A pleasure, but not a guilty one
On the cover of Rachel M. Brownstein’s new book Why Jane Austen? is a photo of a “Jane Austen Action Figure” perched atop a row of books. You may have seen, may even have purchased or received, one of these figures—part of a cheeky assortment of novelty gifts for nerds. The figurine has jointed arms to permit the only “action” for which Jane Austen is known: the doll can write.
How did Jane Austen, the early-nineteenth-century novelist who died at forty-one, become “Jane Austen,” the pop-culture phenomenon? Why does she attract such a clubby following, despite her relatively hidden and uneventful personal life? Why have her lapidary novels inspired so many vulgarizations? Whence all the sequels and imitations? Why are there so many more film versions of Pride and Prejudice alone than a culture could ever want or need?
Brownstein’s book reads like a collection of notes from a long acquaintance with the novelist: reflections on Austen’s writing, on others’ writing about Austen, on Brownstein’s experiences teaching Austen, and on the many facets of “Jane-o-mania.” She investigates the surge in Austen’s pop-culture presence beginning in the 1990s, from Clueless to Bridget Jones’s Diary to the BBC’s much adored (and exhaustive) Pride and Prejudice. Brownstein meets with Janeites at pilgrimage sites and ponders their fantasy of a personal connection with the author. But she also insists on evaluating Austen as a writer, an artist, not a woman-who-wrote or a biographical puzzle to be solved. If the question in the title is interpreted as “Why bother reading Jane Austen?”, Brownstein has a simple answer: “The claim I make about Jane Austen here is that she is a great writer, delightful to read.”
This fact—which Brownstein reiterates later as “the obvious, if forgotten, truth that Jane Austen is a serious writer”—can get lost in all the popular fuss and fondness that Austen provokes. Can Austen be great when she is so easy to like? There is also a longstanding tendency to dismiss Austen’s work as good for a woman, or to write off her novels as fine but inconsequential because they deal so narrowly with domestic concerns. What I most valued about Brownstein’s book is her analysis of Austen’s skill as a writer. At different points she calls attention to Austen’s careful diction and disciplined style; her manipulation of the reader via the shifting perspective of the narrator; her attention to “character” in both the dramatic and the moral senses of the word. Austen is “most useful today,” she argues, “as an example of linguistic precision.”
Brownstein is shrewdly critical of the ways “textual analysis can slide into biographical reading.” For instance, she cites differing theories about why Austen deleted a particular phrase from the second edition of Sense and Sensibility, theories that rest on judgments about Austen’s personality and “propriety.” But if one looks just at the text, there is a “simple, more plausible explanation” for the deletion—it eliminated a redundancy and strengthened the overall work. “She revised to improve the text,” in other words. What does it say about the way we read Austen, or any writer—especially any woman writer—that we strain for insights while disregarding the possibility that the author was primarily motivated by craft? “The unique specificity of [Austen’s] genius…is what the novels most importantly convey,” Brownstein observes—and ignoring that to look for other “truths” about Austen or her times “is to read through or around or past” the novels, when it might be better and more rewarding to simply read them as they are.
The book is a bit scattered, and sometimes repetitive—I grew tired of the recurring references to Byron (though my lack of familiarity with or interest in his work is my own fault). But it is full of fascinating observations about the novels and insights into Austen’s craft as a writer. And it helps that Brownstein—a sometime Commonweal contributor—is herself delightful to read. Her writing is fluid and full of delicate wordplay, as when she describes a memorial tribute Austen wrote as “an awkward, guilt-edged poem.” Not many can write about writing with so much lightness and style.
As for the frenzy that surrounds Austen, Brownstein is sympathetic, to an extent: she knows that there is fun to be had in “sharing the same imaginary world.” But her verdict is ultimately (and, for me, gratifyingly) sharp: “Jane-o-mania, in its wrongheadedness and banality, reveals our own inadequacies: stupidity and ignorance, arrogance and greed, the qualities Jane Austen mocked.” This book is among other things a helpful corrective to the popular image of Austen as a soft-edged, sweet-hearted, romantic lady novelist. She was a gimlet-eyed judge of character, and not overly inclined to compassion for her less-than-upstanding characters. That is part of what makes her so much fun to read. “Her thrilling absolute judgments of characters she disapproves of give the reader the same kind of satisfaction: some people are a pleasure to know and loathe.” I can’t imagine how anyone walks away from Pride and Prejudice (for example) with the sense that “Jane” would have been a great friend if only they had met. Some Janeites do seem to harbor that conviction. I only know that I am very glad my own character never had to withstand Jane Austen’s scrutiny.
