Aug. 21, 2007

Jane Austen, Yadda, Yadda, Yadda

Recently I was cornered by a university employee who knows I’m a scholar of British literature, specializing in Jane Austen.

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Was this disarming honesty or throwing down the gauntlet? Was I being called out? Whatever it was, I shifted nervously as I listened to the rest of his monologue: “My theory is that the novel can be pretty much summed up as Elizabeth and Darcy meet, Elizabeth and Darcy hate each other, Elizabeth and Darcy fall in love, yadda, yadda, yadda.”

Reader, I stared at him blankly. Of course, I spent hours afterward constructing witty, cynical comebacks, such as “Yeah, I know what you mean. I have that response to episodes of VH1’s ‘Behind the Music’ and to reading the Bible.” But in the moment, all I managed to spit out was something clichéd and professorial resembling, “Hmm. That’s interesting. I think maybe it takes a few readings of Austen to really appreciate her fiction’s depth, humor, and irony.”

That’s also my stock answer to traditional-aged undergraduates on the first day of class — 20-year-olds who confess that they’ve signed up for a literature class on Austen and her contemporaries because they absolutely love (or absolutely hate) her fiction — or maybe just the film adaptations. Or Colin Firth or Keira Knightley or Clueless. The Austen-haters often claim to be taking the course because they want to understand what in the world is the big deal. A few of them end up seeing it by the end of the semester, a few more don’t, and that’s fine. But the yadda-yadda-yadda employee was a well-read, middle-aged guy with no sophomore excuse for being sophomoric. My gut reaction to his confession registered somewhere between crestfallen and incensed.

I’m having a similarly mixed reaction to the latest wave of Austen mania in the U.S. and U.K., shifting nervously, while approaching it with a combination of anxiety and dread. I know that all English professors worth their salt should be constructing some theories and responses now, in advance of being cornered by colleagues and co-workers and co-eds, so as not to have to resort to the professorial and clichéd. What will we say when asked about Anne Hathaway’s Becoming Jane (2007); about upcoming The Jane Austen Book Club film, with its star-studded cast; or about PBS’s planned 10-week winter 2008 airing of the Complete Jane Austen on “Masterpiece Theatre"?

What’s the witty, cynical comeback to this cultural flowering of Austen-related stuff, I find myself wondering: “Can’t wait to see it!” “Wish I’d thought of it first!” “The Decline and Fall of Austen’s Empire.” “A tippet in the hand is worth two in the bush.” “A stitch in the huswife saves nine.” “Don’t look a gift pianoforte in the mouth”?

But along with such repartee, we’ll also need to ready weightier observations. First, I believe it’s imperative that we call a moratorium on starting sentences with “It is a truth universally acknowledged,” as in, “It is a truth universally acknowledged that this is the first time in television history Austen’s complete works have been aired in succession.” In the coming months we will no doubt suffer through dozens of newspaper and magazine articles beginning, “It is a truth universally acknowledged.” Best not to add to the collective torture.

In addition, when constructing our soundbites, we ought not to forget the sheer breadth of today’s Austen craze; it’s more than just films and television adaptations we’re in for. New books have appeared, too, like Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict (2007) and Jane Austen for Dummies (2006). Though I worry that these books make reading her fiction sound like something done at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting for slow learners, surely it’s not too late for some well-placed damage control?

After all, the Austen-inspired publicity stunts are already in full swing. Perhaps you’ve heard about the kerfluffle that unfolded over the pond, “Jane Austen Rejected!” Thinly veiled versions of Austen’s fiction were sent out to British publishers as new work, under the name of Allison Laydee (a.k.a. David Lassman), and all were rejected. Even Harlequin Mills & Boon passed on publishing adulterated Jane Austen plots. The horror! The horror!

But isn’t this is déj� vu all over again? Please raise your tussy mussy if you remember 10 or so years ago, when we were last inundated with Austen film and TV adaptations; with Bridget Jones novels and films; and with Austen board games, stationery, and editorial cartoons. Everyone then seemed to be asking, “Why Austen? Why now?”

