Penguin Deluxe

I've just bought two more of these beautiful Penguin Classics Deluxe Editions. They are so beautiful that I can't resist. I have to blame Pam of Travellin' Penguin for the copy of Moby Dick. She's reading along with a group read of this &, although I'm too late to join in, I'm enjoying reading her impressions of the book (Pam's blog is worth reading for lots of other reasons, from the stories about her gorgeous pets to her journeys around Tasmania on her motorbike & her extensive collection of Penguin Books). It's a book I've always wanted to read & I already have a Vintage Classics edition on the tbr shelves but this one is so lovely... I also have problems buying only one book at a time so I bought Dante's Divine Comedy as well.

I have several other Penguin Classics Deluxe Editions, mostly of books I already have in other editions, sometimes several other editions. There's no reason to have another copy of Persuasion (three other copies), Cold Comfort Farm (one other copy) or Ethan Frome (two other copies). I've also just realised that I also have ebooks of the Austen & Wharton... I've written before of this disturbing habit of owning multiple copies of a book & I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one & that, four years later, nothing's changed in this house.

I only own one copy of Sigrid Undset's Kristin Lavransdatter & it's a Penguin Deluxe but it's the book I feel guiltiest about. Back in 2007, Dani at A Work in Progress, was reading this book (actually three books in one volume) & I bought a copy fully intending to read along. Well, I didn't, & it's still on the tbr shelves although I'm so glad to own such a beautiful book. I think that cover is one of my favourites of all the books I own.

Apart from beautiful cover design, the Penguin Classics Deluxe Editions also have good paper, clear print &, most important of all, a flexible spine so that they sit comfortably in the hand without needing to crack the spine to keep them open. Here's the website if you want to be tempted. I still want the Sense and Sensibility (three other copies)...

Sunday Poetry - Austen, Shakespeare & Cowper

Another favourite movie of a favourite book. Sense and Sensibility is my second favourite Jane Austen novel (after Persuasion) & Emma Thompson's intelligent adaptation of the novel is one of my favourite Austen adaptations. The two poems I'm going to feature today aren't mentioned in the text but Emma Thompson has cleverly expanded on Austen's hints to create two scenes which point out the differences between Elinor & Marianne & the men they fall in love with.

At Norland, Marianne asks Edward Ferrars to read to them one evening. Edward's reading of Cowper, one of Marianne's favourite poets, is spiritless & tame in her opinion. "To hear those beautiful lines which have frequently almost driven me wild, pronounced with such impenetrable calmness, such difference!" We don't know which of Cowper's poems produced such a response but in the film, Hugh Grant, playing Edward, reads from Cowper's The Castaway, in his best hesitant, stammering manner. This dramatic poem of shipwreck, in Marianne's opinion, demands a suitably dramatic, impassioned delivery. Elinor, on the other hand, can see no fault in Edward's reading & Mrs Dashwood just says that Marianne shouldn't have given him Cowper to read but some nice prose.

Obscurest night involv'd the sky,
     Th' Atlantic billows roar'd,
When such a destin'd wretch as I,
     Wash'd headlong from on board,
Of friends, of hope, of all bereft,
His floating home for ever left.

No braver chief could Albion boast
     Than he with whom he went,
Nor ever ship left Albion's coast,
     With warmer wishes sent.
He lov'd them both, but both in vain,
Nor him beheld, nor her again.

Not long beneath the whelming brine,
     Expert to swim, he lay;
Nor soon he felt his strength decline,
     Or courage die away;
But wag'd with death a lasting strife,
Supported by despair of life.

He shouted: nor his friends had fail'd
     To check the vessel's course,
But so the furious blast prevail'd,
     That, pitiless perforce,
They left their outcast mate behind,
And scudded still before the wind.

Some succour yet they could afford;
     And, such as storms allow,
The cask, the coop, the floated cord,
     Delay'd not to bestow.
But he (they knew) nor ship, nor shore,
Whate'er they gave, should visit more.

Nor, cruel as it seem'd, could he
     Their haste himself condemn,
Aware that flight, in such a sea,
     Alone could rescue them;
Yet bitter felt it still to die
Deserted, and his friends so nigh.

He long survives, who lives an hour
     In ocean, self-upheld;
And so long he, with unspent pow'r,
     His destiny repell'd;
And ever, as the minutes flew,
Entreated help, or cried—Adieu!

At length, his transient respite past,
     His comrades, who before
Had heard his voice in ev'ry blast,
     Could catch the sound no more.
For then, by toil subdued, he drank
The stifling wave, and then he sank.

No poet wept him: but the page
     Of narrative sincere,
That tells his name, his worth, his age,
     Is wet with Anson's tear.
And tears by bards or heroes shed
Alike immortalize the dead.

I therefore purpose not, or dream,
     Descanting on his fate,
To give the melancholy theme
     A more enduring date:
But misery still delights to trace
Its 'semblance in another's case.

No voice divine the storm allay'd,
     No light propitious shone;
When, snatch'd from all effectual aid,
     We perish'd, each alone:
But I beneath a rougher sea,
And whelm'd in deeper gulphs than he.

In contrast, Marianne can find no fault with John Willoughby's taste in literature. After their dramatic introduction, he visits the family & Marianne soon finds that their tastes coincide exactly. As Elinor says,

"Well, Marianne, for one morning I think you have done pretty well. You have already ascertained Mr Willoughby's opinion in almost every matter of importance. You know what he thinks of Cowper and Scott; you are certain of his estimating their beauties as he ought, and you have received every assurance of his admiring Pope no more than is proper. But how is your acquaintance to be long supported, under such extraordinary dispatch of every subject for discourse? You will soon have exhausted each favourite topic. Another meeting will suffice to explain his sentiments on picturesque beauty and second marriages, and then you can have nothing further to ask."

