Senseless Sensibilities

2011, first edition, from Random House
Text by Patrick Baker
Cover and Interior Design by Danielle Deschenes
Senseless Sensibilities: Create Your Own Austen-Tatious Mash-Up!
Bought new for $10.99
Slightly worn paperback
C

This is basically Mad Libs for Austen fans.  The problem is, Baker (in the female guise of Ima Hack) doesn't seem to know much about Jane Austen, as when he thinks Persuasion's Anne has a crush on Mr. Elliot.  Also, the trend of most of these partially blanked out passages is towards the trendy and shallow, which gets old after awhile.  Thirdly, come on, it's Mad Libs!  The readers are doing at least half the work.  

Of course, that means I can't rate this very low, since a clever reader and friends could conceivably indeed create austen-tatious mash-ups.  So dead C sounds right.

Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason

1999, 2004 Penguin edition
Helen Fielding
Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason
Original price $14.00, purchase price $5.43
Slightly worn paperback, with last 3 1/2 chapters missing!
B-

Perhaps it's not fair to judge this book when this printing is incomplete, but based on what I read, it's about equal to the original.  True, there are a lot more implausible things happening, including Bridget's Bangkok arrest for drug-smuggling, but I found it equally funny, especially of course her interview of Colin Firth.  (This ended up in the first movie, but only in the British version.  Now available on Youtube though.)  I also liked the mocking of self-help books.  This time the Austen inspiration is Persuasion, with Bridget getting bad advice from such books, and from her friends.

I do have to say, she's still a loser, arguably more of one.  She and Mark Darcy both make many unnecessary relationship mistakes, and this time she can't even find a new job when she's unhappy in her current one.  The book is presumably set in 1996, since it picks up right after the previous one, and yet it's got Bridget, Sharon, and Jude ogling Prince William, who would've been about 14, rather than the legal-in-Britain 17 he was when the book was first published.  

This book became a movie the year this edition was published, and from what I recall many changes were made.  I'm waiting for Book 3 to be marked down, so I don't know if I'll pick it up in time for this project.

Jane and the Genius of the Place

1999, 2000 Bantam edition
Stephanie Barron
Jane and the Genius of the Place
Bought new for $5.99
Worn and torn paperback
C+

Although this isn't bad, it is the weakest of the Jane Austen Mystery series that I own, and I can see why I stopped buying them.  (I can't remember if I checked any later ones out of the library.)  The main problem is the mystery, which is both easy and somewhat dull.  As before, I liked the visits with the Austens, this time mostly brother Neddie and his family.

There was a point when I considered continuing with the series up to when Austen was actually publishing, but I just wasn't interested in enough.  I will note that apparently Barron is up to the eleventh mystery, and it's set in 1813, the year of Pride & Prejudice.

Jane and the Wandering Eye

1998, paperback Bantam edition from later that year
Stephanie Barron
Jane and the Wandering Eye
Bought new for $5.99
Worn paperback
B-

This would be the best in the Jane Austen Mystery so far, if it weren't for the fact that Jane doesn't solve the mystery herself.  Instead, she plays Watson to Lord Harold, the Gentleman Rogue whom she associates with, despite the disapproval of some of her family.  We get much more of the Austens in this book than before, and Barron does a nice job with them, even when they sound a bit too Bennet-ish.  (And there's a direct quote from the 1995 Sense & Sensibility movie, involving an ankle, but with a twist on the line if not the ankle.)  The setting this time is Bath, which is interesting.  

I don't think the real Austen would be so casual about others' adultery, or others would discuss scandal with her so openly, no matter how much freer the Regency period was compared to the Victorian.  (The "wandering eye" is actually a portrait though.)  A mixed bag overall, but with more potential than before.  Understandably, I went on to get 1999's Jane and the Genius of the Place.

The Youngest Miss Ward

1998, first U.S. edition, from St. Martin's Press
Joan Aiken
The Youngest Miss Ward
Original price $23.95, bought used for $6.00
Hardcover with broken spine
C+

This prequel to Austen's Mansfield Park focuses on a fourth sister, after Frances, Miss Harriet (or Hattie).  She's sent away to live with relatives and then becomes a governess hidden away in the country, so her story doesn't overlap much with the original story.  Unfortunately, what happens to her isn't nearly as interesting.  (And Mansfield is the weakest of Austen's novels.)  I was mildly interested in the teaching aspects of the book, but I didn't care about any of the romances, particularly the throwaway surprise one at the end.  Far from the worst Austen spin-off I've read, but rather forgettable.

