Mariella Frostrup over at The Guardian recently wrote this in an advice column:
Despite achieving a position in the modern world where we are not only self-supporting but also increasingly outshining the men, we act like a gaggle of competitive girls whose most important goal is how blokes view us. Female-to-female behaviour hasn’t evolved much since Jane Austen’s day and the sad result is we continue to fail to provide sisterhood.
The rest of the column is similarly depressing. Mariella does suggest that the 40-something woman who feels life is slipping out of her grasp should age gracefully while at the same time make a noise, and “Rage, rage, rage when they attempt to turn out the light.” Sounds like a plan to me.
What about this talk of lack of sisterhood, now and in Jane Austen? Surely Jane and Cassandra Austen themselves are in the Sisterhood Hall of Fame? And Jane wrote about all sorts of sisters. Here’s Lizzie and Jane Bennet: “. . . do you think that any consideration would tempt me to accept the man, who has been the means of ruining, perhaps for ever, the happiness of a most beloved sister?” Not the words of someone who’s putting a bloke above a sister. Elinor and Marianne are another loving pair of sisters, though it’s true that Marianne does put her romantic notions above Elinor’s feelings sometimes. But isn’t that her great failing, what Jane Austen is warning us against? It’s also true that there’s some unpleasant sisters in the books. Maria and Julia Bertram certainly get into a catfight over Henry Crawford in Mansfield Park, and, more chillingly, Lady Bertram, Mrs. Norris, and Mrs. Price take their separation from each other with perfect calm. As with the Elliot sisters in Persuasion, Austen seems to assume that there’s no reason that sisters would hang together, if circumstances or temperament didn’t allow it. And it’s true that we see very little genuine womanly friendship in Austen: Lizzie and Charlotte Lucas and Catherine Morland and Eleanor Tilney are the only examples I can think of. I guess it would make sense when getting a husband was like getting a job that you mightn’t be very nice to the competition, especially in a limited pool. So, I concede, Austen was pretty cynical about the whole sisterhood thing.
But what about now? Miss Osborne, Miss Ball, and I don’t have any sisters. We came together as Beloved Sisters through a shared love of Jane Austen, eating, and talking smack. So we can’t comment on the modern state of sisterhood between actual sisters. But between women in general? I think it’s a pretty mixed bag. I personally haven’t seen much catfight action, have you? And also, isn’t it a bit sexist to assume that women should get along all the time? As if men do!
OK, obviously it’d be nice if we all got along. As it says in our header, Jane will keep us together. This may be terribly ironic, considering the above, but I suggest we try it. Send loving thoughts to all those of your acquaintance, even if there are few people you really love, and still fewer of whom you think well. It’s either that or back to the meat market, apparently.
Photo credit: ©David Stephensen. Used under Creative Commons licensing.
Whether you call it literary breaking and entering or the greatest publishing scheme of the new millennium, surely the Austen mash-up trend rates some thought from the Austen community, right? And yet. Love it or hate it, readers, this market isn’t living up to its potential. In fact, we at Austenacious have come up with a new technique by which publishers could amuse/alienate twice as many readers with each attempt! Not all mashups need involve Jay-Z, the walking dead, or anything trendy at all, really: by mashing Austen novels up with other classic literature, we see the rationalizing force of Jane on some decidedly harebrained stories, as well as some extra adventure for the ladies and gentlemen of the Austen canon. What could possibly go wrong?
A few examples:
Detective Sherlock Holmes investigates a murder in Grace Church Street, Cheapside, London: a sweet-tempered newlywed from the country has offed her uppity sister-in-law, a fact he deduces from traces of poisoned wedding cake (a double wedding!) and the fact that neither the guilty party nor her equally nice husband can lie worth a darn. The murderer’s smarter but less-pretty sister may have aided and abetted.
On one of her many walks, Marianne Dashwood falls down a mysterious hole, drinks potion left by a stranger, shrinks (which is what happens when we drink potions left by strangers), and ends up in a magical and dangerous fantasy land. There’s bird-head croquet with Lady Middleton and tea with Johnny Depp. Eventually, she finds it was all a dream and that she has learned precisely nothing about controlling her emotions or anything else remotely useful in life.