In the movie, Willoughby recites one of Shakespeare's most beautiful sonnets, no 116,

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
   If this be error and upon me proved,
   I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

He even has a pocket edition of the sonnets which he carries with him everywhere - not that he needs it as he knows them by heart. Marianne is halfway in love before she knows it.

The temptation of bookshops

I bought two books this morning. That probably doesn't surprise anyone who reads this blog. But, I bought copies of two books that I already own several copies of (or should that be, of which I own several copies...). I'd come across the Penguin Deluxe edition of Persuasion on the internet just the other day & I'd popped it into my wishlist at The Book Depository. I have the Deluxe edition of Cold Comfort Farm & I know how beautiful they are.

This morning, I went to the Farmers Market which is in a park behind the local shops & after I bought veggies, honey, handmade soap & had a delicious coffee, I went into my local bookshop because I had time & I can never resist a look round. Even though I buy books for a living, I rarely see the actual books anymore. All my buying for the library, except children's picture books, is now done online. I read reviews & blurbs but I don't see the books, feel the paper & look at the illustrations & layout as I used to do. There are also far fewer local bookshops for me to browse in. My local bookshop is part of a chain but it's owned by the man who runs it & has a great selection of local books, bestsellers & a lovely Classics section.

I was browsing through the Classics & there it was, the Penguin Deluxe edition of Persuasion. Just along the shelf was the Penguin threads edition of Emma. Even though Emma is my least favourite Austen novel, I'd been tempted by the Threads edition before. I keep thinking that if I read it often enough, I'll warm to Emma Woodhouse eventually.  If you haven't come across the Threads editions, they have a raised design on the covers that is just like embroidery. The back of the cover even looks like the back of a piece of needlework with all the ends of the threads showing. The artist is Jillian Tamaki & you can see all the covers here. I could have bought them online for a few dollars less but there they were & there I was with the money burning a hole in my purse and Reader, I bought them! So, now I have yet another copy of both Emma & Persuasion. I've already justified my addiction to multiple copies of my favourite books. Every time I add a book to Library Thing & it helpfully tells me I already own another copy, I just think So what? There are worse addictions to have.

Next time I want to read either book, these will be the copies I reach for. I might have bought them online one day but it's such a treat to browse in a real bookshop that I'm glad I bought them this morning in my local bookshop.

Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

2013 is the 200th anniversary of the publication of Pride and Prejudice. I planned to reread this most famous of books early in the year but there was so much hype about the anniversary that I put the book aside, knowing that the right moment would present itself sometime during the year.

That moment proved to be last week when I watched the 1980 BBC TV series of Pride and Prejudice for the first time probably since it was first broadcast. The overwhelming success of the 1995 version with Jennifer Ehle & Colin Firth has eclipsed this series & the BBC only seem to keep one version of their classic series available on DVD at any one time. I hadn't seen the 1980 series with Elizabeth Garvie & David Rintoul since it was repeated on television in the early 1980s. Remember, these were the dark ages, before VHS or DVD. You watched it on TV at the time it was shown or you missed out entirely. So, I was very pleased to discover that the 1980 series was available from Amazon UK in this Dutch packaged version. I've bought a couple of other series in this European packaging & as long as you remember to turn off the subtitles, it's fine.

I'm not going to tell you the plot of Pride and Prejudice. If you haven't read the book, I'd be surprised if you haven't seen one of the many film & television adaptations or read the sequels & clones that fill the romance section of any bookshop. The love story of proud Mr Darcy & prejudiced Miss Bennet is well-known. I thought I'd just quote some of my favourite lines & tell you about the 1980 series which was scripted by Fay Weldon.

I was intrigued by this version because Susannah Fullerton, President of the Jane Austen Society of Australia, & author of a lovely book about Pride and Prejudice called Happily Ever After, considers it one of the best adaptations. I have to agree with her. It's in five episodes rather than the six of the 1995 version. Most of that extra episode was taken up with Andrew Davies' extra scenes for Mr Darcy. We see Darcy writing, fencing, searching London for Wickham & Lydia, surprising the eloping couple at Ramsgate &, most famously, emerging from that lake at Pemberley. In the 1980 version, Mr Darcy more prosaically appears around a hedge to confront Elizabeth, preceded by his dog. The 1995 version also has several scenes of Darcy & Bingley talking while playing billiards etc which never appear in the novel because, famously, Jane Austen never has a scene with only two men talking together.

The script is very close to the novel & there are only a few changes that I picked up. When Lydia's elopement is revealed to Lizzie in a letter from Jane, she is at the inn at Lambton where Darcy finds her in great distress. In this version, Lizzie runs to Pemberley, bursting into the drawing room in search of her uncle Gardiner. I thought that was ridiculous & not an improvement on the scene as written. The final scene is the second proposal & it fell rather flat. We also miss out on the scenes of astonishment when the Bennets hear that Lizzie is to marry Darcy who she has openly disliked for much of the novel. There certainly isn't the same chemistry between Garvie & Rintoul as there was between Ehle & Firth but I think they're both very good in their roles. I think I prefer Garvie as Elizabeth. She has all the vivacity & liveliness of Lizzie & there are several scenes where Garvie is heard in voiceover reflecting Lizzie's thoughts as we read them in the book. Darcy is a difficult role because he spends more than half the novel stalking around looking proud & disagreeable. It's not until he meets Lizzie & the Gardiners at Pemberley that we see him at ease. David Rintoul was very good in the first proposal scene & I much preferred the portrait of him at Pemberley to the one of Colin Firth in the 1995 series.

