Jane Austen Addict Blog

Mansfield Park: Jane Austen's Most Controversial Novel

by Laurie Viera Rigler, author of Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict (http://janeaustenaddict.com)

(This is yet another of my series of guest posts for About.com's Classic Literature blog.)

Discuss Mansfield Park in your book club, and your friends, like most readers, will tend to differ over a variety of points. The most typical one is this: Is the heroine, Fanny Price, a model of moral integrity, or a self-righteous prude? Is the marriage that ends the story (and Austen's stories always end with a marriage) between the right two people? And what's up with that part about the play?

The story begins when nine-year-old Fanny Price is taken from the home of her impoverished parents and moved to the estate of Mansfield Park to be brought up by rich relatives. This is no clear-cut Cinderella story, however. Although there are a couple of mildly wicked stepsisters (Fanny's cousins Maria and Julia) and a stand-in for a wicked stepmother in the form of her Aunt Norris, teenaged Fanny's central nemesis—and rival in love--is the saucy, sassy anti-heroine Mary Crawford.

The object of both Fanny's and Mary's affections is Fanny's cousin Edmund (I know, I know, but in Jane Austen's day one could marry one's cousin without anyone batting an eyelid). Edmund loves Fanny like a cousin, but he is in love with Mary.

Did you ever feel jealous of someone, and at the same time also felt you didn't have the right to be jealous? Fanny, being in an inferior position in the Mansfield Park family and unloved by her birth parents, has deeply rooted self-esteem issues. Mary, on the other hand, walks through life with a serious sense of entitlement. Shouldn't that be enough to put us squarely in the pro-Fanny camp?

Perhaps, but Fanny challenges us at every turn. For example, there is the famous section of the book in which Fanny disapproves of and refuses to participate in a play that her cousins and neighbors are putting on at home for their own amusement. For this part of the story to make the least bit of sense to a modern reader, one needs to understand that this particular choice of home theatricals would be the modern equivalent of a group of teenagers voting to have a wild, high-risk party in their strict parent's house while said parent was out of town.

Despite Fanny's balking at participating in said wild party, we cannot quite dismiss her as a buzz-killing Miss Perfect. After all, she is eaten up with jealousy for a great deal of the book, and as we all know, jealousy is not a pretty emotion. She is also not one to obey those in authority at all costs. In fact, she stands up to the biggest authority figure in her life by refusing to do what she knows in her heart would be wrong, and I'm not talking about acting in a play. (I'll say no more, lest I spoil the book for those who've yet to read it.)

If you've ever had an opinion that your friends considered uncool, and you stuck to it despite ridicule and pressure, you'll find a kindred spirit in Fanny Price, and you'll want her reward to be the man she loves. However, if you're still doing shots with your inner bad girl, you'll be rooting for Mary Crawford to win the object of her, and Fanny's, affections. (By the way, Austen scholar Emily Auerbach pointed out at one of the Jane Austen Society of North America's annual meetings, that several of Mary Crawford's lines of dialogue are astonishingly similar to lines from Jane Austen's own letters.)

To make things more interesting, some readers will want Fanny to be won by Mary's rakish, heartbreaker brother, Henry Crawford, who finds himself unaccountably in love for the first time in his life. Henry doesn't seem to stand a chance with Fanny, who is not only in love with another man, but also has watched in contempt and pity while Henry toyed with Fanny's cousins, the above-mentioned Maria and Julia. It's one big love triangle. Or square. Or heptagon.

Could there possibly be a better Austen novel for book clubs to chew on? And I haven't even touched on the theories about Mansfield Park's antislavery subtext.

In Mansfield Park, Jane Austen is clearly at the height of her storytelling mastery, deftly playing with reader loyalties and expectations while serving up the delicious social satire and suspenseful plotting that keep us coming back for more.