The late 1990s were strange days for us longtime members of the Jane Austen Society of North America. It was as if we no longer had to apologize for indulging in our versions of wearing plastic Spock ears, whether quadrille, or quilling, or merely quizzing. Many of us became instant pundits among our friends, family, and the media, providing copy for everything from the Arkansas Democrat to The Wall Street Journal. Only a few periodicals continued to misspell Jane’s name as Austin, while many more managed to render correctly Bennet, Morland, and Love and Freindship. Oh, those were heady times.

If you were there, then you’ll no doubt recall that we came up with some pretty wild theories to explain the Jane train, too. Remember when Camilla Paglia said Austen’s popularity could be explained as a cultural symptom in reaction to the O.J. Trial, as people longed for stories in which no one was being butchered? That was a good one. Or how some claimed that the return to Austen was a result of the fin de siècle’s prompting us to take stock and return to works of past centuries? Seems pretty thin now. Others claimed that Austen’s resurgence happened because we needed to measure the worth of our male heroes, from Bill Clinton and Brad Pitt to Kurt Cobain and Ross Perot. (Jane Austen and Ross Perot?)

So here we are, circa 2007, finding ourselves in danger of being asked yet again, “Why Austen? Why now?” How delightful. How frightening. I’m determined not to be caught off guard, so I’ve constructed some all-purpose answers to explain the latest Austen craze, suitable for everything from The Nation to “Larry King Live” to Marie Claire. Anyone struggling for words is, of course, welcome to use these as conversational building blocks:

Option A: “Today’s Austen mania is a form of cultural compensation for the disaster of the Iraq War and for the genocide in Darfur. Her novels offer us a way to forget the world’s evils by allowing us to travel back to those halcyon post-French Revolutionary days of Napoleon.”

Option B: “Austen’s timeless narratives of women’s romantic searching provide a welcome distraction from the Supreme Court’s rolling back of abortion rights, as we yearn for an era when many women had the power to refuse a proposal of marriage.”

Option C: “Austen’s newfound popularity signals that empire-waist frocks are due for a fashion revival; that irony, having been shunned after 9/11, is back and better than ever; and that Wal-Mart will roll back prices on its imported teas.”

This list is just a draft of talking points. I still have a few more ideas to work out. For instance, can it be an accident that Austen’s popularity is surging, just as Jane magazine has gone defunct? There is certainly a quotable quip in the making there. Even if we don’t perfect our theories in the coming months, I don’t think there should be much cause for worry. Check back with me in 2013, the 200th anniversary of Pride and Prejudice’s publication. Oh, brother. I think I know where this is going.

Devoney Looser is associate professor of English at the University of Missouri at Columbia, and the author of British Women Writers and the Writing of History (Johns Hopkins University Press). She has just completed a book on British women writers and old age, to be published next year.

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Comments

Option D

Option D: Ah, Jane Austen, a comforting respite from the endless ESPN reports about Barry Bonds and Michael Vick.

Frizbane Manley, at 8:00 am EDT on August 21, 2007

Austen and Copyright

Call me cynical, but Austenmania may be because her work has just recently been freed of copyright protection. Good characters, good stories, no royalties. What else is needed?

Shelly Warwick, at 11:00 am EDT on August 21, 2007

Reduction to plot seems endemic, and not just in fiction. I have participated in arguments about why there need to be so many histories of the Civil War. And I was once asked by the rector of a church with a fine music program why the choir needed to sing so many different settings of the mass!

Lee J Rickard, UNM, at 11:40 am EDT on August 21, 2007

Why Austen? Great stories, great writing. Personally, I’m waiting for the Wilkie Collins comeback. Keira Keightley in _The Moonstone_! Glenn Close as Mrs. Lecount! Bring it on.

Sarah Schneewind, at 11:50 am EDT on August 21, 2007

Just recently in the public domain? The woman’s been dead since 1817, and her work has been in the public domain for quite some time.

Unname, at 11:50 am EDT on August 21, 2007

Be Sure To Wear Your Lifejacket

Joe Fox certainly didn’t intend it as a complement when he told Kathleen Kelly (in “You’ve Got Mail”) “I didn’t know you were a Jane Austen fan. Not that it’s a surprise. I bet you read it [“Pride and Prejudice”] every year. I bet you just love Mr. Darcy, and that your sentimental heart beats wildly at the thought that he and whatever her name is are really, honestly and truly going to end up together.”

