A Jane Austen Education

So for the first post, I'll be doing something a little different than I'd initially planned. At the same time, in a way, it's also going back to my roots as a blogger.

In A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, and the Things That Really Matter, book critic William Deresiewicz takes the reader through his personal journey through Jane Austen, beginning with the moody university student who would never have touched something as silly as one of those books, through his growth as a person, and finally, his marriage.

Initially forced to read Emma by his college professor, he initially regards the book as a tedious slog in which nothing happens. That is, up until this exchange. During a game designed to flatter the heroine, people are told to say either "one thing very clever,...or two things moderately clever,...or three things very dull indeed." Miss Bates, a simple spinster, responds rather self-consciously that she shouldn't have any trouble with that--she'd be sure to say three dull things as soon as she opens her mouth.

Emma, carried away by her sense of superiority, retorts, "Ah! ma'am, but there may be a difficulty. Pardon me--but you will be limited as to a number--only three at once"

Deresiewicz writes, "It was a shocking piece of cruelty, all the worse for the way its victim received it." Miss Bates concludes that it must be her own fault--after all, why would Emma say such a thing unless she was making herself disagreeable? This is the turning point for Deresiewicz, who realizes, "Emma's cruelty, which I was so quick to criticize, was nothing, I saw, but the mirror image of my own. The boredom and contempt the book aroused were not signs of Austen's ineptitude; they were the exact responses she wanted me to have." It's at this point that he realizes that all the trivia and small talk isn't puttering around waiting for the point--or evidence of the absence of a point--in fact, it is the point.

As he reads the rest of Emma with a new set of eyes, he goes on to make many astute observations, one of the most poignant being the way in which Austen taught him "what it means to see and think and talk like a woman," and how "the very idea that those things might be worth my while had seemed ridiculous to me before I encountered her."

In other words, Austen didn't seek to escape from femininity or the domestic sphere, regarding it as inherently unimportant, but instead sought to show the perspective from its true light--as something every bit as valuable as the things out in "man's world" (to borrow a term from elsewhere).

Although he would eventually read her other books as a fan now, instead of a cynical skeptic, Deresiewicz isn't afraid to write about areas where he didn't get it--or even to say when he outright disliked characters or situations. It seems poor Fanny (of Mansfield Park) just can't get much love from a modern audience. However, as opposed to some, who write what amounts to, "I didn't like her. Why can't Mary be the protagonist?" he is still able to recognize Austen's intent in writing her, and even though he never does come to love Fanny, he is still able to learn from the book and to recognize her for the qualities she has. That's not something I see very often in the modern world.

Deresiewicz views the pages of Austen's works with a fresh insight, ironically brought about by his intentional alienation from her, and makes several connections which I had never thought of before. Granted, I was fourteen years old--probably a bit too young for them, especially since I wanted to take things 100% seriously, whether they were meant to be or not. Nevertheless, I had never much cared for Emma before. Probably has something to do with its being a comedy, and me, in my 14-year-old, modern, literal frame of mind, wanting very badly to see it as a completely serious romance. I've begun re-reading it with these new insights, and already I'm shocked at some of the things that flew over my head.

Deresiewicz writes in a conversational style, which is fitting, considering this is the narrative of his personal journey. I appreciated how he never seems to talk down to the reader--although he specifically notes it as something he learned to get over during his trip through Pride and Prejudice. The reader is an equal partner in this journey. Perhaps because of this, it reads much more like a novel than a literary analysis. Again, what analysis is there is written in a conversational style, so it's much more like a dialogue than a lecture.

The book in total is a little over 250 pages, and certainly worth the read.

I'll see you on the next shelf!
  --RinRin