Nevertheless, Mansfield Park presents clear challenges to filmmakers who wish to adapt it, which is perhaps why director Patricia Rozema turned the heroine of her 1999 adaptation  into a synthesis of Fanny Price, Mary Crawford, and Jane Austen herself. As for the latest adaptation of Mansfield Park, which airs on PBS's Masterpiece Classic on Sunday, January 27, I am all anticipation. Let's see what the filmmakers have got up their sleeves this time.

Read more about Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict,  and surrender to your Austen addiction at http://janeaustenaddict.com.

Northanger Abbey: Austen’s Coming-of-age Story for All Ages

by Laurie Viera Rigler, author of Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict (http://janeaustenaddict.com)

(This is part of a series of guest posts I am doing for About.com's Classic Literature blog.)

"The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid."
            --Henry Tilney, in Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey   

When Henry Tilney speaks these words in Austen’s funny and touching novel, Northanger Abbey, the story’s heroine, Catherine Morland, gets a serious crush. (Truth is, Henry had her at hello.) Still, Henry’s declaration is a bold one, for in Austen’s day novels were considered low art, especially if they were penned by a woman and consumed by women. Catherine favors the lowest of the low--scary Gothic novels written by women and featuring abduction, seduction, supernatural horror, and/or murder—the kind of novels that teens (and many an adult) could not get enough of.

Every era likes to marginalize certain forms of art. In Austen’s day, it was the novel (and not just the Gothic ones). Today, it might be graphic novels or romance or so-called "women’s fiction" or "chick lit" or science fiction or horror. Take your pick. Despite the snobbery, Jane Austen and her whole family were, in her own words, "great Novel-readers, & not ashamed of being so." Nevertheless, Northanger Abbey is a hilarious send-up of just the kind of horror-and-romance-fest that Catherine Morland—and Jane Austen—liked to read. The difference between the heroine and her creator is that Catherine Morland kept expecting real life to play out like one of her favorite novels, while Jane Austen thought real life had its own set of fascinating stories to tell.

Seventeen-year-old Catherine Morland’s story unfolds as she leaves home for the first time, bound for the fascinating city of Bath. She falls in love, is whisked off to the romantic-sounding estate of Northanger Abbey, witnesses betrayal and deception, suspects murder, and takes a dangerous journey alone. Ultimately, Catherine learns self-reliance in more ways than one. No t only does she cease to be, in her mother’s words, "a sad little shatter-brained creature," she also learns to distinguish between her own wild imaginings and her intuition, between fantasy and reality, between false friends and true.

Northanger Abbey is the perfect coming-of-age story, for it is in no way about giving up our youthful fancies and zest for living. Quite the opposite. Through Catherine’s innocent, exuberant embrace of what is fresh and novel (no pun intended), we the readers remember the first time we traveled to a new city, danced with the person who made us feel valued for who we are, or "learnt to love a hyacinth."

I can’t wait to see the latest adaptation of Northanger Abbey that airs on Masterpiece Theatre’s Complete Jane Austen Sunday, January 20.

 

Persuasion: Jane Austen's Story About Second Chances

by Laurie Viera Rigler, author of  Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict.

(This is my first guest post for About.com's Classic Literature Blog.)

Bringing in a New Year is all about second chances. This year, we vow, we will do it right. We have a second chance to take better care of ourselves. We have a second chance to be kinder, wiser, and better human beings. It is therefore fitting that Masterpiece Theatre’s Complete Jane Austen ushers in this New Year with the Austen novel that is all about second chances, Persuasion.

If you haven’t yet read Persuasion, you now have a second chance to do so. If, like me, you’re already a Jane Austen addict, then you’ve probably read the book several times and will no doubt do so again. If you’re not already an admirer of Austen, then you may be under the misguided impression that Austen wrote fluffy romances that were all about who got to marry the rich guy and where the stories were as archaic as the characters’ horse-drawn carriages. Not so. Granted, Austen novels always include a love story, and yes, her books do predate the four-door hybrid. Nevertheless, her characters are as real and relevant as the people sitting across from you at the dinner table, in the office, and at your favorite dance club/bar/coffeehouse/bookstore/hangout. Jane Austen was as keen an observer of human nature as you’ll ever come across in life or literature, and human nature hasn’t changed a bit since women wore bonnets and men knee breeches.