And about his library, Mark Twain wrote, “Jane Austen’s books, too, are absent from this library. Just that one omission alone would make a fairly good library out of a library that hadn’t a book in it.”

Of course that’s nothing compared to Ralph Waldo Emerson’s brief remark: “I am at a loss to understand why people hold Miss Austen’s novels at so high a rate, which seem to me vulgar in tone, sterile in artistic invention, imprisoned in their wretched conventions of English society, without genius, wit, or knowledge of the world. Never was life so pinched and narrow. ... All that interests any character [is this]: has he (or she) the money to marry with? ... Suicide is more respectable.”

Nevertheless, we must all be braced for the literary, film, and stage Jane Austen tsunami that will soon engulf us.

http://copyfight.corante.com/arch..._comeback_from_the_public_domain.php

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/tv.../jane_austens_redos_and_ratings.html

Frizbane Manley, at 1:15 pm EDT on August 21, 2007

not just for austen scholars

I find it equally disconcerting that such well-meaning but out of place comments/questions about Austen are directed to me as well, and I am not a British literature scholar. It is as if any literary scholar will do. Thank you for the hilarity!

adjunct whore, at 3:55 pm EDT on August 21, 2007

Hilarity aside (and I love Ms. Looser’s article), Jane Austen for Dummies is not just another knock-off. It’s an excellent Austen reference volume written by a professor of English. Don’t be fooled by the title.

Susan Price

Marsha Huff, at 5:15 am EDT on August 22, 2007

Looser and Austen’s Yadda, Yadda, Yadda

Professor Looser’s essay in your August 21st issue, “Jane Austen Yadda Yadda Yadda,” is an amusing piece about the Austen craze—something about which I have written and spoken frequently as the immediate Past President of the Jane Austen Society of North America (JASNA, 2000-06). But as the author of JANE ASUETN FOR DUMMIES, I take issue with her grouping my book with CONFESSIONS OF A JANE AUSTEN ADDICT, which like other books of that ilk tap into Austen’s name recognition to sell fiction, dating guides, courtesy guides, etc. Looser writes: “In addition, when constructing our soundbites, we ought not to forget the sheer breadth of today’s Austen craze; it’s more than just films and television adaptations we’re in for. New books have appeared, too, like Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict (2007) and Jane Austen for Dummies (2006). Though I worry that these books make reading her fiction sound like something done at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting for slow learners, surely it’s not too late for some well-placed damage control?”