Jane and the Man of the Cloth

1997, paperback Bantam edition from later that year
Stephanie Barron
Jane and the Man of the Cloth
Bought new for $5.99
Worn paperback
B-

On the plus side, there are fewer footnotes than before.  And I liked seeing Austen's family, even if Mrs. Austen is a bit Mrs.-Bennet-like.  The setting of Lyme and the smuggling plot felt more original than the plot in Scargrave Manor.  On the minus side, the classism is even worse, with Jane basically saying that the murder of a poor man is unimportant.  Also, I didn't like it when Jane puts down her own writing (of The Watsons) and claims that real life is much more interesting.  Sorry, Barron, you're not creating better characters or more intricate plots than Jane herself.  Still, it's a respectable follow-up, itself succeeded by Jane and the Wandering Eye (1998)....

Bridget Jones's Diary

1996, 1999 Penguin edition
Helen Fielding
Bridget Jones's Diary
Possibly bought newish for $12.95
Worn paperback
B-

Sure, everyone knows this was loosely inspired by Austen's Pride and Prejudice (Bridget points out the irony of a snooty Mr. Darcy at a party), but has anyone ever noticed that there may be parallels to Henry Fielding's Tom Jones?  Besides the coincidence of names, both Joneses are sexually promiscuous, often falling for people they know are bad for them.  Then a good-looking and honest (in every sense) potential love interest comes along for each, initially dismissed but eventually won as the Right Person.  True, Bridget is female and not a foundling (she only wishes she was abandoned by her mother, who's actually more embarrassing than Mrs. Bennet), but it might be worth pursuing in a doctoral thesis on chick-lit's relationship to classic fiction.

Or is this not chick-lit?  I ask because Bridget is such an extreme, well, loser-- although of course attractive to handsome men-- that I can't tell how much this book is parody.  Take the diary format.  Each entry begins with Bridget tracking how she's doing on losing weight, giving up smoking and drinking, etc., but as the year's summary shows, she ends up basically where she started.  She doesn't seem capable of doing anything right, and yet her bungling is meant to make her lovable.

At this point, we'd better talk about the first movie (from 2001).  Not only is Colin Firth cast as Mark Darcy, but Hugh Grant is Daniel, and one of the best lines in the book is when Bridget's post-Daniel boss asks how HG survived the blow-job-by-prostitute scandal, and Bridget replies that somebody must've swallowed the evidence.  And the movie is directed by Sharon Maguire, who inspired my favorite character, Bridget's feminist-ranter friend Sharon.  So there are a lot of layers here, and of course BJD started as a newspaper column.  (The dates in this novel match those of 1995, which does fit the parts about Firth and Grant.)

And, yeah, quite coincidentally there's a new novel out now.  But, setting the background aside, I didn't think the book was as good as High Fidelity, although about on a level with Watermelon.  I could relate to some of Bridget's idiocy about men.  (I was 28 when the book came out, but that wasn't much younger than Bridget's thirties.)  But even at my worst, I've never been this much of a screw-up.  (Few women have.)  Also, the book didn't seem as funny and outrageous as it once did.

One thing I liked was that the "Smug Married" people aren't any happier than the "Singletons."  That beats the '80s stereotypes of desperate single girls and contented wives.  (Or '70s stereotypes of contented single girls and desperate wives of course.)  It's obviously a very '90s book-- Bridget and Daniel flirt via the work email-- but, perhaps because it's British, there's none of the optimism of some '90s writers.

Stay tuned for Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason in 1999....

Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor

1996, 1997 Bantam edition
Stephanie Barron
Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor
Bought new for $5.99
Worn paperback
B-

The first in the Jane Austen Mystery series, this pretends to be a heavily footnoted reproduction of recently discovered journals of Austen's.  The footnotes are easily the weakest aspect, although not the only flaw.  I found the classism annoying, and ironically much stronger than anything in Austen's writing.  I never quite bought "Jane" as Austen, but if you can get past that, and just see it as a very early 19th century mystery (set the winter of 1802-03), it's not bad.  The plot twists are fairly well done and there's a good mix of characters.  The settings, mostly the manor but also in London, add to the drama.

I liked the book enough to go on to read a few of the sequels, so Jane and the Man of the Cloth will be coming up in 1997....

The "Sense and Sensibility" Screenplay & Diaries

1995, first edition, from Newmarket Press
Emma Thompson
The "Sense and Sensibility" Screenplay & Diaries: Bringing Jane Austen's Novel to Film
Bought new for $23.95
Hardcover in good condition
B

While not as enjoyable as the film, this is a good companion to it, offering behind-the-scenes glimpses from the screenwriter-star.  True, you won't find out absolutely everything-- Thompson is mum about her involvement with Greg Wise, who played Willoughby and whom she eventually married-- but she is generally refreshingly honest, and humble.  (She does mention Hugh Grant's arrest, and Gemma Jones's lewd and funny remark on the matter.)  My favorite irony is Ang Lee's vow to film "no more sheeps, never again sheeps," a decade before Brokeback Mountain.

