Jane Austen

I’ve already written about Jane Austen in last year's review of Persuasion, but I couldn’t resist penning a little something to celebrate 200 years since the publication of Pride and Prejudice. I am not the first, nor will I be the last, young woman to feel that Jane Austen’s novels have a special place in my heart. Like many my first Austen was Pride and Prejudice; in fact my introduction to her began with the much loved BBC adaptation starring Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle. There are few authors who loom so large in our collective imaginations, and the impact she has had on literature is huge, but perhaps underrated.

Pride & Prejudice is one of the most loved novels of all time. It has the whole package: romance, humour, and excellent prose, but mostly we love it for the characters. In her leads, Austen created one of the best couples in literary history. Elizabeth is lively and likable, Darcy takes some warming too, but we love him by the end. Early on Elizabeth is tempted by the roguish Wickham. The ridiculous Mr Collins is tempered by the pragmatic Charlotte Lucas, who serves as a reminder of what society expected for young women, by marrying without affection. It was Austen’s second published novel, after Sense & Sensibility, and was an immediate success. It took a long time to make it to publication - the earliest version was written in 1796, sixteen years earlier. I suspect we have benefited from this delay, as Austen finessed the story into the novel we know and love today.

I’ve read only a very little of eighteenth & early-nineteenth century prose; the reality is very little is worth reading. Poetry was where a lot of the quality writing was. A popular novel form was the gothic novel. Unlike the later gothic novels, such as Dracula, which created atmosphere and horror, these were by and large very shlocky books. They are full of young maidens, evil men, ghosts, and candles guttering out at the worst moment. To a jaded modern audience they are hilarious. Of course there are exceptions, but it is easy to forget that Jane Austen was writing realism before it became the norm. Furthermore, to do so as a female writer was extraordinary. Unlike the Brontes, who (much later) hid behind male pseudonyms to be published, it was always known her books were written by a female, although anonymously.

Unlike the popular gothic authors, Austen wrote many admirable female characters. I am not alone in finding some hard to love, Fanny Price from Mansfield Park being the obvious choice. Even in writing those she ridiculed Austen brought female concerns into a public sphere. Their interests are still recognisable: discussing fashion, giggling over boys, worrying about how to make ends meet. Others deal with the pressing concerns of female lower gentry, such as how to lead an autonomous life when you are dependent on men. Miss Bingley and Elizabeth Bennet, or Emma and Jane Fairfax, are prime examples of how women are their own worst enemies - judging spitefully to make themselves look better, or in competition over men. She wrote a diverse range of characters, far from the simple romantic heroines her novels are associated with.

Part of this perception is due to the way her image was shaped by her family after her death. Although they were initially successful, her novels were out of print for sometime, and only popular amongst the intellectual crowd. They had a resurgence in the late Victorian era; especially after her nephew wrote a biography. In doing so he cultivated a ‘Jane Austen’ who was a fitting figure for Victorian values. The Regency period of her lifetime was very different, and Austen was a much more knowing woman than she is often credited for. It is easy for us to forget how people lived without modern hospitals; although unmarried, it would have been normal for her to care for ill members of the family, including women in childbirth (although I don’t know for a fact Austen herself did this). Victorians were notoriously prudish, but Austen must have been less so than her nephew would have liked people to think. She may have written the meek Fanny Price, but she also wrote Mary Crawford, who even makes a pun about sodomy.

The truth is very little is known about the real Jane Austen. Her sister Cassandra destroyed most of her letters after her death, and others were destroyed by her extended family. She speaks to us through her novels. In them she portrays a diverse picture of the society she lived in. Sure there are lots of things she ignored: she does not write of people outside of her class, and slavery is barely mentioned (although I have heard it argued that abolition was so widely accepted by the time she was published that it may have seemed a non-issue). She holds up a mirror to the society of her time - what it reveals is not always pretty. This is tempered by the genuine feeling at the heart of the novels. Her heroines tell us much about what hopes and dreams women held in the Regency period, and presumably what Austen herself had hoped for.

