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Jane Austen- love her or loathe her

edited March 2007 in - Reading

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  • As ITV is about to embark on a season of Jane Austen stories, beginning next Sunday with Mansfield Park. And the release of Becoming Jane there is a semi-serious piece in the Sunday Times about the subject.

    http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article1496585.ece

    So what is your opinion of Austen and her work?
  • I had to read Northanger Abbey at school, and didn't enjoy it.
  • I love all her books and take every opportunity to learn more about her. 
  • Well I better give my view as I asked. The Austen I've read I have enjoyed, but there are still a few to go.
    The criticism about her stories being fluffy, girly and so on is unfair.
    She was writing about the world she inhabited and observed. And yes perhaps a little fantasy was involved. But she reflected the desires and social ambitions of many women, who were judged on how well they could marry, and lacking a dowry, or a family scandal, then that would seal your fate in the marriage market- to what would be seen as poor pickings to those not in that position.
    So yes, I love Austen's work.
  • I've enjoyed reading Jane Austen's stories, my favourite is Sense and Sensibility.
  • Like you, Jay, I read 'Northanger Abbey' at school and, at the time, it did nothing for me.  I put that down to being 15 years old, as I read all her novels as an adult and found them fascinating.  I love her wit and cynicism and, as you said Carol, the way she represents the world she lived in.
  • I've read two Austens, 'Northanger Abbey' and either P&P or S&S, can't remember which. I find her too cool and distant, and can't really care about her characters. I prefer the Brontes or Thomas Hardy - more passion, less repression.
  • I despised Austen in my first A level year when I needed to study Emma, however my opinion has changed dramatically after studying Pride and Prejudice. The characters create some great comical moments and I find myself laughing when re-reading. My opion on Emma has changed, I didn't enjoy it as much as P&P.
  • I love Jane Austen's books! Sense and Sensibility - fantastic! Pride and Prejudice - one of the most powerful and touching love stories I've ever come across.
    (I'm not usually one for love stories either!)
  • I've enjoyed all the Austen I've read, and most of the dramatisations I've seen on TV. For me, she is a mistress of subtext. She clearly writes within the conventions of her time, but has a great way of subtly digging out the humour and absurdity in the worlds that her characters occupy. As a tongue-in-cheek social commentator she excels, and I find her portrayals of men particularly fascinating - particularly as the men who would have been the dashing handsome heroes of the day usually turn out to be rotten b*****ds.

    I agree that for sheer literary intensity, Austen was outclassed by many of the women who came after her (Anne and Charlotte Bronte particularly manage social satire and dark humour to equal Austen, but write incomparably more dramatic, gut-wrenching stories). But I don't think that belittles Austen's achievements, or her influence.
  • I too did Emma at ‘A’ Level and found it quite tedious at first, until I realised that it was actually supposed to be tedious in parts, and that she was poking fun at the characters. I started reading Pride and Prejudice but found that there are so many adaptations, it’s not something I can read without all the TV and film P&P’s appearing in my head, rather annoying. I’ve listened to a few of the others on audio book as well, but Emma remains the only one I’ve read.

    I am torn when it comes to Austen, between Fay Weldon’s damning criticism (more about class than feminism) and a love of all things regency period. I can see myself in that period (I have to see myself as a man because I couldn’t have borne to be a woman then), but only upper class. I think the life of a poor person then would be miserable, and a poor woman more so.

    On the other hand, I have to share with Talkbackers a habit that Alys and I have got into. We call it our ‘Gin and Jane Austen evenings’. This evolved during a time when our son was very young and we didn’t have much in the way of a babysitter, so had to devise our own entertainment. It consists of a bottle of gin – or any alcohol of your choice – and either P&P or S&S film/TV adaptation on video/DVD. We have developed an audience participation repertoire a la Rocky Horror, where we shout out the next line, or alternative versions, or answer something a character has said, punctuated by heckles of ‘go on, kiss her! You know you want to!’ at appropriate moments and raucous laughter between these points.