I've read the book enough times that I don't enjoy it as much as I used to, although the snark about Morris dancing never gets old.  I was going to give it a B-, because there's too much screenplay and not enough diaries, but I think the photographs bump it up a notch.  It's probably best to read it after watching the movie, but before listening to the commentary by Thompson and producer Lindsay Doran, which adds details, like that the actor who played Robert Ferrars became Thompson's brother-in-law.

I'm using the "film criticism" tag since Thompson has observations about the making of this and other movies.

Jane Austen, Feminism and Fiction

1983, 1986 Methuen edition
Margaret Kirkham
Jane Austen, Feminism and Fiction
Original price unknown, purchase price $5.95
Worn paperback
B

I almost rated this a B- for three reasons.  One, I've read it too often; two, Kirkham's thesis that Austen was a feminist with views similar to Mary Wollstonecraft is no longer as revolutionary as it was two or three decades ago; and the discussion of Austen's novels is severely lop-sided.  These first two are not Kirkham's fault, and it's because her argument is so convincing that she's shaped the way that I and others see Austen.  The book probably isn't meant to hold up to the perhaps dozen readings that I've given it over the years.  (Well, physically it's doing all right.)  I do, however, find fault in the way Kirkham concentrates on the three later novels, with only a few pages to the first three, one page in the case of Sense and Sensibility!  The book would've been strengthened by doubling in size, since at 187 pages (counting notes and index) it's rather slim. 

That said, this is the best work of literary criticism so far, intelligent without being overly academic.  She also has a good dose of wit, including about literary criticism and biography, the two portraits of Jane, one by Cassandra and the other a Victorian "improvement," symbolising how badly Austen has been represented at times.

Sanditon

1975, 1976 Signet edition
Jane Austen and Another Lady
Sanditon
Original price $1.95, purchase price 75 cents
Paperback in poor condition
B

I gave the uncompleted fragment of Sanditon a B+, but this is still one of the better Austen spin-offs.  Another Lady does a decent pastiche of Austen, although there are times I suspect she's lifting direct (or nearly) quotes, as with Charlotte's description of Sidney that sounds suspiciously like Catharine's thoughts on Mr. Stanley in Catharine.  A.L. does get closer to chick-lit than Austen, and judging from the ads for other Signet books inside, this was aimed at the Regency Romance reader.  Indeed, the blurb on front, "Jane Austen's enchanting heroine sets out to snare Regency England's most dashing, eligible bachelor," does a disservice to the sensible, unscheming Charlotte Heywood.  Kudos to A.L. for keeping most of Charlotte's sense (although she does become irrational about Sidney), and keeping Clara, the secondary heroine, likable.

There are other Sanditon continuations out there, but I haven't read them because I like this one so much.  It might make a better film adaptation than some Austen-only works, since it has a nice twisty plot but the characters aren't as complex.  It's a good, soothing book to take on airplanes, although I don't quite agree with A.L.'s belief that Austen offers an escape from "the shoddy values and cheap garishness of our own age."  You can enjoy the elegance and wit of the Regency while also appreciating the beautiful tackiness of the mid 1970s.

Persuasion

1818, 1989 Bantam Classic edition
Jane Austen
Persuasion
Original price $2.95, possibly bought new
Tattered paperback
B

I guess this would have to be my second-least favorite of Austen's major works.  Unlike in Mansfield Park, I don't have an issue with the romance or with the heroine.  I'm not crazy about Wentworth but he's okay.  I don't have doubts, as some readers do, about Lady Russell or Admiral Croft.

The main gripes I have with the book involve Mr. Elliot.  I don't buy his rudeness as a young man, or his transformation years later.  I don't believe his courtship of Anne or his elopement with Mrs. Clay.  On top of that, compared to Wickham and Willoughby, he's boring.  In fact, I'm afraid that there are no supporting characters that stand out in this book.  Everyone's just sort of there.  (Vain Sir Walter comes closest to making an impact.)

On the plus side, Anne is an interesting heroine.  Older than most of the Austen protagonists, she's an old maid at twenty-seven.  Yet she isn't bitter, even when her ex-fiance shows up and starts flirting with a pair of sisters.  (He's not unscrupulous like Crawford, and he backs off when he realises the consequences.)  Anne is melancholy sometimes, but she remains kind, generous, wise, and brave.  If Catherine Morland was not "born to be an heroine," Anne definitely was.