The rest of the cast are also very good. I loved Priscilla Morgan's Mrs Bennet & Irene Richard, who was Elinor Dashwood in an early Sense and Sensibility, was plain & sensible as Charlotte Lucas. Mr Collins was played by Malcolm Rennie in a beautifully smiling, fat, unctuous manner. Judy Parfitt was very aristocratic as Lady Catherine. She didn't even bother to acknowledge Mrs Bennet when she arrives at Longbourn to confront Lizzie about her intentions towards Darcy. This is an excellent adaptation & I think I prefer it now to the 1995 version. The production values may have been higher in the later version but there were fewer heaving bosoms & overt sex appeal in the earlier series & I think I prefer that.

So, my favourite scenes from the novel. There are so many witty lines that make me laugh out loud but here are a few scenes that give me a quieter pleasure.

When Lizzie goes to Netherfield to look after Jane who is ill, she has to contend with Miss Bingley's  snide comments & her attempts to ingratiate herself with Mr Darcy.

'Mr Darcy is not to be laughed at!' cried Elizabeth. 'That is an uncommon advantage, and uncommon I hope it will continue, for it would be a great loss to me to have many such acquaintance. I dearly love a laugh.'
'Miss Bingley,' said he, 'has given me credit for more than can be. The wisest and the best of men, nay, the wisest and best of their actions, may be rendered ridiculous by a person whose first object is a joke.'
'Certainly,' replied Elizabeth - 'there are such people, but I hope I am not one of them. I hope I never ridicule what is wise or good. Follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies do divert me, I own and I laugh at them whenever I can. - But these, I suppose, are precisely what you are without.'

When Darcy & Elizabeth meet at Rosings, he tries to explain away his rudeness at the Assembly Ball by saying that he didn't dance because he knew nobody outside his own party of friends & lacked practice in recommending himself to strangers. Lizzie doesn't allow him to get away with this, comparing his lack of social grace with her skill at the piano,

'My fingers,''  said Elizabeth, 'do not move over this instrument in the masterly manner which I have seen so many women's do. They have not the same force or rapidity, and do not produce the same expression. But then I have always supposed it to be my own fault - because I would not take the trouble of practising. It is not that I do not believe my fingers as capable as any other woman's of superior execution.'
Darcy smiled and said, 'You are perfectly right. You have employed your timer much better. No one admitted to the privilege of hearing you, can think anything wanting. We neither of us perform to strangers.'

Then, at the end of the novel, we have another of Jane Austen's proposals when we don't hear the words spoken, only the gratifying effects,

Elizabeth, feeling all the more than common awkwardness and anxiety of his situation, now forced herself to speak; and immediately, though not very fluently, gave him to understand, that her sentiments had undergone so material a change, since the period to which he alluded, as to make her receive with gratitude and pleasure, his present assurances. The happiness which this reply produced, was such as he had probably never felt before; and he expressed himself on the occasion as sensibly and as warmly as a man violently in love can be supposed to do. Had Elizabeth been able to encounter his eye, she might have seen how well the expression of heartfelt delight, diffused over his face, became him; but, though she could not look, she could listen, and he told her of feelings, which, in proving of what importance she was to him, made his affection every moment more valuable.

Taking a break

I'm taking a little break from blogging for a week or two. Summer has been going on quite long enough for me but somehow it doesn't look like ending any time soon. Summer in Melbourne usually means three hot days & a cool change. So far, we've had a week of temperatures over 30C & there's almost another week to come. So I'm feeling a bit wrung out. I'm doing lots of rereading - A Glass of Blessings by Barbara Pym, Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey, dipping into Kathleen Jamie's Sightlines & reading some of the piles of magazines & journals tottering on the coffee table. I've been listening to Jeeves & the Feudal Spirit by P G Wodehouse read by the inimitable Jonathan Cecil on the way to work which has made me laugh every morning & I've also discovered the delights of history documentaries on Youtube so I've been In Search of the Dark Ages with Michael Wood & having a wonderful time.
I'll still pop in with some Sunday Poetry, Wordsworth this week. And I'll leave you with some links & some bookish news.

The Virago reprints of Rumer Godden's novels are here. I preordered these three last year & they arrived this week. I love stories about nuns & In This House of Brede is one of my favourites. I've seen the movie of Black Narcissus but never read the book & I have a copy of A Fugue in Time that I picked up from a secondhand bookshop. I believe China Court is a sequel or reimagining of the earlier book. Leave & Pages has reviewed A Fugue in Time here.

For all the Ricardians & Janeites out there, here's a lovely blog post about the connections between Richard III & Jane Austen. I knew that Jane was a Yorkist but I'd never really considered before her dislike of the name Richard.

Greyladies are publishing a couple of very tempting books this month. Reading about the Gladys Mitchell book, On Your Marks, about a young PE teacher reminded me of Josephine Tey's Miss Pym Disposes & this recent review has inspired me to reread it. The other new book from Greyladies is Return to the West by Mabel Esther Allan & has a Scottish setting so I have to have that too. I'm calling them belated birthday presents to myself as I've been on the book buying wagon since Christmas.

See you after the cool change!

Happily Ever After - Susannah Fullerton

January 2013 marks the 200th anniversary of the publication of Pride and Prejudice. As Jane Austen's most famous novel regularly tops lists of the world's favourite novels, the celebrations of this milestone have been gathering steam for some time. I plan to reread the novel itself very soon but I've also been reading this lovely book about the phenomenon that is Pride and Prejudice by Susannah Fullerton, President of the Jane Austen Society of Australia.

Happily Ever After tells the story of the novel from its first incarnation as First Impressions to the publication of the book By A Lady, to the first reviews by the critics &, more importantly, Austen's friends & family. She discusses the style of the novel & Austen's use of free indirect speech & irony which set it apart from other novels of the time. Having just read Fanny Burney's Camilla, I can only agree that Pride and Prejudice represents quite a departure from other books of the period. Fullerton looks at the characters & the plot, dissects that famous first sentence & looks at the aspects of the story that have spawned a million romance novels from Mills & Boon to Bridget Jones's Diary & the pastel-covered chick lit of the 1990s.