It probably goes without saying that this book will be most interesting to those who have read some or all of Austen’s novels, and recently at that. It will also likely inspire you to pick them up again, with a new eye for the “linguistic precision” and artistry that Brownstein teases into view. You might want to start your reading or rereading with Emma, which, Brownstein notes provocatively, “is most interesting to a reader who’s read it before.” I have, but only once, and years ago. In fact, I realized as I was making my way through this book, the last time I read anything by Austen was when I was working on this review of Karen Joy Fowler’s The Jane Austen Book Club (and this accompanying sidebar—my own encounter with Jane-o-mania).
So, when I needed a book to keep me company during a long doctor’s visit, I brought along Pride and Prejudice. I’ve been working steadily through it ever since—now I’m reading the last chapters out loud to my son while he nurses, to entertain us both. (If he’s confused about what he missed before he was born, he hasn’t complained. Perhaps he simply knows he’ll get more out of it the second time through.) This is at least my third time reading the book, but aside from the very broad outline (Elizabeth and Darcy start out mutually disliking each other, and—spoiler alert—end up in love), I am finding it as fresh as if I’d never read it before. The sharp character sketches, the precise vocabulary, the elusive narrator, and the densely layered plotting are all keeping me engrossed. It seems that even I may have fallen victim to the tendency to underestimate Austen’s greatness due to her great capacity to give pleasure. I’m glad Brownstein’s book gave me the motivation I needed to meet Jane Austen all over again.
Brownstein’s book sounds fascinating.
My own theory is that people read Austen b/c there is something ineluctably intimate in the way Austen draws you down on the sofa and dishes gossip about the neighbors, no holds barred.
As for “linguistic precision,” does anything top that scene in “Sense and Sensibility” where Marianne is having an emotional meltdown that Elinor is trying to cope with, and Mrs. Jennings asks, “Does she like olives?” Just the word “olives” pretty much nails everything you need to know about Mrs. J.
I was happy Emma Thompson’s screenplay left that bit in the movie.
Pop culture will latch onto anything, and it’s a micrometer deep. Not worth spilling ink over.
People – especially the young – ache to idolize. It doesn’t take much.
Jean writes (8/9 4:19 pm):
My theory (just made it up) is that someone made a movie out of a Jane Austen novel, Jane Austen was famous when women were powerless, and she died young. But nothing would have happened without the movie. In this culture, in this place, at this time, movies are everything.
It has been a long time since I’ve read Jane Austen, and this wonderful review motivates me to reconnect. The remarks about Austen’s linguistic precision are spot on. Thanks to Ms. O’Reilly and Ms. Brownstein. Loved Jean Raber’s comments as well.
“But nothing would have happened without the movie. In this culture, in this place, at this time, movies are everything.”
Somebody’s got their fichu in a knot that’s too tight. The reason the movies were popular was b/c the books were.
Yeah, yeah, some movie versions of the books have sexed up the plots–but they were already pretty sexed up to begin with. In fact, I’d argue that “P&P” is pretty much 350 pages of agonizing foreplay couched in VERY delicate language and innuendo.
Then there are the elopements, bastard children, sex with minors, threats of forced marriages, marriages to near relations, seductions and near-seductions, secret engagements. It’s all in there.
Jean (8/10 8:02 pm):
I don’t remember all that, but it’s been years since I’ve read PaP. Bet if I read it again tomorrow I’d still miss it. Somebody’s got their fichu in a knot that’s too loose :O)
I “met” Austen when I was 23 (early 1970s) and had just broken up with my varmint boyfriend. I happened to pick up “Sense and Sensibility,” and, lo, it was a story of a varmint boyfriend and two girls who were loyal sisters and daughters, who got each other through heartbreak and sickness.
So I plowed through Austin the rest of that winter, and by the time spring came, I had learned many charmingly taught lessons about honor, self-respect, and my standards in boyfriends rose by several points.