There are only two authenticated pictures of Jane Austen, both drawn by Cassandra. The first sketch is seen in nearly every edition of her books. It was not considered by her family to be a very good likeness. The second is a woman, dressed in blue, sitting outside. She faces away from us. It leaves us to imagine what she is looking at, or thinking. I rather like this image of her.

Persuasion, by Jane Austen

Jane Austen is one of the most loved, but also misunderstood, novelists. Her wonderful romances, more widely known to many now through television, have earned her a reputation as a girl meets rich guy, girl marries rich guy writer. This ignores the fact that many of her ideas were quite revolutionary for the time. For those who are interested I highly recommend Claire Tomalin’s biography of Austen; it is a fascinating account of Austen’s family and society, and the difficulties she faced as a female writer. It changed how I viewed her novels; it made me love them that little bit more, especially this, the most revolutionary of all her novels - Persuasion.

Eight years before the beginning of this novel Anne Eliot, middle daughter to a baronet, was persuaded to break off an engagement to young naval officer, Frederick Wentworth, largely because her family believed him to be beneath her in social standing. It would also have been an imprudent engagement as he did not have the income to support a wife, and no guarantee of ever doing so. He has now returned to the neighbourhood a Captain in the Royal Navy, and rich. Charming and charismatic, he is seen as quite the catch and the local girls all determine to fall in love with him. Anne is now 27, past the prime age for marrying(!). Overlooked and unappreciated by her own family she deeply regrets her refusal. Due to the social conventions of the time, it is impossible for her to communicate this to Captain Wentworth. She can only watch, and hope.

Of course, there is the inevitable happy ending. But in a way, this is what makes the novel so remarkable. Anne is the daughter of a Baronet (a hereditary knighthood, the closest thing to being noble other than being noble). She marries a man who is not even a member of the gentry. While he is rich, he is a self-made man, having earned his fortune and title through his career in the navy. Austen is so often criticised for being stuck in the class system of her day, but to me this heralds the massive social changes of the 19th century - the beginning of the decline of the aristocracy in the face of ambition. Of course Austen had no way of knowing what was to come, but her reflection of society is quite cutting edge.

In a world where to be mistress of a house was the greatest degree of autonomy most women could achieve, the desire of Austen’s heroines to marry for love, not necessity, is a bold choice. Marriage was generally arranged by parents, and in the absence of a large dowry, being very beautiful was the surest way to marry well. Her heroines do not settle for a mediocre marriage; they aim for the best in life and take the gamble. While it works out for them all, Austen understood well the difficulties in being a spinster. She, her sister, and widowed mother were eventually dependent on their brothers to arrange even basic things for them. Is it so bad that in her novels she is living the dream? Persuasion is the ultimate example - Anne is aging, and her father has squandered his money to the extent her dowry is in doubt. Nonetheless she gets a second chance. Her loyalty and good character are enough to bring about her marriage to the man she loves. Austen, in her early forties, ill and near death, writes a happy ending that she and her sister never got. Every time I read Persuasion I find it beautifully poignant.

One of Austen’s greatest qualities as a writer is her wit. She lays bare the hypocrisy of her society, where merit is too often based on wealth, not quality of character. She can be scathing, yet is also very funny. Persuasion is perhaps less humorous when compared to the sparkling Emma, for example, but it finds a gentle sense of humour in Anne’s family - the hypochondriac Mary, or her snobbish father who is so vain as to have filled the house with mirrors, which was an expensive habit for the time. While it lacks the humour of her more grotesque characters, what this novel does have is a lot of heart. Austen was a ferociously intelligent woman, at a time when female intelligence wasn’t appreciated. Persuasion was written at a time when she had received some recognition for her novels, and a small income had given her some independence. It is a more mature, well rounded work - perhaps some of that anger had abated.

Classic novels seem to be a love or loathe thing, those who loathe them finding them wordy or difficult to relate to. While the style of writing is indeed different, the craft behind it is impeccable. Society has changed in the two hundred years since Jane Austen sat at her little table and wrote this novel, but people haven’t. Pompous Sir Elliots, manipulative Mrs Clays, and faithful Annes, still exist. It isn’t a story about marrying a rich man; it is a story about marrying someone who loves and values you. Austen has inspired women with this dream for centuries; no wonder we love her so much.