The 1995 film is interesting in that it definitely isn't glamourous (though not bleak like Rozema's Mansfield Park).  It has a realism and autumnal quality that suit the novel.  I think I saw the 2007 version, but I have absolutely no memory of it.

Northanger Abbey

1818, 1980 Signet Classic edition
Jane Austen
Northanger Abbey
Price unknown
Poor condition paperback
B+

This novel was originally written in 1799, revised for publication in 1803, mysteriously never published, sold back to Austen in 1816, and finally published posthumously (with Persuasion) by brother Henry the year after Jane's death.  Austen issued an "apology" to be published with the book, to explain that some of the story might be dated.  Little did she know that Gothic horror fiction was a long way from dying out, and I suspect that this novel is one of the reasons why Charlotte Brontë disliked Austen's writing.  Naive young Catherine Morland imagines that Gen. Tilney has either murdered or locked away his wife, and there was Brontë three decades after Austen's death giving Mr. Rochester a mad wife in the attic.  With Brontë's Romantic sensibilities, she wouldn't take kindly to Austen's parody.

I think the satire still works, but then I actually did slog my way through The Mysteries of Udolpho years ago.  More of the novel is a parody of the genteel romance that Fanny Burney and her ilk wrote, with Catherine decidedly not a heroine.  Austen mocks Catherine's looks and intelligence, but also makes it clear that Catherine is warm-hearted.  Also, because Catherine is so truthful herself, she doesn't understand why people like the Thorpes lie, which makes her very refreshing, particularly to Henry Tilney.  Mr. Tilney is probably number one on my "Austen hunks" list, because of his wit and imagination.  Yes, he says some borderline misogynist things, but I think they're meant to be teases of his earnest sister, and in fact he treats Catherine with more respect than most of the people around him do.

This apparently is as hard a novel to adapt as Mansfield Park.  The 1986 TV version is downright silly (one word, cartwheel), while the 2008 attempt makes the mistake of increasing the luridness.  Not only do we get Catherine's Gothic fantasies, but there's an implausible sexual element to the Capt. Tilney/ Isabella Thorpe romance.  Isabella in the book may've made some missteps, but she wouldn't have sacrificed her virginity in order to capture the captain.  She's a lot cagier than Lydia Bennet after all.

With its Bath setting, this story makes an interesting pair with Persuasion.  Also, the closing line, "...I leave it to be settled...whether the tendency of this work be altogether to recommend parental tyranny, or reward filial disobedience," applies equally well to Austen's last completed novel.

Verses

1803? to 1817
Jane Austen
Verses
B-

This group of Austen's poems, some of it undated, does include the very last thing she wrote, Venta, Written at Winchester on Tuesday the 15th July 1817, three days before her death.  Like so many of the poems here, it shows a playful whimsy.  My favorite is "Mock Paneyric on a Young Friend," which compares the friend to America, including "her wit [that] descends on foes and friends like famed Niagara's Fall."  There are a few serious poems as well, like the one in tribute to her friend Anne Lefroy.

Taking the length of the works into consideration, this collection of Minor Works actually averages out to a B.  Although it's an Oxford Illustrated Edition, it does have flaws, such as the biographical note on the dust jacket, where Austen is said to have been the sixth of seven children (rather than seventh of eight) and to have died in 1815.  Still, it is a nice handy format for so many small pieces, as well as a glimpse into the less well-known parts of a brilliant writer's mind.

Sanditon

1817
Jane Austen
Sanditon
B+

This novel was the last one Austen started writing before her death.  Ironically or not, one of its subjects is health, with hypochondriacs, one genuinely ill person, and assorted healthy vacationers gathering in a small but ambitious seaside resort.  Austen was still at the top of her game, creating such characters as Lady Denham, stingy but sometimes kind; Mr Parker, with his Shandean "hobbyhorse" of resort plans; his busybody yet "frail" sister Diana; his hearty yet "delicate" brother Arthur; Lovelace wannabe Sir Edward; and sensible heroine Charlotte.  The dry, ironical tone still makes me laugh out loud, and even the last part, about how the portrait of Lady Denham's second husband dominates the sitting room in the home of her first husband, is funny.  Sometimes the burlesque quality echoes the over-the-top feeling of Austen's juvenilia, but with the mature plotting of her later works.

"Another Lady" (the name a compliment to how Austen originally published under the pseudonym "A Lady") did the first of the various completions out there, in 1975, and I've owned it for years, so I will discuss that work in its place.