If you’ve ever felt like your family didn’t treat you the way they should; if you’ve ever been misunderstood, misled, or misguided in any way, then Persuasion will speak your language. If you’ve ever yielded to the opinions of others over what your heart told you to do, if you’ve ever given up someone because you were told you had to, if you’ve ever wasted even a tiny bit of this short life holding onto resentment instead of opening up to forgiveness and love; then you will get your second chance to make things right with Persuasion.

Persuasion is the story of Anne Eliot, who has never got over a romantic disappointment she had when she was 19 years old. She has little support from her ruin of a family, which consists of a vain, widowed father and a self-centered, caustic older sister. Eight years before, Anne had fallen in love with and got engaged to Frederick Wentworth, a bright, earnest young man whose lack of money and career prospects set Anne’s status-conscious family against the marriage. Her surrogate mother, whose advice Anne trusted above all, persuaded Anne that the only right thing to do was to give up the engagement. Now, eight years later, Anne’s family is in financial trouble, and Frederick Wentworth, now Captain Wentworth, is back in town and rich from the spoils of the Napoleonic Wars. Problem is, he’s never forgiven Anne for breaking his heart. In fact, he proceeds to flirt with other women right in front of her.

Is it man’s nature to forget the woman he loves sooner than woman forgets man? Is an invariably determined person any wiser than an easily persuadable one? And most important, will Anne and Frederick ever get what they really want? Persuasion is a page-turning, heart-stopping story that I’ve read at least twenty times, and I find something new and illuminating in it with every reading. It is also, like all of Austen’s novels, filled with delicious social satire and wickedly funny moments.

Still not persuaded? How about this suggestion: If the latest Persuasion film doesn’t send you running for your nearest bookstore (and I hope it will), then rent the 1995 version directed by Roger Michell and starring Ciarán Hinds and Amanda Root. If you do, I guarantee you will not be able to resist having that book in your hands. And as an added bonus, the book has the best love letter of any novel you’ll ever read. So good you’ll want to commit it to memory. (“Tell me not that I am too late…”)

It’s not too late to read Persuasion. Take your second chance. And Happy New Year!

Surrender to your Austen addiction at janeaustenaddict.com.
 

I QUIT!

About two months ago I was obsessively checking my amazon.com sales ranking  (I'm told this is a common addiction among newly published authors and that sometimes said authors must be hauled off to rehab) when I came across a gem of a customer review, entitled "Austen Addict Needs Rehab." This title was not, in fact, as serendipitous as it appeared, as I discovered when I read the first two sentences:

Laurie Viera Rigler should resign her membership in the Jane Austen Society. I don't see how anyone who admires Austen's work could associate that great author's name with this tripe.

I happened to be in a fairly confident mood that day, and so I was able to laugh it off. After all, I knew when I was working on this book that should it ever be published, it was likely to arouse the ire of some and the approbation of others, Janeites being a particularly passionate bunch. And if I've learned anything from my years of reading Austen, it's the importance of laughing at myself.

So, aside from the absurdity of the reviewer's proclamation, how was I able to resist the temptation to take any of this personally? Glad you asked. I'd have to say that other external forces of a positive nature, such as finding out Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict debuted on the Los Angeles Times bestseller list and several good reviews made this call for my resignation from JASNA seem a trifle, even an amusing one.

Inevitably, all highs wear off. It could be that (a) you get a bad review. Or (b) you're having a hard time zipping up your jeans. Or (c) that cute guy who lives across the street didn't smile back at you. It doesn't matter, of course, that (a) the reviewer simply didn't enjoy your book but did enjoy making herself look clever at your expense. Haven't you ever done that in private conversation? The only difference is that newspaper reviewers get to be catty in public. It also doesn't matter that (b) you happen to be premenstrual AND ate pizza for the last three days, so of course your jeans are tight at the moment; and (c) that cute guy across the street wasn't wearing his glasses and didn't see you smile. In fact, he didn't even know that blurry blob across the street was you.