The Bennet girls encounter four Civil War-era sisters from a Transcendentalist family in Massachusetts; a good time is had by all, including many picnics, though the youngest from each family duke it out for the attention of all eleven (combined) relatives. The eldest sisters atone for all wrongs by sheer force of their goodness, as the third-oldest play a duet on the piano.
Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth visit a lighthouse either near Lyme or the Isle of Skye, an experience colored by an unreliable narrator and the problems of memory and perception. Nothing else happens, but it’s significant. Later, the author walks into a river with stones in her pockets.
Haters Gonna Hate Edition, Parts I and II:
Catherine Earnshaw wanders the moors until a chance encounter with the post-Northanger Abbey Catherine Morland persuades her to give up the obsession with Gothic bad boys. Heathcliff gives up. The sun comes out, and everybody realizes things weren’t so bad after all.
In a fit of pique, Emma Woodhouse runs off and finds adventure on the river and/or in caves (possibly around Box Hill), and teaches generations of American high school students about racism and the dangers of picnics.
Emily Bronte and Mark Twain, née Samuel Clemens, each die a second death of embarrassment and rage. Jane, in an impressive show of self-control, manages not to laugh in public. A new literary sub-genre is born.
Readers?
We Austenites can be a boy-crazy bunch.
We make much of Mr. Darcy diving into a pond in a puffy shirt (which isn’t even in the book!). We divide into camps over, say, Knightley and Wentworth, and then further into sub-camps over Jonny Lee Miller and Jeremy Northam (or Colin Firth and Matthew McFadyen, or Ciaran Hinds and Rupert Penry-Jones). We admire the mutton chops and the fancy dance moves of Austen heroes from Sense and Sensibility all the way up to Persuasion. We objectify the pants off those fictional characters—see what I did there?—and have a fantastic time doing it.
And we’re missing half the story.
In Friday’s Telegraph, “novelist and ladies’ man” (heh) Jay McInerney gave us the other side of the coin: the male perspective on the ladies of Austen. Spoiler alert: It seems the menfolk can’t get enough of the fine eyes and dirty hems of Elizabeth Bennet any more than Darcy could; McInerney also reveals things for Emma Woodhouse and, with a charming note of self-consciousness, Fanny Price.
We don’t get a lot of this perspective around these parts; being primarily female and straight, the Austen community in general tends to spend way more time on what’s underneath Darcy’s breeches than what might be going on with those boobalicious Regency gowns.
McInerney goes on to claim some degree of depth in his Austen attachments—he really does love them for their minds, he says, both as characters and as representations of Jane herself. But what if he didn’t? What if this guy fixated—with an unusual sense of publicity and and odd sort of camaraderie—on the rain-drenched Marianne Dashwood, or on Jane Bennet’s mid-storm arrival at Netherfield? What if he sat around writing fan fiction about Lydia and either Wickham or, because it’s fanfic and he can, Mr. Collins or Charlotte Lucas or (crossover alert!) Hermione Granger or Sirius Black? Or all of the above? Would we react to him differently, and to his way of experiencing the Austen universe? How would we approach him as a man and as an admirer and/or objectifier of the women of Austen?
Readers, what do you think? (And while we’re at it, who’s your biggest Austen crush—of either gender?)
We Californians do realize how very lucky we are: drive a few hours and voila! Snow! Looking for the ocean? Go the other direction! Craving deep lakes, crazy tall trees, and gun-totin’ locals? Drive north. Ta-da: Oregon!
Despite the arrival of spring, Action Jane has been itching to have one last romp in the snow, and took a recent expedition to Oregon’s Crater Lake to experience the exotic winter landscape. Adventure ensues!
Always the modern girl, Action Jane navigates with the help of the North Star and her handy-dandy topographical maps.
Jane contemplates the glory of Crater Lake and waits for a man in a billowy shirt to dive in and emerge, soaked but ostensibly hypothermia-proof due to his significant personal heat.