Pride and Prejudice has been translated into over 20 languages & has been the subject of countless sequels & continuations. Elizabeth & Darcy's marriage has been analysed in every possible way & they're even the sleuths in a series of detective novels. The futures of most of the other characters have also been speculated about. My personal favourite has to be the novel where Mr Collins is killed off leaving Charlotte a happy widow. Then there are the erotic & horror novels that are "inspired" by Pride and Prejudice. I would much rather reread the original than read any of these but it's fun to read about them & I'm grateful that Fullerton has done the disagreeable work for me so that I will never feel the need to read them myself.

There have also been stage & film adaptations of Pride and Prejudice . The most famous of these are the 1940 film with Greer Garson & Laurence Olivier, the two BBC series in 1980 & 1995 & the 2005 movie with Keira Knightley & Matthew Macfadyen. I've always had a fondness for the 1940 movie because I love Olivier, even though Greer Garson is too old, the costumes are all wrong & the screenplay was based on a stage version rather than the book so some of the plot points are mangled. I love Melville Cooper as Mr Collins & Edmund Gwenn as Mr Bennet. I must have seen the 1980 series with Elizabeth Garvie & David Rintoul at some stage but I don't remember much about it. It's available on DVD so I'm tempted to buy it as Susannah Fullerton obviously has a great fondness for it & Elizabeth Garvie's performance is generally regarded as excellent.

The 1995 series with Jennifer Ehle & Colin Firth needs no introduction. I love it & have watched it many times. I didn't like the 2005 movie at all & have no desire to see it again although I probably should as my experience of it in the cinema was ruined by giggling teenage girls so I may have been too irritated to appreciate it. I'm sure I don't need to see some of the other adaptations discussed, especially the Mormon version made in 2003 or the 60 min version made for American television in 1959. The actress playing Elizabeth was 40 & the film ends with Elizabeth asking Darcy his Christian name. When he replies Fitzwilliam, she sighs happily & says "Ah, how nice." There's a still from the film in the book & even the costumes look wrong - Victorian, I think.

Happily Ever After concludes with a look at the merchandising that has been produced, especially since Darcymania took over the world after Colin Firth & that wet shirt scene set a million hearts fluttering. I find it quite odd that that scene, which of course isn't even in the book, has become so imitated (very wittily in Lost in Austen) & parodied that the character of Darcy has floated free of the book entirely. It's not even Elizabeth & Darcy, just Darcy or maybe it's really Colin Firth that everyone sighs over. Merchandising isn't new. There were Pamela gowns, fans & prints inspired by Samuel Richardson's novel in the 18th century & Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White inspired clothes & even a quadrille in the 19th century. However, there's been nothing to match the Jane Austen industry that has flourished in the 20th & 21st centuries. Everything from jigsaw puzzles to heritage-themed holidays has been linked to Jane Austen & her books.

Happily Ever After is a delightful book about one of my favourite novels. Pride and Prejudice isn't my favourite Austen novel. It would come third after Persuasion & Sense and Sensibility but I'm looking forward to reading it again & probably getting out my DVDs & watching Elizabeth & Darcy fall in love many times over the next few months.

Reading Plans for 2013

I've been making a few plans for my reading this year. I only read 106 books last year which is way down on the 143 I read in 2011. I think one of the reasons for this is that I'm spending more time on the internet now that I have an iPad. I joined Facebook to keep up with friends overseas but, even though I don't post very often, I spend half an hour nearly every night reading other posts, following links to articles & blogs & it's cutting into my reading time. It's so convenient to be able to settle down with Lucky on my lap & play with the iPad. I'm planning, as always, to stop buying books for a while & concentrate on my tbr shelves which are overflowing & full of riches. So, my reading needs to be more focused this year & there are a couple of anniversaries that I'm looking forward to as opportunities to reread two of my favourite authors.

Pride & Prejudice was published 200 years ago this year. A perfect excuse to read it again & I have lots of books about Jane Austen & her work on the tbr shelves that I'm looking forward to reading as well. A new book that has just been published & is on the way to me right now is by Susannah Fullerton, President of the Jane Austen Society of Australia. It's called Happily Ever After : Celebrating Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Fullerton discusses how the book was written, its early reception & growing popularity. I'll probably need to watch the BBC series again as well.

2013 is the centenary of the birth of Barbara Pym. There are plans around the blogosphere to reread all Pym's novels. You can see the details at Heavenali's blog here. I'm not sure I could keep up with one a month but I will read my favourites again - Excellent Women, A Glass of Blessings & Some Tame Gazelle. I'm also going to read the Pym I've been saving, the only one I haven't read, A Quartet in Autumn. What I've been saving it for, I'm not sure but I liked the idea that I hadn't read all Barbara Pym's novels, there was still one more treat in store.

My other project is to celebrate Persephone Books & their 100th title which was published a few months ago. I'd like to catch up with the Persephones I still have to read & hopefully find time to reread & review some of my favourites. I read most of my Persephones before I started the blog so I'd like a chance to revisit my favourite titles & reflect on how important Persephone has been to me reading over the last 12 years.

Then, there are a couple of reading projects I'm right in the middle of. I'm reading Fanny Burney's  Camilla with Dani at A Work in Progress. I'm nearly half way through, just about to finish Volume 3 & enjoying it very much. Although I do have to wonder just how many more misunderstandings Camilla & Edgar can endure without running mad. This is a long book, over 900pp, & I think it could definitely have been shorter. However, as it's my lunchtime book, I'm able to keep track of the plot without becoming overwhelmed by the complications & the urge to want to just put Edgar & Camilla in a room together & make them talk honestly to each other!