Had Professor Looser even skimmedJANE AUSTEN FOR DUMMIES, she would have seen that, like other books in the “Dummies” series, JANE AUSTEN FOR DUMMIES is written to introduce interested persons to a subject—in this case, Jane Austen—in a straightforward, accessible way. Specifically, JANE AUSTEN FOR DUMMIES explains to today’s readers of Austen’s fiction the cultural background of the novels that Austen, of course, assumed, her original readers—her contemporaries—would have immediately understood, but which may baffle today’s readers. (For example: Why in _Sense and Sensibility_ should Marianne not be writing to Willoughby?) But do not rely on my claim as the author. I refer you to the review of the book that appeared in the “Financial Times,” July 7, 2007, under the title “Book Essays,” written by the eminent critic John Sutherland, Emeritus Lord Northcliffe Professor of Modern Literature, University College, London, who was surveying recent Austen-related trade-books: “Jane Austen for Dummies is an eminently useful book. The series to which it belongs began as crash-course instruction for adults baffled by the instructions for their first computer. The ground rule is that even smart people can be pig ignorant. The other rule is: no dreary pedagogy. This volume advertises itself as ‘the fun and easy way to understand and enjoy Jane Austen’. There is virtually no literary criticism in Jane Austen for Dummies. It outlines the Austen milieu, the ‘real world’ of her novels. It’s done in a snappy, ‘I’m on your level’ way. ‘Sure, guys have always been guys,’ Ray concedes, ‘but Austen’s characters didn’t date as we understand dating.’ Ray goes on to explain the intricacies of ‘flirting’ in Austen’s world, and how, for example, to signal to a partner whose hand one is holding that he may ‘dare to hope’. For the dipper-in, Ray’s text is speckled with icons indicating degrees of importance. They include Trivia (’When people in Austen’s day used the phrase ‘making love’, it had no sexual overtones’), Technical Stuff (the distinction between a knight, such as Sir William Lucas, and a baronet, such as Sir Thomas Bertram), and Remember (’The ability to dance — and to dance well — was a social requirement in Austen’s day’). There are cartoons (one about a hardware store and “Fence and Fencibility” is particularly ingenious). A useful map of England indicates significant -fictional and actual locations. Highbury, Rosings and Norland Park, we observe, are close enough together for Emma, Elinor, and Charlotte to have their own Friday-night reading group. On a practical note, (and with an eye on the American tourist) there are suggestions about how to get to, and get the most out of, Austen’s real-world locations, with sage advice on the mystifying ways of English taxi drivers. If you begin this book a dummy, you won’t be one when you finish.” Having taught Austen’s fiction to students ranging from 18 to 80 on a regular basis at a campus whose “bread and butter” has traditionally been re-entry students—persons much like the university employee (clearly neither a “slow learner” nor a “dummy"—after all, he at least tried to read the novel) whom Looser mentions in her essay and who left her baffled as to how to reply to his obviously challenging comment regarding _Pride and Prejudice—-I used my nearly 30 years of classroom experience to decide what would help lone readers approach Austen’s fiction before they reached the point of deconstructing the texts in a literature class. ( I hasten to add, however, that both undergraduate and graduate students have e-mailed me with their thanks for enabling them to understand more fully the cultural background of the novels, which, in fact, frequently helps them to understand characters’ behaviors.) My extensive contact with first-time readers of Austen, like my students (such as the retired soldier who asked, “Why are Darcy and Bingley riding around the countryside and not working? They’re a couple of worthless bums!” and which immediately told me that he needed to understand the gentry), as well as with the hundreds of veteran-Austen readers whom I’ve met during my extensive travels as President of the Jane Austen Society of North America ("In _Pride and Prejudice-, how would the Bennets’ having a son ‘cut-off’ the entail?” was the most frequent question) inspired me to write the book. So rather than preciously worrying about damage control, Professor Looser might read and then give the university employee a copy of JANE AUSTEN FOR DUMMIES, designed for those who wish to be Austen-Smarties, but need just a little extra information about Austen and her times to become so. In fact, if Professor Looser sends me the university employee’s name and school address, I will send him an autographed copy of the book. With thanks, Joan Klingel Ray, Ph.D. Professor of English, President’s Teaching Scholar President, North American Friends of the Chawton House Library (UK), a 501 © (3) society in the US University of Colorado, Colorado Springs PO Box 7150, 1420 Austin Bluffs ParkwayColorado Springs, CO 80933-7150 USA

Joan Ray, Professor of English at Univ of CO, Colorado Springs, at 1:30 pm EDT on August 22, 2007

Bring on the next wave! People who love Jane Austen’s work recognize the irony in everyday life. Irony that shines through whether its 1800 or 2007. So why were Clueless and Bridget Jone’s Diary so popular — the Austen touch. The touch, you may have noticed, absent in the Bridget Jone’s sequel. I can’t wait for the next wave of Austenmania for that reason. To feel outrage like I felt when Mrs. Elton asked Emma to start a musical club when I see Elizabeth Bennett on screen shouting at her parents to, “Leave me alone!” We Austen fans will always find something to be diverted by!

Jeanne Schleicher, at 2:30 pm EDT on August 22, 2007

Well, we’ve been whoring out Shakespeare for the last four hundred years in stage, film, and literary adaptations. I suppose the surge of Austen-inspired paraphernalia and adaptations is the result of the upswing in WGST programs becoming departments. We must after all have our own media mascot — it’s only sexually equitable.

Jennifer L. Albin, PhD Student, at 11:35 am EDT on August 23, 2007

As an aside: it was E.M. Forster who pointed me in the direction of Austen, & I’ve always been fond of this passage from his essay “In My Library":

“One’s favourite book is as elusive as one’s favourite pudding, but there certainly are three writers whom I would like to have in every room, so that I can stretch out my hand for them at any moment. They are Shakespeare, Gibbon and Jane Austen. There are two Shakespeares in this library of mine, and also two outside it, one Gibbon, and one outside it, one Jane Austen and two outside it. So I am happily furnished.”