Those who miss all that (and all that great gossip), well, that’s real sad, but I’m not going to have the vapors over it.
Time to hang up the old fichu and go to beddie bye.
Alasdair MacIntyre says that Jane Austen is the last supporter of natural law ethics. I’d say he’s right. The themes of justice between individuals and mutual-fulfillment in human relations are powerful parts of her plots. She goes beyond generalizations about these matters and beyond simple considerations of the common good and makes us aware of how justice and fulfillment are necessary for the happy lives of individuals.
The philosophers don’t seem to appreciate that so well as she does. Honor — justice between individuals –is not one of their main interests. It is one of hers. And then there is the aesthetic notion of fittingness (which the 18th century was the first to really appreciate) which she, I think, saw also as an ethical one.
Pride cometh before the fall, and It is so very fitting, is it not, that Mr. Darcy be humbled into asking Elizabeeth to marry him? And isn’t his “fall” a happily ironic felix culpa? I see it as the great theological point and the greatest joke of the whole book, and happily it’s on him :-) Honorable as he is, he finally forces himself to be honest about her, discovers that he (!) loves her, and they live happily ever after. But I haven’t read Jane in 60 years, so I’d best shut up now.
It’s not been that long since I’ve read her, Ann (8/13 12:24 pm), but this thread – and your comments – are making picking her up again sound appealing. I seem to remember starting but not finishing Mansfield Park. Time to get back on the train.
Honor. Yes, so important. That’s tied to consistency, isn’t it? Words have consequences. We mean them or we don’t – we speak and think clearly, or we just muddle through from day to day, fudging everything. To be dependable, trustworthy, caring in the long run and through hard times – which, of course, may never end.
Wow. Ninety-five cents at amazon. It’s on the iPad.
http://www.amazon.com/Mansfield-Park-Barnes-Noble-Classics/dp/1593081545/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1313266772&sr=8-1
David –
Yes, I think that “honor” usually implies a consistent commitment to and living up to standards. The problem is, what are those standards in any given case. Fealty to one’s lord can be good, but what if he turns tyrant? Is consistency always a good thing? I think not.
As with other important words, I think “honor”, both as nound and verb, has many important shades of meaning. Maybe we could have a thread on it sometime. That a politician should be an “honorable” person used to be a requirement for politicians, but I fear we no longer demand it. For instance, my own representative to the U. S. Congress was just elected even though it was known that he had been censured by the state legal ethics committee for some underhanded doings. I voted for an honorable Republican because of it. To me the most important standards of honor are that a person doesn’t lie and doesn’t steal or cheat and keeps his/her reasonable promises. Too often politician fail the test.
The problem arises when we live in the midst of competing cultures. In a single-culture environment, there’s little trouble determining how people are supposed to behave. I suppose this is why modern America is destructive of all cultures.
“Pride cometh before the fall, and It is so very fitting, is it not, that Mr. Darcy be humbled into asking Elizabeth to marry him?”
Actually, Austen makes him ask her TWICE.
Thanks, Ann, for those interesting insights. I have all of Austen’s works and “Jane Eyre” on a two-per-year reading schedule, and have done for the past 30 years or so. I find something new and fresh every time I read them.
I downloaded the Gutenberg edition. Yes, Jane is even better than I had remembered. What she can pack into three paragraphs is amazing!
I had not noticed before that Mr Bennett is not a simple, kindly character. Hmm. I do need to re-read the whole thing.
Mr. and Mrs. Bennet are the precursor’s of George and Martha in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolfe.” He’s been playing with her feather head for years. Except for reading and drinking in his den, that’s his favorite pastime. She, in turn, pitches fits in order to get back at him.
Oooh, I feel a grad school paper topic coming on. Too bad I’m pushing 60 and am no longer in grad school.
I’m glad you’re enjoying this great book again, Ann! I hope you check back in and talk about it some more. It will give me a nice break from my zucchini. I’m getting out the food dryer this weekend to dispatch some of it.
Ooops, no apostrophe in “precursors.” Can you tell I’m grading student papers …?
Funny, that sticking of an apostrophe into a simple plural. There’s absolutely no reason for it, yet the same thing popped up recently in the email of a politically engaged English teacher. What the heck? Have you both been infected? Weird and worrisome.