Nope, none of that matters whatsoever. By the time you've been through (a), (b), and (c) and who knows how many other imagined slights, you're ready for some more self-flagellation. Let's see--what would hit the spot? I know! Let's check our amazon.com ranking. No. This cannot be true. It just shot up 5,000 points in four hours?? How is that possible? Does my book really suck? Is it all over? Am I the biggest loser on the planet?

But wait, there's more: Surely the answer to the question of whether or not "L" must be stamped on my forehead awaits me in the review section of my book's buy page. Let me scroll down a bit and--NO--not another bad review. This one is so awful ("I chose this book for my book club pick. I was so NOT impressed that I am going to tell the other book club members not to waste their time") that I feel compelled to re-read the one that says I need to resign from JASNA.

And you know what? This time I'm not laughing.

I've thought about this descent at length, and I've come to the conclusion that something has to change. And you know what? It isn't my membership status in JASNA. In fact, since then I've become a life member.

No, what needs to change is me. My habits. My beliefs. Was I going to allow other people to determine my happiness based on something as inconsequential as whether they love or hate my work?
After all, is my book any better or worse than it was because of the good review? Or the bad review? Of course it isn't.

All I know is this: If I sit on the praise/criticism seesaw, I'm doomed to the inevitable down after going up. Anyone ever see a seesaw stand still with someone at the top?

I've decided to find my happiness elsewhere. I've also decided to stop making devil's bargains with myself. To wit: I am a master at all those "If only this happens, I'll be so happy" wishes. At first it starts out with: "If only I had an agent for my book, I'll be so happy." Well, I was/am. But then it turned into, "If only I get a publisher for my book, I'll be so happy." Then it's "If only the book gets a good review, I'll be so happy," and "If only it sells a lot of copies, I'll be so happy." Have I kept any of those promises? Only temporarily. All it takes to make the seesaw go down is the first bad review, drop in sales figures, too-tight jeans, or imagined slight from my neighbor.

So here's what I choose instead: I choose the happiness that comes when I practice gratitude for all the blessings in my life. I choose the happiness that comes when I'm giving a reading and my sole mission is to make the people who came to see me happy. I choose the happiness that comes when I delight in the pure joy of creating a strong scene or a funny moment. I choose the happiness that comes from whatever comes.

Failure, I've decided, is not an option.

May happiness be yours to keep.

My Guest Post on Book Club Girl

[You can read my guest post here or on Book Club Girl.  In any case, check out Book Club Girl, a  priceless resource for anyone who has a book group, wants to start a book group, or just loves to read. ]

Laurie Viera Rigler, author of Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict, Reports from Her Visit to the Pulpwood Queens Book Group!

I was en route to Jefferson, Texas to give a reading of Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict to the Pulpwood Queens Book Club when the flight attendant announced that he wasn't quite sure our landing gear was working. There probably wasn't anything to worry about, he said, though I later learned that the Shreveport Fire Department was out in full force to greet us just in case. Hands gripping the armrest, I turned to the woman sitting next to me and said, "Why did they have to tell us that?" She shrugged. And so I said some prayers and then went back to my book; I was reading Emma. If those last twenty  minutes of flight time were to be my last twenty minutes alive, I would go down reading Jane Austen. Sure enough, Austen took me out of myself, out of my fears, and into Highbury, where Emma danced with Mr. Knightley at the Crown. And before I knew it, the plane was safely on the ground.