Death Comes To Pemberley, by P.D. James

There are no lack of Pride and Prejudice spin-offs in the world, none of which I have bothered to read. What sets this one apart is its author: P.D. James, who has written best selling crime novels in a career spanning fifty years. She wasn’t an early starter either: she is the same age as my grandfather - nearly 92. I’ve not read her novels before - crime is not my favourite genre - but a writer of this calibre taking on Jane Austen’s world got my interest.

Set six years after Pride & Prejudice, Elizabeth and Darcy are happily married with two small children (boys - the Darcy estate is safe). Elizabeth has adjusted to being the lady of the house at such a grand estate as Pemberley. Jane and Bingley live nearby, and Mr Bennet is a frequent, and welcome visitor, to their home. Dastardly Wickham and Lydia are most certainly not welcome at Pemberley. Georgiana is yet unmarried, though some suitors may be on the horizon. In short, everything is orderly and respectable. The household is busily engaged in preparations for the annual ball, one of the highlights of the local social scene, when, late at night, a carriage arrives at the house. A murder has been committed, throwing the previously orderly, happy home into uncertainty and chaos.

James invokes a strong sense of era, and her dialogue feels both natural and appropriate to the period. As this is a crime novel it encompasses aspects of Austen’s society we don’t see in her books. The body is examined by the local doctor, with what I assume is cutting edge skill for the time. There is an inquest, and then a trial, where we can see the foundations for the court system we know today. I am sure James has researched thoroughly, and these sections of the book work well. James introduces a young lawyer, Henry Alveston, who voices some rather liberal views in regards to women, mentioning Mary Woolstonecraft. Austen’s world is taken out of the parlour - the nineteenth century has arrived.

Much of the action at Pemberley, and indeed the murder itself, take place in an area of woodland on the estate. It is inhabited by an elderly servant, Thomas Bidwell, and his family, and while not otherwise neglected, it is considered wild in comparison to the rest of Pemberley. This is partly because of a family legacy: Darcy’s great grandfather committed suicide there, an act that has weighed heavily on the family for generations. There are of course ghost stories associated with the woodland. All this adds a gothic element to the book, a genre that Austen herself satirised brilliantly in Northanger Abbey. It works though, partly because James keeps it fairly subtle. The slight shifts in mood as the woods and weather close in when Elizabeth and Darcy find themselves in the woodlands give a lovely sense of the claustrophobia, and volatility, of both their physical surroundings and their situation.

For any potential readers out there, I don’t think this will in any way effect how I perceive the characters when I reread Pride & Prejudice. The style of the novel is too different, while I know they are the same as Austen’s characters, and James does write well, they don’t have the same feel. Nonetheless the book is written with skill and wit. It is a fairly light read, and enjoyable. I did find myself wondering why, other than that she is well established enough, and old enough to do whatever the hell she likes, James chose to write this book. I usually associate unofficial sequels with authors who can’t create their own worlds, not with someone with a proven track record of doing exactly that. While setting it in Austen’s world adds a sense of fun to the novel, much of the plot could be as well served by a story of James’s own creation. The one way the novel felt - at only a few moments to be fair - flat, was in scenes where characters are explaining their actions in Pride & Prejudice. I didn’t understand why Darcy would feel the need to explain to Elizabeth behaviour of six years earlier; especially as this is largely done through expository dialogue, it felt a bit clunky. Also, why would we be interested in James’s interpretation of events? I feel that filling in those gaps ourselves is often part of the joy of reading. Interestingly I listened to an interview online in which she discussed some aspects of Pride & Prejudice that had puzzled her, and that she wanted to explain. It is very deliberate, but I think it would be a stronger book without these sections.

If you are only ever going to read one sequel to a Jane Austen this is probably the one to read. Of course it doesn’t compare to one of the best loved novels of all time, but it does stand on its own two feet as a novel in its own right. James has wisely not written a romance; by writing in a different genre she is able to bring something new to the world of Elizabeth and Darcy. The crime aspect is fittingly ungrisly for the most part, and I thought the gothic aspects worked particularly well. A few quibbles aside, it is an entertaining read.