Prayers

1817 at the latest
Jane Austen
Prayers
C

The three prayers are undated but obviously written by Austen's death in 1817.  The watermark of the paper is 1818, but perhaps they were transcribed by sister Cassandra or brother Henry.  There's nothing particularly remarkable about the prayers, except the line "heartily do we pray for the safety of all that travel by land or by sea."  With two brothers in the Navy, Jane was well aware of the risks of sea travel, as Mansfield Park shows.

Emma

1816, 1980 New American Library edition
Jane Austen
Emma
Original price $1.95, bought used for $1.99
Very ratty paperback
A-

Austen on Emma:  "I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like."  Little did she guess that snobbish, manipulative self-centred Emma Woodhouse would age better than sweet, sincere Fanny Price.  This is partly that the 20th and 21st centuries have more women like Emma than Fanny and partly that Emma is not just a self-centred, manipulative snob.  Like all Austen heroines, she has a good heart and head, although the latter is stronger in her than the former.  Emma is not just a gleeful bitch like Lady Susan.  She really does mean well.  She just has to learn that one, most people don't want their lives managed; and two, she's far too inexperienced to know how to manage anyone's life except perhaps her father's.

Twenty-one-year-old Emma is not at the beginning of the novel, when she's just said goodbye to her former governess, ready to manage her own life.  Yes, she has a great deal of freedom, but she has not yet learned responsibility.  Life, including love, is just a game to her, but not one she's mastered.  The experiences she has in the year-long story teach her enough that she is an adult by the end.  Oh, she'll always be snobbish, manipulative, and self-centred, but less so.

Mr. Knightley, who's probably number two on my "Austen hunks" list, often gets credit for teaching Emma, through his lectures.  He's sixteen years older and the only character in the book who's at her intellectual level.  (Mrs. Weston comes close but she's too indulgent to challenge Emma.)  Certainly, he has a great deal of both common sense and wisdom, but he has his own blind spots.  When Emma puts down Robert Martin, Knightley puts down Harriet.  When Emma is unfair to Jane Fairfax, Knightley is unfair to Frank Churchill.  He also can be a bit tactless, ironically most often to Miss Bates.  Knightley's big lecture is of course the one at Box Hill, when Emma mocks the kind but ludicrous spinster.  It's cathartic to have Emma called on for her insensitivity, and yet she is not so callous that she isn't affected by his scolding.  She makes a genuine effort to be nicer to Miss Bates, and others, from then on.

As with Lizzy & Darcy, they challenge each other, bring out the best in each other.  More than with the P & P couple, this is done with bantering on both sides, as they are both very witty.  (Darcy is well-spoken, but too serious to be witty most of the time, except when he's snarking back at Caroline Bingley.)  Even though Knightley has known Emma for ages, and "fell in love with her when she was thirteen," the age difference actually seems to matter less than in Sense and Sensibility.  They've long admired each other but their feelings don't turn romantic until jealousy comes along.  And yet this is handled much more expertly and realistically than in most romantic comedies.

There's a realism about Emma that most of Austen doesn't reach.  More than ever, these characters feel real, not just in their time but ours.  Amusingly, I think it's the work that most talks about "modern" times, like the part about the comfort of modern carriages, and the modern table Emma has managed to get her father to use.  Like Humphry Clinker, it's a snapshot of its times, but with characters who feel more developed than archetypes.

Let's talk about Miss Bates.  Austen parodies herself when Emma remarks, "A single woman, with a very narrow income, must be a ridiculous, disagreeable old maid!"  (It's as if Emma has just finished reading P & P and adored it.)  However, even Emma concedes that Miss Bates isn't a stereotypical old maid.  Miss Bates is cheerful and open-hearted, liked by everyone.  I suppose she might be annoying in real life, but she's delightful on the page, not unlike Mrs. Bennet.  Within the story, she not only provides amusement and a lesson for Emma, but clues for the mystery.

J.K. Rowling said, "I have never set up a surprise ending in a Harry Potter book without knowing I can never, and will never, do it anywhere near as well as Austen did in Emma."  On the umpteenth reading, the Jane & Frank subplot seems pretty obvious, but it took me completely by surprise the first time.  True, I tend not to be able to solve mysteries, but usually I at least know that that's the genre I'm reading.  I thought this was a village comedy, and then Austen pulled the carpet out from under me by introducing a romance where I suspected nothing.  Oh, I might've thought, once Mr. Knightley pointed it out to me, that Frank was flirting with both Emma and Jane, but who knew they were engaged!  Fanny Price might've guessed it, but I imagine that Lizzy Bennet would've been as hoodwinked as Emma and everyone in Highbury.