Horrors! The English teacher made a mistake that she corrected! David is worried!
I am merely weary of this needling and hereby add David to the troll list of folks I no longer respond to directly or obliquely.
I am making my way through “Why Jane Austen”; and I propose that its author write another called “Why Jane Eyre” or perhaps “What’s With Jane Eyre,” which I have recently reread–and not with the same pleasure as P & P.
All you former English grad students: What is Jane Eyre’s religion, and what’s the stern self-discipline all about? The antithesis of Jane Austen.
Jean (8/17 10:17 am):
I’m puzzled. Why did she (she’s not reading this, of course) think I was needling her? I’m genuinely concerned about the deterioration of the language, and it’s interesting to discover one possible cause – infection from student to teacher. Makes sense. If one’s exposed to something constantly, the subconscious mind will simply absorb it.
Another example. If I keep going to Starbucks, I’ll probably become a lot more tolerant than I am now of the kind of noise that emanates from its ceilings. Or not.
Margaret, I shudder when I think of Jane Eyre. It remains one of the most unpleasant books I’ve ever read (right up there with Silas Marner). But I confess I don’t remember why – it just made that lasting impression.
Margaret, I presume Jane is C of E; she and Rochester go to the parish church to be married.
Religion is something of a vexed question in “Eyre.” Jane is certainly tested by religious people–or at least those who profess to be religious–even though she has a strong moral compass and natural sense of honor and justice. She has an astringent wit, but not a lot of humor. She reminds me a lot of the Unitarians I grew up with.
Bronte disliked Catholicism; she consigns Jane’s coldest and most unfeeling cousin to a nunnery. But St. John seems to be the Protestant counterpart to that cousin. While Jane esteems St. John and lauds his good works, he seems a lot easier to love off in India, possibly dying of malaria. I think we are meant to feel a little uneasy about what kind of of ministrations St. John will work on the heathen.
I don’t think of “Jane Eyre” as gothic exactly, but it’s romantic and has gothic elements, and Austen hated that stuff and wrote satires of it when she was a teenager. All that satire, of course, came to fruition in “Northanger Abbey.”
Jean –
I have a problem with the P&P plot. It seems unlikely to me that Jane Bennet, the beautiful, smart, sweet eldest daughter, would still be unmarried at age 22. It seems to me that needs to be accounted for, but I don’t think Jane A. gives an explanation. What do you think?
Yes, I’m enjoying re-reading it thoroughly except for that one little imperfection.
“It seems unlikely to me that Jane Bennet, the beautiful, smart, sweet eldest daughter, would still be unmarried at age 22. It seems to me that needs to be accounted for.”
She is poor, she has a measly dowry, no inheritance, and no means of meeting suitable men outside her small town. She doesn’t have much wit or passion to recommend her as a vibrant companion.
She also has a mother eager to have her “marry up” so the other girls (who are wild and horrid) have better chances. In itself, that’s eminently sensible, but the fact that Mrs. B is so indiscreet and vulgar as to blabber it out at a party–well, no sensible man of means would touch that package.
Fortunately, Bingley is fairly dim.
Hmm. All that’s true, but surely some well-to-do though vulgar Snopeses (there’s an anachronism) would love to have Jane for a wife. But, maybe against the odds, there weren’t any.
What would Mrs. B.’s reaction be to a Snope? She herself is consumed with interest in money — but for good reason. She and the Snope would at least have interest in money in common. Actually, I have a lot of sympathy for Mrs. B. Here she has 5 daughters (two of them a bit old for marrying off), no sons, and a husband who just wants to sequester himself in his library. Why wouldn’t she be desperate, even hysterical to find husbands for them? No, she is too much maligned.
Ha, the Snopses. They might do for Mrs. Bennet. After all, she thinks that clergyman is a catch and easily reconciles herself to wicked Wickham.
I agree that Mrs. Bennet receives too little understanding and pity, shallow, grasping and vulgar as she is. She is trying to do what her husband will not be bothered with–find situations for her daughters.
And there’s a bit of Mrs. B. in Lizzie, isn’t there? She sees Mr. Darcy with new eyes after hearing glowing reports from his housekeeper … and seeing how big his house is.