Why Action Jane can’t find herself a pair of Action Boots isn’t really clear—but Miss Osborne thoughtfully protects her little green slippers nonetheless.
The residents of Oregon are very into pheasant hunting, it seems.
Jane accompanies Miss Osborne on a snowshoe expedition.
Unfortunately, Miss Osborne managed her worst possible Marianne Dashwood impersonation and fell into a crevasse, injuring her foot. Jane surveys the scene, watching for gallant men on horseback. (If this were an episode of Chuck, it would be titled “Miss Osborne vs. the Crevasse.” Miss Osborne loses.)
Unable to snowshoe or even walk without significant pain, Miss Osborne accompanies Jane to the Rim Cafe overlooking the lake for a day of quiet pleasures, where Action Jane points out that Love Actually isn’t for a lady to watch in public (even on a tiny iPod screen). She makes an exception for a hilarious dance scene featuring a young man greatly resembling one Edward Ferrars, as even our Jane can’t resist Mr. Grant in kidskin trousers.
Action Jane, ever polite, requires rescue from an over-long conversation with a creepy statue of—well. A…logger? Gold miner? The Ayatollah? Speaking of ladies, we’re not sure how she ended up on his knee like that. Men with beards can be very persuasive, it seems.
Good news: in the days since her northern adventures, Action Jane has seen Miss Osborne and her injured foot back to the estate, where Miss Osborne has seen fit to rest and bid adieu to the snow for the time being. From now on, it’s only long walks in the flat, non-slip countryside for her. And if scandalous gentlemen want to take their shot, well, they’ll have to wait until winter.
Photo credits: ©2010 Christine Osborne. All rights reserved.
With the return of Glee to the weekly TV schedule—finally—I think we’ve all been reminded of a new truth universally acknowledged: everything would be better, Austen novels included, if everybody had at least the option of bursting into a well-chosen pop song from time to time. You know, revealing their places in the collective consciousness, choreography optional (but encouraged). Lizzy belts out a girl-power ballad—ill practiced, of course—at the height of her emotional turmoil? Knightley takes the edge off with a few bars of air guitar and a phantom drum solo? I’m telling you: Jane Austen might roll in her grave, but Jane Lynch would make a fine Lady Catherine.
Am I right?
Here are a few Austen characters and their likely anthems:
Captain Wentworth: “I’m on a Boat” – The Lonely Island
Anne Elliot: “I Will Always Love You“* – Dolly Parton
*The original version with the sad monologue in the middle, because that speech is exactly the gracious and heartbroken speech Anne would make to Wentworth—complete with poignant pauses every few words—and nobody can convince me otherwise.
Mr. Bingley: “Mr. Brightside” – The Killers
Mr. Collins: “Hell No” – Sondre Lerche & Regina Spektor
Charlotte Lucas: “The Sound of Settling” – Death Cab for Cutie
Mary Bennet: “If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out” – Cat Stevens
Catherine Morland: “Miss Teen Wordpower” – The New Pornographers
Isabella Thorpe: “We Used to Be Friends” – The Dandy Warhols
Marianne Dashwood: “I Feel It All” – Feist
John Willoughby: “It’s Raining Men” – The Weather Girls
Readers, who are we missing?
Have you made your Jane Austen fortune cookies yet?
So there’s this new book out called Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough, by Lori Gottlieb. The idea being that lots of single women (especially those over-30 spinsters) have “toxic” romantic-fantasy expectations of a perfect partner, and should give that up to marry. . . someone whose characteristics vary wildly depending on who’s doing the reviews. From the reviews in The Telegraph and Grazia Daily, you get the impression that Gottlieb is advising women grab the first male they see and settle down having babies or something. Dreary.
Naturally, a lot of people have issues with this, along the lines of “married women aren’t necessarily happier than single women” and “why should women feel that marriage (and motherhood) is the ultimate goal?” These are perfectly valid points.