Then, Team Middlemarch at Dovegreyreader is coming to an end. Only the last two instalments to read & we'll be finishing appropriately in the middle of March. I've enjoyed the chance to read this brilliant novel again after many years. Maybe I'll be finishing Middlemarch & Camilla at around the same time?

That's probably enough to be going on with. Does anyone have any reading plans?

What Matters in Jane Austen? - John Mullan

The subtitle of this book is Twenty Crucial Puzzles Solved. It reminded me of the wonderful books of puzzles from classic fiction written by John Sutherland. It's definitely not a book for the novice Janeite, much too confusing. But, for someone like me who has read all the books several times, it's a delicious treat.

John Mullan looks at some of the questions that modern readers have that Jane Austen's contemporaries could take for granted. How much money did one need to get married? What books do the characters read? What games do they play? Why is it risky to go to the seaside? My favourite chapter is on the right & wrong ways to propose marriage. Just think of Mr Darcy's first proposal to Elizabeth, Mr Elton's tipsy proposal to Emma in the carriage on the way home from a party or Mr Collins's pompous confidence when asking Elizabeth to marry him. Contrast these comic proposals with the fact that we don't ever witness the proposals that are accepted. Anne & Captain Wentworth go for a walk & leave us behind. Mr Darcy's second proposal to Elizabeth is quite tentative until he is sure of her response. John Mullan thinks that we know these proposals will be accepted because the hero is unsure of acceptance.

Mullan uses these questions to reveal just how clever Austen was as a novelist. She was an innovator, her books are such a leap forward in style, with & readability from those that had gone before. John Mullan explains in the Introduction,

My book asks and answers some very specific questions about what goes on in her novels, in order to reveal her cleverness. The closer you look, the more you see.

This is a book to remind you of what you love in the novels & make you want to reread them. I can't really say any more about it than that. I read a chapter a day & found this was a perfect way to approach it. I learnt something from every chapter & was reminded of the reasons why I love Jane Austen & why her novels stand up to rereading where many others do not.

The divine Miss A

I never tire of reading Jane Austen or of reading about Jane Austen. I've just bought a new book by John Mullan that I've been waiting for with great anticipation. What Matters in Jane Austen? explores 20 critical puzzles about Jane Austen's life & work. I've dipped in already & I know I'm going to love it. The author looks at such questions as why it's risky to go to the seaside, what the characters call each other, what do the characters say about the heroine when she's not present & which important characters never speak.

The first chapter is about why age matters in the novels. It opens with the observation that Mrs Bennet is probably only about 40 & Mr Collins 25. The casting of the various movie & television adaptations sometimes colours our impressions of the age of the various characters. I've always thought it interesting that Colonel Brandon at 35 never thinks of Mrs Dashwood as a potential partner & she can't be more than 40. Was her widowhood off-putting? Were men just expected to look for younger brides who could have children? I'm looking forward to John Mullan's opinion on these vital questions. I've read many biographies of Jane Austen & this is just the kind of book I enjoy. Looking at the life & work from a different angle.

I'm a member of the Jane Austen Society of Australia &, although I can't attend meetings (they're based in Sydney), I enjoy reading their publications which usually contain the texts of the talks & presentations from the study days & conferences they organize. Sensibilities is published twice a year & the December issue contains all the papers from the 2011 conference on Sense & Sensibility. There are articles on marriage in Sense & Sensibility (by Hazel Jones, whose book Jane Austen & Marriage, is on the tbr shelves), Emma Thompson's film version of the novel, an assessment of the 1981 mini series version & an exploration of the notorious Dashwood family, one of whom was the founder of the Hell-fire Club for rakes & renegades & what Jane could have known about this scandalous episode.

I've also succumbed to a Jane Austen-related impulse buy. Reader's Niche is a Melbourne-based online business that sells all kinds of objects with literary associations. When I saw this lovely scarf, I couldn't resist. It's a gorgeous dusty pink colour & as you can see, has a prettified picture of Jane & a quotation from Pride & Prejudice. The website isn't terribly easy to find your way around (the scarves are under Home Decor) but there are lots of posters, tea towels, coffee mugs & even T shirts & charm bracelets. Now if I can only work out how to tie the scarf so that the picture & quotation are both visible... I'm not clever with scarves but I just had to have it. Could any true Janeite resist?

Becoming Jane Austen - Jon Spence

I've read a lot of biographies of Jane Austen. She's one of my favourite authors &, in some ways, one of the most unknowable. Famously, her sister, Cassandra, burnt most of her letters after her death & the letters that remain are, with a few exceptions, concerned with domestic matters, fashion & a little polite gossip. The first biography was written by her nephew, James Edward Austen-Leigh, in the Victorian period & portrays a genteel woman who may have written novels but did everything in the best possible taste. In the 20th century, biographers have variously seen Jane Austen as a sour spinster or a radical feminist. Jon Spence's biography, written in 2003, looks at Austen as a writer & searches for the people & places that may have inspired her fiction.

Becoming Jane Austen became famous or notorious as the basis for the film, Becoming Jane, starring Anne Hathaway & James McAvoy. I quite liked the movie but it didn't completely satisfy me. Some of the plot elements seemed unbelievable although I did like the relationship between Jane & Cassandra & between Jane & her mother. They had the ring of truth & I found the same ring of truth in this book. Of course, the central premise of the movie & book was that Jane Austen fell in love with Tom Lefroy, a young lawyer, but they couldn't marry because she had no money & he was at the beginning of his career & couldn't support a wife. This lost love was the basis for the romantic relationships she wrote about in her novels.

Jon Spence builds up a convincing case for the idea that Jane was attracted to Tom. There are joking references to their meeting & dancing at parties in Jane's letters to Cassandra. I don't find it inconceivable that Jane was infatuated with an attractive young man & every experience is useful to a novelist. Spence doesn't give the relationship more weight than it can bear on the basis of the letters & family tradition & I found his theory persuasive. He doesn't make the mistake of assuming that Jane Austen couldn't have written about love if she hadn't experienced it herself. She wrote about many things she couldn't have experienced including marriage & motherhood. She was a novelist, she had imagination.