Like the protagonist of Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict , I use Austen as comfort, guidance, and a cure for a host of ills that come with modern living. Unlike her, I found myself transported not to Regency England, but to Beauty and the Book, the headquarters of the Pulpwood Queens, and the only beauty salon/bookstore in America. Their motto? "Where tiaras are mandatory and reading good books is the rule!" At Beauty and the Book, bookshelves lined with must-reads face racks of RedKen products, and stacks of the club's monthly picks are flanked by hairdryers. Tiaras and other rhinestone goodies are also on offer. One thing that struck me was the absence of gossip magazines, the typical reading fare of hair salons. Then again, there is nothing typical about Beauty and the Book. If you want to read while you're getting your hair done, there are plenty of choices, but they don't include accounts of celebrity divorce and who made a fashion faux pas on the red carpet.

At the meeting, book club members, most decked out in tiaras, some sporting the club's signature hot pink T-shirt, seat themselves in hairstyling chairs to tuck into fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, and other Southern delights they've cooked specially for the occasion.  Kathy Patrick, the original Pulpwood Queen and author of the upcoming Pulpwood Queens' Tiara-Wearing, Book-Sharing Guide to Life, is the charismatic and benevolent ruler, making announcements, encouraging everyone to fill a plate and get comfy. This group is here to have fun, but first and foremost it is there to fulfill Kathy's mission, which is "to get the world reading."

And so the readings and discussions began. This month there were two selections, and so I not only got to read and discuss Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict, I got to meet Masha Hamilton and listen to her read from her wonderful novel, The Camel Bookmobile, as well as hear about the real Camel Book Drive she's launched as a result of writing her book.

When the last bite of chocolate pie had been consumed and the last of the tiara-wearing Queens filed out the door, Masha and I were in for yet another treat: hair tips from Kathy, who showed us some cool tricks for last-minute special looks. As I left this enchanted place, I wondered, What would Jane Austen think of Beauty and the Book and The Pulpwood Queens? I'm convinced she'd love them. For one, the Pulpwood Queens live up to what Anne Eliot said in Persuasion: "My idea of good company... is the company of clever, well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation." The Queens are definitely my  idea of good company--truly a delightful group of women who were full of  questions and stimulating ideas. As for their Jefferson, Texas venue, I am reminded of the circulating libraries of Austen's day, often fashionable places where patrons could borrow books for a fee, and   which also sold jewelry and other trinkets. If they had offered hairstyling, too, they might have been nearly as perfect as Beauty and the Book.

Book Club Girl Here: Laurie, this sounds like it was great fun and I'm glad you got to meet Masha Hamilton too! I grabbed some photos from your site and here's a link to all the rest of them.

 

I was en route to Jefferson, Texas to give a reading of Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict to the Pulpwood Queens Book Club when the flight attendant announced that he wasn't quite sure our landing gear was working. There probably wasn't anything to worry about, he said, though I later learned that the Shreveport Fire Department was out in full force to greet us just in case. Hands gripping the armrest, I turned to the woman sitting next to me and said, "Why did they have to tell us that?" She shrugged. And so I said some prayers and then went back to my book; I was reading Emma. If those last twenty  minutes of flight time were to be my last twenty minutes alive, I would go down reading Jane Austen. Sure enough, Austen took me out of myself, out of my fears, and into Highbury, where Emma danced with Mr. Knightley at the Crown. And before I knew it, the plane was safely on the ground.

Like the protagonist of Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict , I use Austen as comfort, guidance, and a cure for a host of ills that come with modern living. Unlike her, I found myself transported not to Regency England, but to Beauty and the Book, the headquarters of the Pulpwood Queens, and the only beauty salon/bookstore in America. Their motto? "Where tiaras are mandatory and reading good books is the rule!" At Beauty and the Book, bookshelves lined with must-reads face racks of RedKen products, and stacks of the club's monthly picks are flanked by hairdryers. Tiaras and other rhinestone goodies are also on offer. One thing that struck me was the absence of gossip magazines, the typical reading fare of hair salons. Then again, there is nothing typical about Beauty and the Book. If you want to read while you're getting your hair done, there are plenty of choices, but they don't include accounts of celebrity divorce and who made a fashion faux pas on the red carpet.