Another character who serves multiple purposes is Mrs. Elton.  I was rereading Sinclair Lewis's Main Street (1920) a few months ago, and it struck me this time with Emma that Carol Kennicott has a very similar situation to Mrs. Elton.  Each lady is a pretty and talented (but not too talented) newlywed who hopes to expose her husband's small town to sophisticated city ways.  Of course, Carol is our heroine in Main Street and meant to be more sympathetic, but I did understand Mrs. Elton's situation better.  Of course, Mrs. Elton is in the novel to throw Emma's faults into relief.  Everything Emma dislikes about Mrs. Elton is an exaggeration of Emma's own faults.  Even Mrs. Elton choosing Jane as her protegee is similar to Emma's near adoption of Harriet.  The main difference is Emma, and Carol, would never deliberately hurt someone's feelings in the way that Mrs. Elton does, and encourages Mr. Elton to do.  As with young Mr. Dashwood in S & S, a man with serious faults has married a woman who amplifies these faults.

The simplest of the major characters in the novel is Mr. Woodhouse.  Like Mary Elliot in Persuasion, he's a hypochondriac, but he's not as grating.  There's an interesting theme in the book of how stupid = nice, as seen in Mr. W, his daughter Isabella, Miss Bates, and of course Harriet Smith.  This isn't true of course, even in the world of the novel, but many of the characters act as if it is.  Of course, there are also not very bright characters who are not nice, like the Eltons, and on the other side bright, nice folks like the Westons.  Emma herself has to learn that her intelligence does not allow her to be thoughtless.

A few words about the movies.  The best adaptation is Clueless, a wonderfully fun movie on its own terms that does capture the Austen spirit in a truly modern (well, mid 1990s) way.  Of the two more literal adaptations that came out in the year after, I prefer the Kate Beckinsdale one ("What about little Henry???"), although the Paltrow version has the more attractive Knightley.

So do I like this novel more than Pride and Prejudice?  Maybe a shade better.  It's equally quotable, with my favorite line being Emma's reply to her father's confusion about why his little grandsons like their uncle to toss them up in the air, "One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other."  And that quote explains why I'd be more likely to recommend a reader start with P & P, like I did.  Emma and Emma are not for everyone.

Plan of a Novel

1816
Jane Austen
Plan of a Novel, According to Hints from Various Quarters
B-

Nice little parody of a summary for a novel that Austen never wrote, "The name of the work not to be Emma."  My favorite bit is how the Hero is "only prevented from paying his addresses to [the Heroine], by some excess of refinement," which sounds like a satire of Fanny Burney among others.

Mansfield Park

1814, 2003 Oxford World's Classic edition
Jane Austen
Mansfield Park
Original price unknown, bought used for $6.00
A bit scruffy paperback
B


This is often regarded as Austen's weakest major novel with the least appealing heroine and I'm afraid I have to agree.  In my previous edition, Marvin Mudrick talked about how smug Fanny Price seemed, and Patricia Rozema chose to adapt the novel for screen despite seriously disliking Fanny.  She decided to give young Fanny the writing skills and even the juvenilia of Jane Austen.  And she took away Fanny's introversion and primness.


Certainly, it was a shock to me in my early 20s to come from Pride and Prejudice to a novel where a witty young woman is the romantic rival, while the sickly girl is the heroine.  But Fanny is no Anne De Bourgh.  Not only is she healthier, but she's not an heiress with almost no personality or intelligence.  Fanny is more insightful than anyone she knows, even people she looks up to like, Sir Thomas and Edmund.  She is, however, a poor relation, as she is reminded daily, particularly by her poisonous aunt, Mrs. Norris.  (Yes, this is where J. K. Rowling got the name of Filch's cat, although as far as I know the "Ravenshaws" did not influence the "Ravenclaws.")  Fanny is told that her opinions don't matter, and so she has trouble voicing them.

I don't dislike Fanny but I can't say I like her much.  Even Anne Elliot seems like she'd be more fun to hang out with (as well as the Austen heroine to have around during emergencies).  Still, I don't like seeing people push Fanny around.  (And, yes, it took several readings before I could see Fanny's name without snickering, especially with lines like Crawford "began to reckon upon some happy intercourse with Fanny.")  When Sir Thomas and the others (except for once, Mrs. Norris) pressure her into marrying Henry Crawford, I get really angry, especially at Edmund, who should know better but is too blinded by his infatuation with Henry's sister Mary.  Even if Fanny weren't the best judge of character (she would've seen right through Wickham and Willoughby), she should be allowed to say no in a matter that most concerns her and will impact the rest of her life.  And she does say no, repeatedly, which just makes everyone insist that Crawford must prove his "constancy."