Her imagination carried her out of herself, not only into those fictional worlds and characters she created, but into the real world and into the feelings and thoughts and situations of many other people, making her life richer and more varied than might casually appear. She was not limited by the emotions and experiences that were directly her own. In observing Jane's habits of mind and imagination at this time we see how she practised imaginative engagement as a moral activity - an exercise in turning outward from herself.

He also doesn't go down the route of more romantic biographers of single lady novelists who can't bear the thought that their heroines never experienced romance. Emily & Anne Brontё have suffered from this as well!

The reality of Jane & Cassandra Austen's lives was that they had no money of their own & could only marry men who could support them. Cassandra became engaged to a young clergyman, Tom Fowle. He went out to the West Indies as a chaplain to further his career so that they could marry but died of fever. It's a tragic story but they could not have married without money. Jane accepted a proposal of marriage from Harris Bigg-Wither, a family friend. The next day she retracted her promise because she didn't love him. The marriage would have been a good match, financially secure. It would have meant security for Jane & Cassandra but she wasn't prepared to sacrifice her feelings. That was the reality for women in early 19th century England. Jane Austen uses this reality brilliantly in the story of Charlotte Lucas in Pride & Prejudice. Charlotte's options are limited. Already in her 20s, plain & with no fortune, she accepts dreadful, sycophantic Mr Collins & makes the best of her life with him. This was the more realistic future for someone like Elizabeth Bennet instead of the gorgeous fairytale of marriage to Mr Darcy.

When their father died, Jane & Cassandra (& their mother) had to rely on their brothers to contribute to their support. Eventually this led to the happy years at Chawton Cottage but they lived in uncomfortable circumstances in Bath & Southampton for several years before that happened. It's significant that, although Jane had written juvenilia & probably the first versions of several of the novels in earlier years, she published nothing until she felt secure at Chawton. The story of Jane's career as a novelist is well-told here. Jane was a clever businesswoman who made her reputation with Sense & Sensibility & used the word-of-mouth success of her first novel to good effect when publishing her masterpiece, Pride & Prejudice, on better terms. Her satisfaction in her earnings reflects her desire for independence. She left everything she owned to Cassandra in her will.

Jon Spence begins his book with a look at Jane's ancestors. When a biography begins with a ramble through the family tree of the subject, it usually makes my eyes glaze over & I start skimming. However, this time it was fascinating. The stories of her ancestors found their way into the novels, especially the story of old John Austen, who left all his fortune to his eldest grandson, ignoring the boy's half-siblings, whose widowed mother had to scrape & save to give them the education they would need to make their way in the world. Jane Austen knew this story & used it in Sense & Sensibility.

Jane's relationship with her lively cousin, Eliza, is also explored. Eliza was about 10 years older than Jane, just the right age for heroine-worship & Eliza became almost a fantasy figure to Jane as she flirted with her favourite brother, Henry, married a French Count who was guillotined during the Revolution, & eventually returned to England & married Henry. Spence relates this relationship to some of the characters in the juvenilia & also characters like Mary Crawford in Mansfield Park. It sent me back to the juvenilia which I hadn't read for years. That's what I loved about Becoming Jane Austen. Jon Spence tells the familiar story of Jane Austen's life in a fresh way. By focusing on her family history & her relationships with significant people like Tom Lefroy & Eliza, he encouraged me to look at Jane Austen in a more rounded way.

Sense & Sensibility - Jane Austen

2011 is the 200th anniversary of the publication of Jane Austen's first novel, Sense & Sensibility. I've read it 3 or 4 times over the years but it's been a while so I was pleased to have the anniversary to prompt yet another reread. Sense & Sensibility is probably my second favourite Austen after Persuasion. I love my old 1980's Penguin paperback with the portrait of the Linley Larks by Gainsborough on the cover. Elizabeth (who married Richard Brinsley Sheridan) & her sister Mary were famous singers & actresses in the late 18th century. This is how I always imagined Elinor & Marianne. Even after the 1990's movie, I still see them this way although I found I had the music from the movie in my head as well. One of the loveliest movie soundtracks ever, I think.

It's hard to review such a famous novel. The story is that of two sisters, Elinor & Marianne Dashwood. Left very badly-off after their father's death, Elinor & Marianne, with their mother & younger sister, Margaret, must leave Norland, the family estate & eventually rent a cottage in Devonshire, part of the estate of Mrs Dashwood's relation, Sir John Middleton. Elinor, calm & prudent, has met her sister-in-law's brother, Edward Ferrars, at Norland & they have formed an unspoken attachment. Marianne is all sensibility, all romance & when she meets the dashing John Willoughby, she is ready to fall passionately in love.

Sir John Middleton is a hospitable man with a very boring wife & a vulgar, garrulous but kind-hearted mother-in-law, Mrs Jennings. Sir John's friend, Colonel Brandon, is immediately attracted to Marianne but she dismisses him as a virtual invalid. He's in his 30s & wears a flannel waistcoat, his life is practically over. Willoughby is young, handsome, drives a curricle & is just as passionate about Shakespeare's sonnets & dancing as Marianne could desire. Their absorption in each other makes them a source of gossip to Sir John & Mrs Jennings & concerns Elinor, who hopes they are engaged but has no definite information from either of the lovers.

Elinor is also hoping to hear from Edward but knows that his mother & snobbish sister, Fanny, would not welcome the match. Elinor's hopes are dashed when she learns from Lucy Steele, a young relation of Mrs Jennings's that she has been engaged to Edward herself for four years. When Willoughby suddenly leaves Barton without explanation & is soon after heard of courting a young heiress, it seems that both Elinor & Marianne will never have their heart's desire.