At the meeting, book club members, most decked out in tiaras, some sporting the club's signature hot pink T-shirt, seat themselves in hairstyling chairs to tuck into fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, and other Southern delights they've cooked specially for the occasion.  Kathy Patrick, the original Pulpwood Queen and author of the upcoming Pulpwood Queens' Tiara-Wearing, Book-Sharing Guide to Life, is the charismatic and benevolent ruler, making announcements, encouraging everyone to fill a plate and get comfy. This group is here to have fun, but first and foremost it is there to fulfill Kathy's mission, which is "to get the world reading."

And so the readings and discussions began. This month there were two selections, and so I not only got to read and discuss Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict, I got to meet Masha Hamilton and listen to her read from her wonderful novel, The Camel Bookmobile, as well as hear about the real Camel Book Drive she's launched as a result of writing her book.

When the last bite of chocolate pie had been consumed and the last of the tiara-wearing Queens filed out the door, Masha and I were in for yet another treat: hair tips from Kathy, who showed us some cool tricks for last-minute special looks. As I left this enchanted place, I wondered, What would Jane Austen think of Beauty and the Book and The Pulpwood Queens? I'm convinced she'd love them. For one, the Pulpwood Queens live up to what Anne Eliot said in Persuasion: "My idea of good company... is the company of clever, well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation." The Queens are definitely my  idea of good company--truly a delightful group of women who were full of  questions and stimulating ideas. As for their Jefferson, Texas venue, I am reminded of the circulating libraries of Austen's day, often fashionable places where patrons could borrow books for a fee, and   which also sold jewelry and other trinkets. If they had offered hairstyling, too, they might have been nearly as perfect as Beauty and the Book.

Book Club Girl Here: Laurie, this sounds like it was great fun and I'm glad you got to meet Masha Hamilton too! I grabbed some photos from your site and here's a link to all the rest of them.

My Guest Post on Booksquare

I was delighted to guest post for one of my favorite blogs, Booksquare (see my Jane's Addictions page). You can read the full post here or on Booksquare:

Jane, Now More Than Ever

September 13th, 2007
by Laurie Viera Rigler

[BS: The great thing about Jane Austen fans is the myriad of reasons they come to Jane. Some come for the clothes, stay for the satire. Others seek the social skewering but discover the empathy. And, yeah, there a few who figure if it's good enough for Colin Firth... Today, we welcome Laurie Viera Rigler, whose novel Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict captures the beauty of loving Jane while indulging in the ever-tantalizing "what if"]

The decision to write Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict wasn't exactly a decision. It happened like this: I was standing in the kitchen of the house I used to rent in the Highland Park area of Los Angeles, and I saw, in my mind, the opening scene of my book unfold. I saw a twenty-first-century woman who, like me, reads and rereads Jane Austen's six novels. Unlike me, she wakes up one morning in the body and life of an Englishwoman in Austen's time. I couldn't stop thinking about her, and finally I decided to write down what I saw. Once I opened that door, there was, of course, a good deal more to her story.
   
It wouldn't take a quantum physicist to figure out why Courtney Stone made her appearance in my head. After all, she embodies all the "what if's" I posed in many an idle fantasy indulged after yet another reading of Pride and Prejudice or another viewing of the 1995 BBC adaptation. What if I could hang out in one of those drawing rooms in Jane Austen's world, pretending to do needlework ("pretending" being the operative word for someone who cannot sew) while stealing glances at some hottie in tight knee breeches? Would it be a dream come true to inhabit that world, or a case of be-careful-what-you-wish-for? What exactly do Austen's books tell me about her world, and what do they not tell me? What is invisible to me as a contemporary reader? Just how sanitized are even the most "faithful" of the film adaptations? Why do I, with all my freedom and choices as a contemporary woman, fantasize my way into the world of Jane Austen? Writing this book was an opportunity to explore those questions.
   
