of a time, or an emotion or a people…or just something worth recording. Writers tell a tale. I keep hearing over and over how witty Miss Austen’s 6 books are… and yes our Jane did have a way with dialogue, but I never once in 6 books found any tale other than….will our heroine get hitched?
Yawn!
You see the thing that winds me up the most about Miss Austen is that the books are set while the Napoleonic War was going on… but all we ever get to hear about it is how fine the soldiers dress uniforms are. The books are set in manor houses staffed by a fleet of servants, many of whom are miles from home and displaced … but their stories are never told. If you want to know what happens outside the parlour or ballrooms of this period better settle down with Sir Walter Scott, Susan Ferrier or even Maria Edgeworth (and she was writing for kids)! Miss Austen satisfied herself with ladies dithering about between the sexy character and the worthy character and then deciding that the worthy character was the one for them, because in £££’s he was WORTH more. (That is one screwed up valuation of worthiness if you ask me!)
In real life Jane Austen never married and was desperate to prove to her class that earning a living wasn’t a bad idea for a woman. But her books do not reflect any desire to reward rebellion. In her books there is a distinct lack of reward for being anything like exciting, sexy, urbane or rebellious. Basically as soon as a character gets a little interesting… the big foot falls from the sky!
George Wickham in Pride and Prejudice (a man with whom you’d defo want to plan a night out) Frank Churchill in Emma (a man with whom you’d defo plan a night in) John Willoughby in Sense and Sensibility (a man with whom you'd never need matches to light a fire!)… all rubbished by the last chapter. WHY? Cause they are hot, sexy, gorgeous and like a night out in the city. (You will note I struggle to find a female character to set the pulse a racing)
However… in Miss Austen's worlds it is dullard bores who do well. Check out anyone who likes to walk pointlessly around formal gardens in the countryside… and watch the manna from heaven falling around them. Drippy women like Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey and patronising men like Mark Darcy in Pride and Prejudice is where it is at. Despite having as much passion as a damp teacloth it’s the likes of them who get the prize at the end.
I don’t know… I never lived in Regency
I’m not saying that our Jane couldn’t write a book. She clearly could (even if she wouldn’t own up to the first four of them and published them under the name ‘A Lady’). It’s just that lets face it… her books are about bored women who primarily live outside the loop in a boring country manor house who spend the whole book looking for insults where none were meant. Then they ignore people for a few chapters who haven’t got a clue why (as no insult was meant). No one says what they mean, no one is proactive. Why doesn't someone say ‘to hell with this’ and go on wild shopping sprees, have affairs, or indulge in too much wine… come on this has GOT to be more likely! This is Regency England after all!!! (a time of extreme excess) Can you really imagine that ‘taking a turn around the garden’ was the cure all for such a dull life while the Regent built the Brighton Pavallion and Beau Brummel flounced around in cravats? I just do not buy it!!!
Which is rather the same experience Jane's potential reading audience had... they just didn't buy it either. When published her books brought her only a few positive reviews during her lifetime… all this Janite worship is a 20th century phenomenon… which co-insides with the 1940 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. I think all this love for Jane Austen has more to do with the movie and TV representations of her books.
Somehow (perversely) the very dullness gives the stories glamour. There is no passion, no cruelty, no bitterness, no greed, no cynicism… in other words no trace of a world that in any way has traits of our own. Instead we have daughters, dowagers, drawing rooms, dithering and dances. We get soldiers and no wars. We see overt sexuality punished by a fall from grace (every time) and repressed behaviour mildly misunderstood (for a short period of time). And we can guarantee that the moment the heroine stumbles upon the hero’s big house… she WILL love him with a passion strangely lacking from the prior scenes of the movie. Most of all… we get cute regency costumes, some wicked bonnets and a whole battalion of off duty soldiers looking hot in their dress uniforms.
The books adapt well to the big and small screens… I have to say that although she never wrote either the rain scene in the 2005 movie version or the wet shirt scene in the 1995 TV version of Pride and Prejudice… kudos to our Jane for the inspiration. But the best thing of all about the film versions is that of all we get through the darn things quicker than the book. (So much easier to watch the girl Paltrow flounce about as Emma than read the 416pg paperback!)
So NO I am NOT a fan of Jane Austen. If you are … then fine. Read away… but I warn you in advance that your conversation with me about her books will be possibly the shortest one we ever have. You will tell me that she wrote to highlight the dependence of women upon marriage to secure social standing and economic security. I’ll say I don’t give a monkeys….Because I’m not a fan.
I’m not a heretic … I just think the books were a bit sucky and the only thing me and Jane Austen agree on is that if I wrote them I wouldn’t have owned up to them during my lifetime either!
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