A brief plot summary can never give the flavour of Austen's witty, romantic writing. Elinor & Marianne are loving sisters but they are contrasted in their responses to every situation. Elinor is the sensible, polite, courteous one who does all the work of keeping up their social relationships with the Middletons, the Steeles, their own half-brother, John & his horrible wife, Fanny, while Marianne is rude to everyone & totally self-absorbed. Elinor's situation regarding Edward is just as hopeless as Marianne's but while Marianne indulges her misery, forgetting to sleep or eat & ruining her health in the process, Elinor keeps up appearances while keeping Lucy's secret from everyone. The scene where Elinor finally admits to Marianne her heartbreak is very moving, as much for the fact that Marianne finally begins to see how selfish her own behaviour has been, as for Elinor's emotional declaration of love & misery.

The famous opening chapters when John & Fanny Dashwood discuss how much help they can give his stepmother & half-sisters (ranging from £3000 to an occasional chicken or some vegetables) sums this mercenary, selfish couple up immediately. The minor characters are also wonderful. I love Mrs Jennings. She may be vulgar & irritating but she has a kind heart. Trying to cheer Marianne up with a glass of the best Constantia wine is one of my favourite moments in the book. Mrs Jennings's pretty, flibbertigibbet daughter, Charlotte & her sarcastic, bored husband, Mr Palmer (I must admit I always see them now as Imelda Staunton & Hugh Laurie). Edward's brother, Robert, a fop who enthuses about living in a cottage of palatial proportions & spends hours choosing a toothpick case. Sly, knowing Lucy Steele, engaged to a man she knows prefers another woman but enjoying the fact that she can torture Elinor while having sworn her to secrecy.

If I started quoting lines & passages, I'd never stop, so I won't start. If you haven't read Sense & Sensibility, you must. It's an astonishing first novel, although we know that Jane Austen had written a lot of juvenilia & Sense & Sensibility was revised in 1811 from an earlier epistolary novel called Elinor & Marianne. I plan to reread all Jane Austen's over the next few years as the anniversaries of their publication come round. It will a delight & I'm looking forward to it.

It's taken me over a week to write this review as I've been preoccupied with two new additions to my household. If I can get some good photos, I'll introduce them to you over the weekend.

Sunday poetry - William Cowper

All I knew about William Cowper (picture from here) before I looked him up just now was that he was one of Jane Austen's favourite poets & she planted a syringa at Chawton because of a line in one of his poems. The son of a Hertfordshire rector, Cowper was a sensitive man who suffered from depression & religious melancholia. He was called to the bar but doesn't seem to have practised. He lodged with the Rev Unwin, an evangelical preacher & his wife & they encouraged his writing. After Mr Unwin's death, he moved with Mary Unwin to Olney where he wrote the poem I've chosen here, The Solitude of Alexander Selkirk. Selkirk was the original of Robinson Crusoe & I think it's the idea of Selkirk's loneliness on his island that attracted Cowper to the story. Cowper's own emotional life seems to have been quite solitary. He was engaged to a cousin but the marriage didn't happen & then to Mrs Unwin, his friend & patron but, again, they didn't marry. I didn't know any of this when I read the poem but I was struck by the gentle melancholy & resignation of the speaker.

I am monarch of all I survey;
My right there is none to dispute;
From the centre all round to the sea
I am lord of the fowl and the brute.
O Solitude! where are the charms
That sages have seen in thy face?
Better dwell in the midst of alarms
Than reign in this horrible place.


I am out of humanity's reach,
I must finish my journey alone,
Never hear the sweet music of speech;
I start at the sound of my own.
The beasts that roam over the plain
My form with indifference see;
They are so unacquainted with man,
Their tameness is shocking to me.


Society, Friendship, and Love
Divinely bestow'd upon man,
O had I the wings of a dove
How soon would I taste you again!
My sorrows I then might assuage
In the ways of religion and truth,
Might learn from the wisdom of age,
And be cheer'd by the sallies of youth.


Ye winds that have made me your sport,
Convey to this desolate shore
Some cordial endearing report
Of a land I shall visit no more:
My friends, do they now and then send
A wish or a thought after me?
O tell me I yet have a friend,
Though a friend I am never to see.


How fleet is a glance of the mind!
Compared with the speed of its flight,
The tempest itself lags behind,
And the swift-wingéd arrows of light.
When I think of my own native land
In a moment I seem to be there;
But alas! recollection at hand
Soon hurries me back to despair.


But the seafowl is gone to her nest,
The beast is laid down in his lair;
Even here is a season of rest,
And I to my cabin repair.
There's mercy in every place,
And mercy, encouraging thought!
Gives even affliction a grace
And reconciles man to his lot.

Sunday poetry - James Thomson

We've had a week of perfect autumn weather in Melbourne. Warm, sunny, gentle breezes, leaves gently falling from the trees. It made me think of Anne Elliot's autumn walk in Persuasion where she finds herself "repeating to herself some few of the thousand poetical descriptions extant of autumn, that season of peculiar and inexhaustible influence on the mind of taste and tenderness, that season which has drawn from every poet, worthy of being read, some attempt at description, or some lines of feeling." I like to think that James Thomson's Autumn, part of his very popular book The Seasons, was one of the poems Anne remembered during her walk to stop her thinking about what Captain Wentworth & Louisa Musgrove might be talking about!