There is another question I keep hearing, and it concerns the current spike in the popularity of all things Austen. That question is "Why now?" It is difficult to imagine topping Devoney Looser's hilarious answer (here). Nevertheless, I'll venture a couple of theories.

Here is the first: Quite simply, it's score one for the snowball effect of the collective consciousness. Like Austen's "one shoulder of mutton, you know, drives another," one could say that "one Austen movie drives another quickly through the development process." It is, after all, the films that are sexy enough to grab most of the headlines. And there are at least six of them, two in theatrical release (Becoming Jane and the upcoming Jane Austen Book Club) and at least four coming up on PBS. The books then gratefully hitch a ride on the pop culture express.

Here is another theory, which came out of something my husband said to me the other day when I was obsessing over something of no consequence whatsoever. "The mind," he said, "is an unreliable narrator." His comment led me to ponder whether we are now living in the era of the unreliable narrator--from our widespread distrust of traditional media and Washingtonian mouthpieces to our own overly analytical and self-helped-to-death minds. Perhaps our need for the reliable narrator is stronger now than ever.
   
For me, there is no narrator more reliable than Jane Austen, the keenest and funniest observer of human nature of any author I know. It is her all-knowing, all-seeing narrator who holds up a mirror to our human failings as well as our capacity for magnificence. It is she who guides us to distinguish truly trustworthy behavior from the posings of those who have nothing to recommend them but a handsome face and an agreeable manner. It is she who shows us how to spot greed, jealousy, arrogance, and vanity at a hundred paces, regardless of how smartly dressed it is. Most of all, it is she who shows us how to laugh at all of it and not take ourselves so seriously. That is why I can't (and wouldn't want to) stop reading and rereading Austen. For me, her six novels constitute the most reliable set of self-help books I could ever want to own. Add to that her gift for storytelling twists and a love story with a satisfying ending, and you've got the perfect recipe for a much healthier sort of addiction than those in which we humans usually indulge.
   
Austen's hilarious skewering of the follies and flaws of human beings is what makes her novels timeless. Human nature, after all, hasn't changed at all since Austen's day. Nevertheless, I, like many Austen addicts, do find myself drawn to the period details of her world, the window dressing, if you will. What makes these details attractive has little to do with their inherent qualities. After all, empire-waisted gowns are not as well-suited to my figure as they are to say, Gwyneth Paltrow's. And given the choice between spending five hours in my car driving from San Francisco to Los Angeles, as I did the other day, to four bone-jangling days in a horse-drawn carriage, I'd take the car any day. Nevertheless, I am attracted to those details precisely because they are of her world, because they give me greater access to her stories.
   
And so in writing Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict I was able to indulge another aspect of my addiction, immersion in the details of Austen's world. And yes, when seen through the Hollywood-tinted lenses of postmodern nostalgia, spending four days on the road in a horse-drawn carriage doesn't sound that bad after all. Especially if at the end of your journey you get to sleep in a four-poster bed in a sumptuous mansion and rest up for the ball where you dance with Jeremy Northam and look just like Gwyneth Paltrow in your empire-waisted gown.   
   
Still, I'd venture to say that our deepest yearning isn't merely to escape the noise of modern technology for the bonnets and balls and carriages of Jane Austen's world. We, like our favorite protagonists, long to escape the unreliable narrators of our minds for an omniscient guide who writes our own story, the one with the happy ending.

[BS: Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict is available at bookstores right now, and Laurie Viera Rigler's website is a treasure trove for fans of Jane, ready-to-become fans of Jane, or just people who understand the value that comes from wasting time on a really fun site. Laurie is also making appearances in support of her novel.]