Actually, from this interview at The Happiness Project, Gottlieb says the book “is about finding true love by looking for the RIGHT Mr. Right, by focusing on what’s important in love rather than on things that don’t really matter.” In fact, if you read the interview, the book seems to be Sense and Sensibility recast in a modern light. The lessons of Marianne for the new generation. And apparently the new generation needs those lessons, because they seem to see nothing on the spectrum of marriage between “romantic fantasy perfect partnerships” (whatever that means) and “a partnership formed to run a very small, mundane, and often boring non-profit business.”
The funny thing is that I found all those articles (except the interview) because they all reference Jane Austen. And I am tired of Jane Austen being the peg on which people hang women’s “unrealistic” expectations of romance and marriage. Was she not an eminent realist about happiness in marriage? Don’t Austen heroines always find love with the sweet, thoughtful guy, who coincidentally has quite enough money, thanks, and not with the dashing, devil-may-care, spendthrift heart-flutterers? Jane Austen is ALL ABOUT the depth and not the surface in relationships. And as a happily married woman (everyone wave “hi” to Mr. Fitzpatrick!), I agree with Austen and Gottlieb that happiness in marriage is about understanding each other and agreeing about the world on fundamental levels, not about the laundry list of attributes Marianne and apparently women on dating sites are looking for. Geez, Austen spends hundreds of pages combating this type of Romanticism.
Sure, I know why people blame (or credit?) Jane Austen with the idea that true love exists, accept no substitutions. As Salon points out, this started long before Colin Firth jumped into a pond in a billowy shirt. But I honestly don’t know where they get the idea that she was telling us it would be all wet shirts, all the time, and nothing else. Man, for that, try the Brontës.
Photo credit: ©2010 by Charlene Chong. All rights reserved.
INT. LIVING ROOM – NIGHT
We open on a television set. The screen is black.
An eerie chord sounds and splinters; text appears.
LOST.
EXT. REGENCY HOME – DAY
When we return, gone is the island! Instead, OUR HEROES materialize, bedraggled and apparently out of thin air, on the grounds of a grand Regency estate. CHARLES WIDMORE looks on from a nearby window, twirling his nonexistent mustache.
Surprise!
You’re gonna love it. LOST: The Regency Season! What a way to go, right?
We zero in on the action.
JACK SHEPHARD
You fell down a hill and twisted your ankle? I’ll save you! Don’t you love me? Fine. I’ll be off crying in the forest if you need me TO AMPUTATE YOUR LEG.
JAMES “SAWYER” FORD
I challenge you to a duel, Mr. Shephard! I say, have I misplaced my shirt again?
KATE (ahem) AUSTEN
I love you, Mr. Shephard! No. I love you, Mr. Ford! No, I love you, Mr. Shephard! No, I love you, Mr. Ford! No, I love you, Mr. Shephard! What? You want your gun(s) back? La la la I can’t hear you! What?
SAYID JARRAH
Tell me where Wickham and Lydia went, or I’ll kill you with my thighs!
JOHN LOCKE
That Churchill fellow cultivates an admirable air of mystery. Care for some backgammon, shooting, and/or pseudo-religious posturing? Don’t tell me what I can’t do!
VINCENT
Woof!
BEN LINUS
(stares)
JULIET BURKE
I can kill every single one of these ladies with my brain.
CLAIRE LITTLETON
Gypsies warned me not to send my baby away, but what do they know?
DESMOND HUME
These ladies are tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me…away from mah Penneh. PENNEH!
ELOISE HAWKING
This time-travel nonsense is no match for the majesty of Rosings Park!
PENNY WIDMORE
Memo, Anne Elliott: Don’t let your man go off to sea. The only thing worse than years of crushing loneliness is having to rescue him from a lifeboat in the South Pacific ten years later. Ask me how I know!
HUGO REYES
Dude, where’s the Dharma cold meats platter?
We close on the castaways burning a bonfire as the sun sets. They’re alone. OR ARE THEY? Mr. Collins skulks around the shadows, unbeknownst to all.
END
Memo, universe: We at Austenacious have had just about enough of this “rain” business. Yes, we’re in California; yes, Minnesota, we feel you staring daggers at the backs of our heads right now. But you’ve got to know: it is the birthright of all Californians to experience 365 perfect weather days a year, and so far 2010 is just a giant vitamin D deficiency waiting to happen. And I think it goes without saying that you don’t want to see us cranky and/or with impaired bone mineralization.