James Thomson was a Scottish poet. After studying for the ministry, he decided to pursue a literary career & moved to London in an effort to have his work published. As well as The Seasons, he also wrote the words of Rule Britannia, which led to Frederick, Prince of Wales awarding him a pension. Thomson died in his late 40s. Samuel Johnson wrote of his death, "by taking cold on the water between London and Kew, he caught a disorder, which, with some careless exasperation, ended in a fever that put end to his life." I love the portrait above (from here), those early 18th century turbans are so stylish. The Seasons is a very long poem, so here's just one verse that I particularly like,

The pale descending year, yet pleasing still,
A gentler mood inspires; for now the leaf
Incessant rustles from the mournful grove;
Oft startling such as studious walk below,
And slowly circles through the waving air.
But should a quicker breeze among the boughs
Sob, o'er the sky the leafy deluge streams;
Till choked, and matted with the dreary shower,
The forest walks, at every rising gale,
Roll wide the withered waste, and whistle bleak.
Fled is the blasted verdure of the fields;
And, shrunk into their beds, the flowery race
Their sunny robes resign. E'en what remained
Of stronger fruits falls from the naked tree;
And woods, fields, gardens, orchards all around,
The desolated prospect thrills the soul.

That final line might have pleased even Marianne Dashwood at her most intensely Romantic.

BBC Emma

I’ve just watched the new BBC production of Emma. I’m glad I read the book again recently because I found I liked Emma better this time than ever before so I was predisposed to enjoy the series. Romola Garai was a lovely Emma. She portrayed Emma’s unconscious snobbery & frustration with the inanities of village life as well as the loving care she shows her father. Jonny Lee Miller was wonderful as Mr Knightley, one of my favourite Austen heroes. He did a lot with just a glance. Mr Knightley’s reactions to Frank Churchill, Jane Fairfax, Harriet Smith added so much that you sometimes miss when reading the book because you’re so focussed on Emma. Christina Cole was a suitably snobbish, self-absorbed Mrs Elton. The production looked gorgeous, the costumes were beautiful, such lovely clear strong colours. In one of the extra features on the DVD, the designer said she didn’t want a washed-out muslin look to the production & she certainly achieved that. It was especially interesting to see how Harriet’s clothing copied Emma’s as their friendship developed as a symbol of Emma trying to remake Harriet in her own image. The final episode was especially moving as Emma realises her love for Mr Knightley & sees the harm she has done to Harriet &, she thinks, her own happiness, by their friendship.

Finishing Emma

I finished Emma last night & enjoyed it very much. Emma isn’t quite as spoiled as I’d always thought her. She does make mistakes but then a perfect heroine would be boring. She’s almost set up for failure by being described as rich, handsome & clever in the first sentence. I think that’s what has always got me offside in the past. And the first half of the book, with her schemes for Harriet & her unfriendly attitude towards Jane Fairfax, does annoy me. But, by the end, I couldn’t help feeling that her errors are on the side of friendship & love – except maybe her jealousy of Jane Fairfax but that springs from an acknowledgment of her own laziness & lack of application. There are lots of other things to admire in Emma apart from the heroine. Mrs Elton is appallingly wonderful. She & Mr Elton truly deserve each other. Mr Woodhouse is as tyrannical as ever in his own way. It’s interesting that Emma does everything she really wants to do while still soothing her father & making him think it was all his own idea. Very clever, but then she’s had a lifetime’s practice. So, I enjoyed Emma more this time than I ever have before & I’m looking forward to watching the BBC series when it pops through my letterbox.

Emma update

I’m nearly halfway through my reread of Emma. I’ll never be as fond of Emma as I am of Anne or Elinor but this time I’m trying to read with an open mind. It was very perceptive of Jane Austen to write ”I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like. “ She may have been joking but Emma is not easy to like when she’s being a snob. But, she’s endlessly kind to her father, smoothing away every difficulty & always thinking of his comfort. I enjoyed the way she manages to make sure all her guests have enough to eat even though her father advises them to eat as little of possible of everything for the good of their health. I love the scenes with Mr Knightley, the dialogue just crackles along & it demonstrates the equal relationship they have. This time I’m taking more notice of how Emma feels about her mistakes. The excruciating proposal from Mr Elton was as funny as ever, but this time I took note of Emma’s feelings when she’s safely back in her room, mortified by her own blindness & sorry that her misunderstanding will lead to pain for Harriet. She is a good friend to Harriet, she’s fond of her & wants her to make a good marriage but she is reluctant to accept that Harriet’s illegitimacy is going to have an effect on how high she can rise in society. Her snobbish disdain for Robert Martin still made my blood boil, but, after he meets Harriet at Ford’s, Emma does admit the good manners & real feeling he displays. She is willing to alter her opinions, she’s never blindly fixed, although she’s reluctant to admit (to Mr Knightley if not to herself) that she has made a mistake. So, like Emma, I’m willing to admit that my opinion of Emma is changing for the better. Frank Churchill has just made his appearance so we’ll see if my improved opinion lasts through the awful party when Frank teases Jane (much to Emma’s delight) & the picnic at Box Hill.

On not liking Emma

I have a confession to make. I love Jane Austen but I don’t like Emma Woodhouse. Emma is universally agreed to be Jane’s masterpiece & I love the plot, the other characters, the village setting, but Emma irritates me. She’s spoilt & self-satisfied & interfering & I just want to shake some sense into her. My favourite Austen is Persuasion, closely followed by Sense & Sensibility and Pride & Prejudice. But, the beauty of Jane is that there’s always something new to discover in the books. I’ve reread all the novels over the past year & I was surprised to find that Fanny Price wasn’t the insipid, self-effacing girl I’d always thought her. This time, I discovered the jealousy in her thoughts about Mary Crawford & Edmund and admired her determination to resist Henry Crawford against the persuasions of everyone else. So, I’m about to start yet another reread of Emma in the hope that I’ve matured enough to appreciate her. I have the latest BBC version of Emma on the way from Amazon & I’d like to read the book again before I watch it anyway as I like to have the book clear in my mind before watching the TV version. I’ll let you know how I get on.