Nicholas Laughlin, at 2:55 pm EDT on August 23, 2007

Nicholas Laughlin quotes E. M. Forster:“One’s favourite book is as elusive as one’s favourite pudding,...”

It fits Austen so very completely and that’s why I don’t find it promising to try to convert those whose literary tastes run on different tracks. Instead of figuring out why there is this resurgence, let us just enjoy her in our own way. It is always a pleasure to find a kindred spirit in the most surprising quarters. It’s a thrill to discover that a young niece likes Jane Austen, even if nobody else in the family is interested in her in the slightest. A Marxist references her in an astute manner. The delicate and not-so-delicate minuets her characters engage in are the stuff of genius. The irony and wit make it a sophisticated fare. So forget those who object to her supposedly narrow worldview. She makes up in depth while being firmly grounded in the social context in which her people live. And why is it whoring if others enjoy her in different ways? Popular tastes will only become more refined by knowing Austen better. Purists can continue regardless. Lastly, I must confess that I blithely used: “It is a truth universally acknowledged…” in an academic article. It was so appropriate, I don’t feel like apologizing.

But I do want to apologize for using a pseudonym. This time it somehow feels wrong.

Dismal Scientist, at 4:25 am EDT on August 24, 2007

Books

I have enjoyed reading the article and the responses, particularly Professor Joan Ray’s. I first read Pride and Prejudice when I was 14 and have read it often in the fifty two years since. I still find myself dazzled by Jane Austen’s genius. It has spoken to me in different ways over the years. At 14 it was the story. As I have become older more and more I enjoy the irony and her understanding of the vagaries of human nature. Most of all she is a master story teller. I really haven’t found any Jane knock off that satisfies me, movie or book. I saw the preview of “Becoming Jane” when I went to see Sicko a couple of days ago. I do not want to see the movie.I appreciate the opportunity to weigh in.

Jennie Hodgson, at 5:20 am EDT on August 27, 2007

I missed the humor in Miss Looser’s article.perhaps its because she is English,(or british) and I am an American. However it appears that Miss Looser has struck a nerve,or drawn first blood with placing the title of Miss Ray’s book in the same sentence as another book. Miss Joan Ray,I bought a copy of your book yesterday I liked it.Your book reminds me of others like ” The Friendly Jane Austen” and the Oxford Companion to Jane Austen.-I think thats the title of the Oxford book....James

James, Mr. at state penn or penn state?, at 11:15 am EDT on August 27, 2007

Twain

I used to be sad, too, that one of my favorite authors (Twain) was said to have hated my favorite (Austen)— until I read Emily Auerbach’s essay about the likelihood that really he appreciated Jane:

http://www.vqronline.org/articles.../winter/auerbach-barkeeper-entering/

Susan, at 5:00 am EDT on August 31, 2007

OPTION E

The feminist backlash has left women today feeling like they just want to get married and have babies and not feel guilty about it, and reading about early 19th century women making similar choices makes them feel good. Plus it’s “literature” so they feel even more virtuous than if they stuck to reading chick lit.What they forget is that Jane Austen wrote all this from within a restricted patriarchal society, and transposed into our context, it is unlikely that Emma and Elizabeth Bennett would be anything like the soccer moms who go to Jane Austen Book Clubs.

Lauren, at 9:50 pm EDT on September 4, 2007

I HOPE WE ARE READING OURSELVES

It seems like it takes a little bit of literary fortitude, scholarship, vocabulary and stick-to-it-iveness to get through one’s first or second Jane Austen novel. I hope we are inspiring young women all over the world to try reading her books, and by the lively commentaries, and the interest in this website, I hope reading good works of literature is catching on! My goal is to conquer quite a large chunk of the local library (at least the good and historical fiction) and to encourage others to try the same. Hooray for us! We have brains!