In the mean time, as one does, we look to the grey-weather experience (see what I did there, Anglo-spellers?) of a people so steeped in precipitation, so accustomed to mist and gloom, that anything less than moss-growing conditions may as well be July in Death Valley. Would Jane mope when things get rainy? Would the young ladies of Jane’s novels faint when the sun seems simply gone forever? They would not, because they are English, and the English would never get anything done if they let the perpetual drizzle get them down. The English simply keep calm and carry on being . . . whatever it is they are. Awesome, I suppose?
And so, today, we present the Jane Austen Ladies’ Survival Guide for Soul-Crushing Weather, AKA Tips For the English, From the English (Regency Edition):
Tip #1: Become accomplished.
This is Priority One, obviously, and also blends conveniently with damp conditions. While your skin pales and your muscles atrophy, brush up on your painting! Practice that piece for next week’s ball, so as to avoid Mary Bennet Syndrome! Laziness is unbecoming, and the picturesque (though, of course, visibility-impaired) scene outside your (closed) window isn’t going to sketch itself, ladies, so let’s get moving, shall we?
Tip #2: Freak yourself out with Gothic tales.
This works better when things get truly squally, but with a little imagination, you, too, can slash the fine membrane between fiction and reality! Bonus points if you accuse your future husband’s father of killing his wife.
Tip #3: Matchmake.
Hey, we watched the premiere of Emma too, okay? Social parties and romantic walks are out of the question for now, sure, but bracket charts, Rolodexes, and sheer intuition function just fine under persistent cloud cover.
Tip #4: Go for a walk.
What have we Austenites learned, but that a nice stroll in a driving rain is sure to net 1) the sudden appearance of a dashing young man on horseback (blessing or curse? Discuss!), 2) a muddy hem, 3) brightened eyes (it helps if they’re “fine” already), and 4) a flu the likes of which will let you stay in the home of your crush for as long as you like! Game, set, match, my friends.
Tip #5: Read.
This falls under the umbrella of Tip #1, technically—nothing says “accomplished” and/or “sexy” like a great reader—but we think it bears repeating. Find yourself a soft surface and a cozy blanket and spend a few hours in another world. May we recommend one Jane Austen? You’ll like her. Promise.
This first day of the year—of the decade!—I’m sure I’m not the only one looking forward to the future, to the person I might be the next time the ball drops. I’m a fair-weather resolution maker, generally—sure, I would like to lose ten pounds, become a better public speaker, find my Darcy/Wentworth/Knightley, and learn to like olives, like a normal person, but let’s be honest. I’ve met myself, and somehow a resolution towards disappointment seems counterproductive. On the other hand, wouldn’t it great to be more awesome in the future than I am now? Such a conflict!
And so, as is so often the case, I’ve got to ask: WWJD?
I’m unsure about Jane’s hypothetical stance on hypothetical New Year’s resolutions. (To be fair, I’m also unsure about the Regency take on January 1, generally. Oh, Mrs. Fitzpatrick?) On one hand, I imagine that Jane was very much in the business of self-improvement, where possible and desirable: both her personal correspondence and the pattern of change in her heroines lead me to believe that personal growth is not against Jane’s credo. Whether learning to be wrong, learning to butt out of other people’s business, or discovering that being the dramatic heroine isn’t always a thrill, the Austen canon points directly towards a healthy respect for Life Lessons, capital L.
On the other hand, I suspect there are a few vices that Jane would have been loathe to part with: what if she had self-improved biting wit right out of her repertoire? What if, heaven forbid, she had resolved to like everybody she met? Is Jane Jane without the bits of herself that make her just slightly less than perfectly nice? Are any of us?