Sadly, this everyone includes Austen.  I know that, as always, the ending is written in a dry, ironic tone (with a delightful reference to A Midsummer Nights Dream's Puck, re Sir Thomas), but the narrator does say that if Henry had "persevered, and uprightly, Fanny must have been his reward," if Edmund had married Mary.  So does this mean that no doesn't mean no?  Or would Fanny decide that marriage to a (hopefully reformed) well-off-if-not-in-the-league-of-Rushworth rake beats either oppression by Mrs. Norris or poverty in Portsmouth?  After all, Charlotte Lucas would've leaped at the chance to marry Rushworth, and might've even considered Crawford.  True, Maria Bertram's meal-ticket marriage is a disaster from beginning to end.  (I think this is the only Austen novel with divorce, although Lesley Castle happily played with it.)  But Fanny could probably make a go of such a marriage if she couldn't have Edmund, and maybe she'd even learn to whole-heartedly love her husband, like Marianne Dashwood does with Col. Brandon.  The thing is, Marianne's original objections to Brandon are that he's too old and boring.  She finds out that he has a very interesting, romantic past, and the age difference matters less as time goes on.  Fanny's objections to Henry Crawford are moral ones. Would he ever reform enough to suit her?  Considering he runs off with a woman just because she's bruised his ego, the answer would have to be no.  If Maria didn't tempt him, someone else would.

Rozema's 1999 movie literally made me tear my hair out in the theater.  (It seemed a less disruptive reaction than screaming.)  Having seen so many fine Austen adaptations in the previous four years, I knew going in that this one would be less faithful, despite the full title being Jane Austen's Mansfield Park, but I didn't know how unfaithful.  A couple years ago I watched a bunch of Austen movies and TV series, and I reluctantly included this one.  I even listened to the director's commentary, trying to figure out what she was thinking.  I still don't think the movie works even on its own terms, but I don't hate it as much now.  That said, the TV versions from 1983 and 2007 also miss the point of both the novel and the heroine.  The former gives her movie-Jan-Brady voices in the head, while the latter makes Fanny into a tomboy.  

What works in this novel?  The "fools" are best, Lady Bertram and Mr. Rushworth.  (It wasn't until I got this edition that I even noticed that Pug, Lady B's lapdog, changes sex to the point that "he" might have a litter.)  She is hilariously lazy and calm, except during moments of extreme crisis.  He is like Mr. Collins in that he's boring but respectable, though instead of being a rising clergyman, he's a rich man, and his main fault is vanity rather than ambition.

The wordplay, including with the play, is some of Austen's best.  From the "Rears and Vices" pun (at the least risque, at the most crude) to the use of the terms "liberty" and "freedom," Austen wants us to think about how words are used, in this novel, and in the larger world.  The slave ships off the coast of England in Rozema's movie are typical of her lurid exaggeration, but it is legitimate to say that slavery as the foundation of some of British wealth (including possibly Sir Thomas's) is there in the background of the original story.  In the next novel, Jane Fairfax will compare being a governess to being a slave, and while it's impossible to say that they were the same condition in degree, they definitely were on the same scale.  Wollstonecraft had already pointed out that becoming a governess was the most respectable option for a talented single girl of the middle class, and yet, as Charlotte Bronte was to show in Jane Eyre (coming up hopefully later this month), governesses were treated as less than human.  In this novel, Yates says of the Cottager's Wife in their amateur theatrical, it's a nothing role suitable only for a governess or similar.  So of course, Fanny, who's sort of an unpaid servant, is expected to take it.  Worst of all, Fanny is expected to be grateful to everyone for being taken in as a poor relation, although it wasn't her choice.


She does come to see Mansfield Park as "home," particularly after a trip back to Portsmouth, but it feels similar to the choice between living with Mrs. Norris and marrying Crawford, i.e. not much of a choice.  After Mrs. Norris leaves and little sister Susan stays, Mansfield Park is more pleasant.  Fanny does love her forbidding uncle and languid aunt.  And more importantly, she loves Edmund, whose brotherly regard for her turns to romance after he's disillusioned by Mary.  The cousin marriage is off-putting to some modern readers but doesn't particularly stand out in 19th-century literature.  I can't say I was rooting for or against Fanny & Edmund.  I didn't want her to end up with Henry because of her strong dislike and disapproval, but I thought that Edmund & Mary had a sort of Darcy & Lizzy opposites attraction.  Unfortunately, Mary doesn't bring out the best in Edmund, as Lizzy does in Darcy.  Mary makes Edmund wittier and more outgoing, but she doesn't value what he values.  Edmund generally brings out the best in Fanny, and the narrator assures us that "the happiness of the married cousins must appear as secure as earthly happiness can be."  In a novel full of mismatched and/or miserable couples (the Bertrams, the Prices, the Grants, and the Rushworths, and how happy do you imagine Mr. Norris was?), that's not saying much, but an appearance of a happy ending is all Austen can offer this time.

