| “Today is Jane Austen’s 250th Birthday,” writes Barbara Peters in today’s eNews (subscribe here immediately). She continues “I have to wonder what Jane would make of the long arc of her literary career, and of how people may read her novels today in a post-colonial age. So as I offer a new Austen-adjacent novel rave, list a few earlier favorites, toss in a video clip and two videos of Jane Austen discussions here at The Pen, I want to say that I think fiction should be read in the ethos of the time it was written rather than revised to accord with contemporary sensibilities. Many will disagree, the privilege of every reader. And not every reader of our Enews will be interested in Jane Austen but I can’t sort out who is or isn’t, so please just click on if you aren’t interested. For starters, here is a link to The Morgan Library’s marvelous landmark show “A Lively Mind: Jane Austen at 250” which I visited while in NYC last June. The Austen memorabilia is depicted in loads of photos and text for you to enjoy Pictured in this Email is a new novel reviewed below that I think is among the very best Austen inspired fiction. I urge you to clear time to read it. Looking back on work set roughly in Austen’s lifetime that I have read over some 75 years, the Regency novels of Georgette Heyer remain my favorites. They are not Austen adjacent but populated with their own characters. Happily they are in print. You can find them in our webstore, search by Heyer. They can be read in any order. Heyer also wrote some mysteries and historical fiction so don’t confuse those with the Regencies. If you can find it, Elsie Lee wrote a gem called The Nabob’s Widow in 1976, about a young widow from India, Dianthe, who arrives in London and captures the attention of the Marquis of Dartford, a notorious bachelor, leading to a battle of wits and a romance as she navigates high society. The book is known for its Regency setting, witty dialogue, and the inclusion of cats, which are a signature of the author’s work. It isn’t Austen adjacent but it is a superior Regency. Several authors of mystery have written novels incorporating actual Austen characters. PD James, Claudia Gray, Jessica Bull, Val McDermid…. not to be confused with the many novels crafted in a larger world of Regency settings. For me the best of the Austen inspired mysteries are the books making up the On Being a Jane Austen Mystery Series by Stephanie Barron/Francine Mathews. While it is not essential to read them in order I recommend that you do. The final one takes place in 1817 as Jane is spending her final weeks in Winchester. They too can be ordered via our webstore or plucked from our shelves in the bookstore. Here is a video of Stephanie/Francine discussing Jane and her fiction, and her own fiction, with ASU’s Austen scholar Devoney Looser. Here is a link to the video of Professor Looser and I discussing her new critical workWild for Austen(St Martins $30) on November 18 here at The Poisoned Pen. It is subtitled “A Rebellious, Subversive, and Untamed Jane.” I love this video on YouTube titled“When Emma Thompson pretended to be Jane Austen” taken when Emma won the Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay for Sense and Sensibility. AND finally, here is a review by author Dana Stabenow of Introducing Mrs. Collins, cover art below which expresses her enthusiasm and mine for the remarkable way author Parris gives voices, surprising voices but true, to some of the cast of Pride and Prejudice as they went on to live their lives. “Like all writers Jane Austen reserves subtlety and nuance, not to mention backstory, for her major characters, reducing her minor characters oftentimes to caricatures, albeit ones so deftly drawn that they frequently steal scenes right out from under everyone else on the page. No one makes me wince more than Mrs. Bennet or cringe more than Mr. Collins. But here Rachel Parris chooses to lend her subtlety and nuance instead to those same minor characters, turning them from caricatures into human beings. This is Charlotte Lucas’ story and they are seen through her eyes, which are much kinder than Elizabeth’s and every bit as much amused. During weeks when she had not spent many hours with him, she could think that, in time, she might come to love him, in a companionable sort of way. On days when he was buzzing around her, like a persistent wasp, she thought that, at most she would be able to tolerate him indefinitely. And at other times, she pinned her hopes on the notion that a sudden apoplexy would carry him off. The novel begins with Charlotte’s acceptance of Mr. Collins’ proposal and follows the narrative of Pride and Prejudice fairly faithfully, but in this case with Charlotte as our lead, who makes a choice to settle for what she can get. She sticks to it no matter how great the temptation is to do otherwise when offered true love, only to be rewarded for following (mostly) the honorable path as approved of by society. It’s a happy ever after ending, but it’s earned. There are as in the OT (Original Text) epistolary interpolations and more of them in different voices which gild the narrative lily throughout, including a superb letter from Mr. Bennet to Mr. Collins in response to that infamous letter Mr. Collins wrote to Mr. Bennet following Lydia’s elopement: Lydia is not the most sensible of young ladies, but she is of good heart, and she does not judge others for their errors, as some do. “Judge not, that yet be not judged’ in Matthew is a passage well-thumbed in my Bible; presumably that chapter remains pristine in your own copy. The flashback scenes involving Mr. Collins’ past will satisfy any question anyone has ever had about why Mr. Collins is the way he is, Colonel Fitzwilliam is allowed to show Charlotte (and the reader) the true cost of the Napoleonic Wars to the men fighting them, and most astonishingly and without losing any of her joie de telling-everyone-what-to-do, Lady Catherine de Bourgh displays a shocking amount of empathy. Anne de Bourgh is given her own voice, Maria Lucas is transformed into more than just a pretty airhead, and through Charlotte’s superior understanding and tolerance Parris even manages to bring some perspective to Mrs. Bennet. …consider her situation. She is a widow who has lost her home—the home in which she raised her five daughters—thanks to some old legal papers she has never even seen. I think I would be angry forever. There are a few false notes (I don’t remember Austen’s characters ever grinning and certainly Elizabeth, Jane, and Charlotte never behaved in “raucous” fashion in their lives), but of all the multitudinous Jane Austen spinoffs I have read this is the best one yet, written perhaps in a minor key but not a lower one. Bravo!”” |
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