 

Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict: The Book Trailer

Today I stumbled across a "60 Second Book Review" of  Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict on YouTube, created by Lissa Staley of the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library. It's done with a playful sense of humor and is absolutely adorable. What more could I ask for than to find what amounts to an extremely cool book trailer circulating around--and one created by a librarian, no less. If it weren't for all the lovely librarians of my childhood feeding my insatiable need for books via the blessings of bookmobile and library bus, I don't know where I'd be. Thank you, Lissa.

First reading and signing

Just had my first reading on August 8th at Vroman's Bookstore, Southern California's oldest and largest and absolutely coolest independent bookstore. I love Vroman's--the people, the community outreach, the events, the classes (I teach there from time to time, and it's been a peak experience for me), and the BOOKS.

One of the most gratifying moments of that first reading was what my friend Beth said, which was that my book inspired her extremely well-read daughter to read Jane Austen. This is exactly what I had hoped for: to write a book that would be as accessible to readers who had not read Austen as it is to those who are fellow Austen addicts. And even better, to spark the curiosity of non-Austen-readers to read my favorite author.

Another memorable moment: A woman in the audience presented me with this gorgeous drawing she made while I was reading from my book:

Many thanks to everyone who showed up that night--it was lovely to see familiar faces and to meet new people. I'll have more to report when I return from the first leg of my book tour...

There are more pictures from the reading in my site's "Scrapbook" section, under "Many Charming Views."

Becoming Jane: Some thoughts

I keep thinking about "Becoming Jane," which I saw last night at a special screening for JASNA-Southwest. Sure, it took liberties with chronology and no doubt fashioned characters and events out of pure imagination. Sure, it may not be everyone's idea of who Jane Austen was or what she would have done. But who cares? Who could possibly claim to know who Jane Austen really was? Not the most scrupulous biographer, not the most accomplished Austen scholar, not the family members who wrote about her, not we who read her surviving letters and her six great novels and her juvenilia.

Even if we possessed every letter she wrote--and it is well known that Jane's beloved sister Cassandra Austen made sure that would not happen (though A.S. Byatt's Possession is still my fondest Janeite fantasy)--we would still have only those snapshots of her life. We can only guess at who the author is, who any author is, by reading her letters and reading her books and stories. I always smile when I read and hear heated debates as to who of Jane Austen's heroines most closely resembles Miss Austen herself. How about all of them? Is not each of us a myriad of identities and concepts of ourselves, from what we think we are to what various people around us conjecture? Would each of our friends and relations provide the same description of our character, or even our appearance? So yes, "Becoming Jane" is fiction based on fact. Once one is comfortable with that notion, one can truly sit back and enjoy this lovely film. It's a compelling story with stellar performances by all.

For me, the most enchanting thing about it was seeing how the filmmakers portrayed the process of creation, how we would hear the words rushing through Jane Austen's head, flowing out of her pen, considered, rejected, crossed out, and replaced with something even more brilliant; and yes, how the people around her spouted lines from her books, because that is what writers do, they listen and store away and then use whatever they see, hear, smell, taste, and touch. It also gave me a lot to think about in terms of why authors might choose, as a service to themselves and their readers, to give their protagonists happy endings.

For me the most gratifying thing about this film was seeing Jane Austen portrayed as a passionate, independent, empowered, and sexually awakened women who made staggeringly courageous choices in her life, including the choice to be a novelist and the choice not to marry. This is a refreshing change from the caricature of the sweet-tempered virgin writing fluffy romances, an image that was born with the "Memoir" of Jane Austen written by her nephew, James Edward Austen-Leigh (see Emily Auerbach's excellent book, Searching for Jane Austen, for a fascinating analysis of our misconceptions about Jane Austen).

The only thing I didn't appreciate was the closing line written on the screen, which stated that neither Jane nor her sister Cassandra ever married. That seemed unnecessary (and perhaps unintentionaly sexist) after the previous lines, which stated that Austen wrote six of the greatest novels in the English language; and that Tom Lefroy became Chief Justice of Ireland. I think the filmmakers should have left it at that.

Nevertheless, I highly recommend this film. Bring tissues.