Pride and Prejudice

1813, 1966 Norton Critical edition
Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice
Price unknown
Falling apart paperback
A-

I dropped out of college when I was 19.  My boyfriend hung in a bit longer before he dropped out, too.  We eventually married and divorced.   During that time when he was in college and I wasn't, he was assigned Pride and Prejudice.  He couldn't get through it, but I'd heard good things about Jane Austen, so I borrowed his book.  I've been borrowing it for 24 years, rereading it at least a dozen times, and it obviously wasn't even a new copy at the time.

What is it about Pride & Prejudice that stays with me, and so many other readers?  The shortest  answer is Lizzy.  Austen's, perhaps British literature's, best heroine is witty but sometimes clueless, kind but occasionally misanthropic.  She loves her family and she's ashamed of them (except for dear Jane of course).  She can fall for the smooth talk of Wickham (like Elinor trusting Willoughby), and yet analyse a letter like a scholar.  Lizzy is not my absolute favorite Austen protagonist (that's Emma Woodhouse, as I'll explain for that novel), partly because she's so many people's favorite, but she never ceases to delight me.

P & P is a novel full of fun characters.  There are ones that you'd never want to live with or even visit-- Mr. Collins, Mrs. Bennet, and Lady Catherine springing immediately to mind-- but at the safe distance of fiction they endlessly amuse with their self-centredness and idiocy.  (Even Lady C is a bit of a dolt, with things like her claim that she and her daughter would've been very talented musicians if they'd only ever taken lessons.) And there are characters that aren't necessary to the plot, like Sir Lucas and Mr. Hurst, that still entertain when they show up.

In my review of Sense and Sensibility, I said that this novel is more insightful.  For example, Lizzy herself admits that she enjoys "hating" Mr. Darcy and hopes she won't find dancing with him enjoyable.  And there's the line about how when, after an anticipated event fails to live up to expectations, the only thing to do is to start looking forward to another event.  Lizzy and the other characters, even the exaggerated ones, feel real and sometimes relatable.

My ex-husband did eventually come round to this novel, I think mostly due to the very good 1995 Firth & Ehle TV version.  I think Jennifer Ehle is perfect, from her voice to her "fine eyes."  I actually like Colin Firth better in some of his other roles, but then I'm not as enamored of Darcy as some people are.  I've grown used to Darcy, including his snobbishness, but he'd be about fifth on my "Austen hunks" list.  (Ahead of Col. Brandon and  Capt. Wentworth anyway.)  I think partly due to Firth's "wet shirt" scene, Darcy is regarded as very swoonworthy, and not coincidentally most Austen spin-off fiction (in the sense of professionally published fanfic) seems to be Pemberley-centric.  I've read one Darcy & Lizzy later-years novel, but I can't remember anything about it.

As the 1813 Critical Review critic noted, Lizzy & Darcy are like Beatrice & Benedick, and the "love-hate" here has probably influenced even more romantic comedies than Much Ado About Nothing.  The thing about MAAN, and some rom-coms, is that the hate changes to love for no other reason than that interfering friends (and the authors) decide it should.  At least here, both characters go through changes, not only from their prejudiced views of each other (and Darcy's disparagement of Lizzy at a ball is borrowed from Evelina) but from their original selves.  By the time they reconcile, months have passed and they've both grown into better people, mainly from knowing each other.  Their arguments aren't just "battles of the sexes" but clashes of world views.  Each is shaken up by meeting such a different person, and it's a broadening experience.  And yet, they aren't total opposites, because they have shared values, as with the Lydia crisis.

A few words about Lydia.  In the hands of most writers, she'd be just irritating, but Austen makes her funny and believable as well.  Whether she's loudly yawning and saying, "Lord, I'm tired!" or chasing after soldiers, she is a recognisable fifteen-year-old of a certain type that still exists.  She is both a scene-stealer and someone that the reader gets sick of.  And, as with Lucy in S & S, Austen feels no need to punish her, beyond giving her the shallow husband she wants and deserves.

P & P isn't a perfect book (I'm not sure I've ever read a perfect book), and if I had to pick one flaw, it'd be that too many of the conversations are indirect quotations.  I understand that in some cases this is to save time, but how can Darcy's first proposal go completely paraphrased, particularly after we get to see all of Mr. Collins's?  I love Austen's ironic distance, but there are times when she should bring the reader closer to the action.

Because this is a critical edition, another student used this copy before my ex, and there are a few notes written in an unfamiliar hand, mostly about the impact of money on love.