Susan Love, Ms. at Portland, Oregon, at 9:05 pm EDT on September 17, 2007

take a deep breath and relax

Sit back, relax and enjoy your Austen. I’m rather confused by your reference to “halcyon post-French Revolutionary days of Napoleon", but then I’m just a silly old history major who happens to be a member of the Jane Austen Society of N. America. Halcyon and Napoleon are terms I’m not used to seeing in the same sentence. By the way, “Jane Austen for Dummies” isn’t for Dummies. One last comment: if you want to be taken seriously, DON’T use “yadda yadda etc.". It is so overused and comes from a horrible TV sitcom.

jeanne tackitt, at 4:45 am EDT on September 18, 2007

Professor Ray’s book

Looser, who obviously lacks a sense of humor, thinks that “Jane Austen for Dummies” makes “reading her fiction sound like something done at a...meeting for slow learners"? I would point out to Professor Looser that the Dummie book titles are supposed to be a joke. “Austen for Dummies” is a delightful, highly informative book — even for a “semi-scholar” of Austen like me. I have read countless articles and books on Austen, presented at a JASNA convention, and published in Persuasions, but I still learned a great deal from Professor Ray’s guide. In addition to the clear detail and lucid explanations, her Austen-like wit combined with depth of knowledge makes her the most readable of Austen scholars.

Barbara Laughlin Adler, Professor at Concordia University, at 8:35 am EDT on September 28, 2007

Jane Austen BY Dummies

All of this special pleading (including by the author) for the book “Jane Austen for Dummies” is just so pathetic. Unfortunately, I suffered through the whole painful experience of reading the book for review purposes. It is full of the most preposterous historical errors! Any book that cannot even get the year that the French Revolution correct is not worthy of the attention of even a “dummy.” And is the naive reader really expected to believe, as the author apparently does, that all stylish Regency dresses bore short sleeves?

Betsy Rall, at 6:05 pm EDT on November 3, 2007

Jane Austen for Dummies

I am a huge Jane Austen fan and collect all of her works, however i must say that Jane Austen for Dummies was a brilliant publication, it give an insite into her world and it is the book I give to people who want to know what Jane’s appeal is. Several of the people who have read or glanced through “Dummies” have actually gone on to read Jane Austen novels. They can even understand why society of Jane’s time is more preferable to what we live today, not the class structure but the respect for fellow man and the morals and disciplines of that time.Jane Austen for Dummies is a summary of all things Austen and highly reccommend it to all budding JA fans.

Jane Erickson, at 9:05 pm EST on November 4, 2007

Jane Austen

I am a teacher from Catalunya, a small country in Spain, and I am a fan of Jane Austen. Though I am not Engish, and English is not my own language, I have read all her novels twice or thee times(in English and in Spanish or in Catalan if they have been published. I have seen all the films based on her novels and the BBC series too. The last film I saw was Becoming Jane and, even though it is not a true biography, I enjoyed it very much. What matters if markets are being flooded with products based on her novels or on her life? Are not people able to distinguish what is good and what is not? Or what the like or what they do not? I think Austen is a great writer. She described the time and the society she lived with detail, emotion and humour. When you read one of her novels you are enraptured to her time and you can suffer, love, cry or laugh with the main character. The language she used was very descriptive, but it does not become tedious.Please, let’s encourage people to read, Jane Austen or what on earth they prefer, and do not try to guide them about what it is worth or not. We are all grown up enough!

Margarida Garcia Vera, About my loved Jane Austen at CEIP Pegaso (a Primary School), at 3:52 pm EST on November 5, 2007

Thank you Margarida Garcia Vera, for your plea for sanity from outside the rather esoteric world of academia. I loved the original article which was light hearted and fairly amusing (despite not understanding all the american references, me being British and all). Quickly the comments seemed to get bogged down in over analysis from academics and whether Jane Austen for dummies was a worthy read or not.

Richard Gray, at 9:50 am EST on November 7, 2007

1. If people say “Why Jane Austen?” I say “Why not?”

2. Jane Austen — marvellous

3. “Jane Austen for Dummies” — really enjoyed it. Just right.

4. I think it’s fantastic that she took her little circle of people in one place and her narrow experience and created stories and characters we still talk about now. Soap operas are supposed to be about a small circle of people in one place and are utterly forgettable — also not worth watching in the first place. Who will talk about any of them (or many modern novels) in 200 years’ time?

Cynthia Johnson, at 9:45 am EST on November 8, 2007

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