With all this in mind, perhaps January isn’t the time to make sweeping proclamations. Maybe cold-turkey isn’t the way to go. Maybe, as I suspect Jane might say, we change with time and experience, and not by sheer force of will and with the turn of a calendar page—maybe Elizabeth Bennet doesn’t learn to give second chances until she meets Mr. Darcy, and maybe Emma Woodhouse doesn’t learn to mind her own business until she’s caused some havoc around the neighborhood, and maybe Marianne Dashwood doesn’t learn to love a little normalcy until she’s crossed the path of one Mr. Willoughby. Maybe life takes care of our New Year’s resolutions for us, and not only once a year.
At least, that’s what I’m telling myself—my reluctantly out-working, spotlight-avoiding, single, olive-hating self.
Thanks, Jane.
Happy New Year, friends.
It’s a quiet weekend night at Austenacious HQ (East). Miss Ball sits in silence, embroidering her Mr. Darcy Che Guevara chair seat covers and dreaming of men in top boots with well-stocked trout ponds and a passion for the working man.
And then.
Blurp!
F1rthygdness129: I’m so annoyed right now! I’m finally almost finished re-reading Sense & Sensibility, and the ending is ridiculous!
LadyCatherinedeBlerg: How so?
F1rthygdness129: They’re all totally pimping out Marianne to Colonel Brandon!
F1rthygdness129: “They each felt his sorrows and their own obligations, and Marianne, by general consent, was to be the reward of all.” The freakin’ REWARD of all. They all want Marianne to marry Brandon, and he deserves to have the girl he wants; therefore, of course she should marry him. WTF, mate?
LadyCatherinedeBlerg: Yeah, somehow my entire memory of the end stops with Elinor’s freak-out. Is that really how it goes down? Way to mentally fanfic a happier ending for Marianne, self.
F1rthygdness129: And it goes on: “With such a confederacy against her—with a knowledge so intimate of his goodness—with a conviction of his fond attachment to herself, which at last, though long after it was observable to everyone else, burst on her—what could she do?”
F1rthygdness129: WHAT COULD SHE DO? She could make up her own mind and heart and think for herself!
LadyCatherinedeBlerg: Somehow I think that if somebody had said that to Jane herself, there would have been words.
F1rthygdness129: (Totally unrelated, I just took a ginger cake out of the oven, and I’m dying for it to cool down so I can eat some. Mrs. F is going to be lucky if there’s any left for her when she comes over tomorrow night.)
LadyCatherinedeBlerg: This is like the world’s worst diet. “There’s cake…three thousand miles away. If you want it, WALK FOR IT.” Heh.
F1rthygdness129: Eventually, she really does fall in love with him, so it’s not like it’s TOTAL crap. “Marianne could never love by halves; and her whole heart became, in time, as much devoted to her husband, as it had once been to Willoughby.” But still…this wasn’t how I remembered the ending.
LadyCatherinedeBlerg: Me, neither, but I…kind of like it? I mean, not the practically arranged marriage part, but the part where she learns the subtleties of love through a slow-burn relationship. Especially if Colonel Brandon doesn’t suddenly take off his unsexy glasses, shake out his hair, and become somebody he clearly isn’t.
F1rthygdness129: Heh. Did you ever watch Smallville? I was all about Michael Rosenbaum as Lex Luthor. But mostly I watched because the TWoP reviews were HI-larious! But I digress. At least Austen reminds us that Willoughby is still a big douchebag.
LadyCatherinedeBlerg: …Apparently the great Internet spell-checker in the sky doesn’t think “douchebag” is a word.
F1rthygdness129: When he shows up and talks to Elinor (as Marianne is on her death-flu-bed), Elinor finds herself feeling sorry for Willoughby. And eventually everyone sort of softens toward him. But on the last page of the book, we’re told that Willoughby—despite knowing that he screwed it all up—still finds plenty of enjoyment in his activities, marriage, and life in general. So despite his sort-of redemption, Austen takes him down a peg. Yay for that!
LadyCatherinedeBlerg: And that’s really all we need: to rightfully hate the douchey guy.
F1rthygdness129: That, and cake.
LadyCatherinedeBlerg: And cake.
F1rthygdness129: Speaking of which…
LadyCatherinedeBlerg: …Yeah. Priorities. I’ll see you later.