    This was the first of its kind for us, and slightly more literary perhaps than our Tequila and Trashy TV evenings. I’ve been thinking of patenting it, but am quite happy to share the experience with anyone who feels they ‘can’t get along’ with Austen.
  • I like that idea - "sing-along-a-Pride-and-Prejudice" ;-)
  • I read "Emma" and loved it for the fact that she's such a nosey-parker, matchmaker and general know-all, yet gets her come-uppance with Mr. Knightley.  Obviously, we've known all along that Mr. Knightley and Emma will end up together.

    I hated it for the fact that I was virtually forced to read it when young, malleable and suggestible by my future husband who clearly wanted to turn me into a Sloane Ranger.  He it was who also got me reading Anna Karenina and Crime and Punishment so I have something to thank him for.

    I think Austen has to be read within the historical and political context (as well as her own background), whilst being aware of the class issues of the time.  She really does not seem aware (like most of the rich of the time) of the struggles of the poor - OR tended to overlook them for the sake of her stories.  But the writing is clever and often barbed with acidity.

    Yes, like others, I prefer the period of Romanticism where feelings were felt and men were men etc... Witness Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights.  It was, maybe, the start of being 'true to ourselves' when writing the novel. Although I would add that many of the poets, including Donne and Arnold, were able to do that with verse.

    One thing about Austen: she was a mistress of 'show, not tell...'
  • i read sense and sensibility when i was 11. i REALLY had to push through it. but i wanted to read as i had watched sense and sensibility with emma thompson ad kate winslet in. i have ALWAYS enjoyed watching the films made of her books, but have yet to venture to read her. i am determined to do so though, soon.
  • I had to read Pride and Prejudice for my School Cert and enjoyed it, particularly as it was the first book I read in English.  I have loved it ever since and enjoyed the last film.

    The opening sentence sets the scene so well.  Like MM, I find there is so much merriment in the book that even thinking of some of the situations makes me smile.  I think Jane was a very clever writer. 
                         
  • I first read Pride and Prejudice when I was fifteen (around the time of the BBC adaption), and I read it again for an Open University course in 2004 and it just didn't click with me.

    Then last year I had to read Northanger Abbey, again for the OU, and I love it.  Although it was published after Pride and Prejudice, Northanger Abbey was the first she wrote (her equivalent of the manuscript hidden in the bottom draw I suspect).  Northanger Abbey is very tongue in cheek and you need to know a lot about Gothic and the publishing industry in the early nineteenth century.  Henry is a much better romantic hero than Mr Darcy any day!.
  • I read Mansfield Park at college and thought it quite dull, then read Sense and Sensibilty at university and loved it.  I suppose it depends on perspective, plus, I suspect, how it's taught.  If the teacher/lecturer finds it tedious, everyone else is going to, as well.

    I have loved all the TV adaptations I've seen, though I refuse on principle to watch S&S with Emma T because she was far too old for the part.

    Jane Austen's house is not far from where I live, either, and I once visited it, and saw the very table she used to write on.  Very humbling.

    I think she was a very clever writer, and definitely someone we can all learn from.
  • I've been there, too (I think). Wasn't there something about the 'creaking door' - if she heard someone coming, she hid her writing?
  • Is it that one in Winchester?  Yes, I went there many years back - an old friend of ex's lived a few doors along from it.  Yes, TP, v. humbling but, boy, what she must have observed in that house and from that front window!
  • I'm thinking of Chawton, near Alton.
  • Yep, Chawton, that's the one.  I grew up near Portsmouth so it's not that far from me (though impossible to get to if you don't possess a car).

    I can understand her being secretive about her writing - I was scribbling away earlier when the OH's mum walked in, completely disturbing my train of thought.  As you can see, I haven't got back to it yet...
  • Oh?  The Winchester one must have been some other address they had... where on earth did she move to over the years?
  • TT, panic not, my dear - Chawton is not far from Winchester, but Winchester is easier to remember.  (It is for me, anyway.)
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