MANILA, Philippines — How did Jane Austen get to be muse and mistress of the romance genre? Susannah Carson delves into this question with a collection of essays from Austen scholars, bestselling authors, language professors, and key personalities of the written word, to name a few in her new book: A TruthUniversally Acknowledged: 33 Writers On Why We Read Jane Austen. In this interview, Students and Campuses Bulletin discusses the steady upward climb and popular appreciation of this early 19th century England writer whose tales of romance and courtship have enraptured generations of readers and writers all over the world. STUDENTS AND CAMPUSES BULLETIN (SCB) : What gave you the idea to write A Truth Universally Acknowledged? SUSANNAH CARSON (SC) : I was home from Yale during the holidays, reading through a stack of scholarly articles with the TV on in the background. A commercial for one of the latest spin-off Austen movies came on. For some reason, it seemed especially fluffy, and the thought popped into existence: wouldn’t it benice if all these people who love Jane Austen had access to some of the great classical essays? Then, instead of reading and watching all these austenesque stories to get their fix, they could go back to the originals and really, really, really enjoy them. SCB: How did you first come to know Austen? SC: I was in my early teens when I first read Jane Austen. My grandmother liked to read old-fashioned historical romances, such as those by Victoria Holt and Georgette Heyer. I should confess that I read these modern adaptations first in my eagerness to read “grown-up” novels. When I discovered that these were modelledon the novels of Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë, I read them all in quick succession and haven’t stoppedre-reading them since. SCB: What is your favorite Austen novel? SC: I like them all at different times and in different moods. I look to Pride and Prejudice for sparkle, Persuasion for soul, Mansfield Park for depth, Emma for joy, Sense and Sensibility for subtlety, and Northanger Abbey for silliness. Recently, I’ve been enjoying Emma again, but I’m going to re-read Sense and Sensibility in honor of the 100th anniversary of its publication. SCB: Who is your favorite Austen hero? SC: I’ve never thought about that! Each hero is the perfect hero for his novel, so it’s difficult—and rather unfair—to take each of them out their novels, stand them up side by side, and see how they measure up against each other. It’s hard to resist the traditional drawof Mr. Darcy, if for no other reason than because our modern notion of heroism is derived from him. But his initial reserve imbues him with a certain coolness he cannot quiet shake off at the end of the novel. Since Mr. Knightley isn’t as essential to the plot of Emma (which, as the title suggests, is about the flaws and maturation of its heroine) as Mr. Darcy is to the plot of Pride and Prejudice (which, again as the title suggests, is about the flaws and maturation of both its heroine and hero), Mr. Knightley can be portrayed as less flawed and as more endowed with the warmth and kindness one would like in a reallife hero. SCB: What was the most fascinating thing you learned about Jane Austen during the course of writing your book? SC: Like many, I’m fascinated by the “creaking door,” as recounted by Austen’s nephew, James Edward Austen-Leigh, in his 1870 Memoirs of Jane Austen: “She was careful that her occupation should not be suspected by servants, or visitors, or any persons beyond her own family party. She wrote upon small sheets of paper which could easily be put away, or covered with a piece of blotting paper. There was, between the front door and the offices, a swing door which creaked when it was opened; but she objected to having this little inconvenience remedied, because it gave her notice when anyone was coming.” About Jane Austen SCB: Jane Austen has a huge following both in the movies and literature. What can you say about this? SC: Austen is perhaps even more popular today than she ever was! The previously-published essays in the collection date from throughout the twentieth century, illustrating that Austen has always been popularwith both workhorse scholars and general readers. But then there was a sort of surge, and one can only list as many possible circumstances as possible to explain it: • Feminism and the promotion of canonical women authors • The technical advances which allowed films to get closer to capturing something of the novels • The flourishing of fun trade paperbacks in glossy covers (for both the originals and the adaptations) • The appearance of a certain subgenre of chick lit that evolved from and continues to evoke Austen (also for both the originals and the adaptations) • The great takeover of technology in modern life, which inspires a nostalgic appreciation of candlelit evenings, letters, picnics, and perhaps especially balls with live orchestras • The breakdown of the traditional marriage and the proliferation of new options, which inspires a similarly nostalgic appreciation of classic tales of love and longing • The broadening scope of the world-as-we-know-it, which inspiresyet another form of nostalgia—this time for the smaller circles circumscribed by Austen’s “three or four families in a country village.” • The rise of the book club scene, which allows readers to come together for fun, community, and culture There are lots of possible reasons, but I think the reason behind all these reasons is that Austen gives us a feeling of belonging — a feeling we’re all yearning for, and a feeling that seems like it’s becoming (for whatever reasons) increasingly difficult to find. Whether we belong to an academic community or a book club, we’re already part of a welcoming, friendlyreadership that extends through time and across all sorts of ages, personalities, languages, and cultures. (There has been an edition of A Truth in China, and Jane Austen has a great fan club in Brazil—I wonder what it’s like to read her in the Philippines?) Harold Bloom writes in How to Read and Why that “imaginative literatureis otherness, and as such alleviates loneliness.” For me, the experience of reading Austen is at once personal— just me and a good book — but also communal in all sorts of ways. There’s the relationship with the characters, the relationship with the imagined author, and buzzing behind the book there are all the relationships with the other readers out there. I won’t get to meet most ofthem, but one of the rewards of putting together this book is that I get to know lots and lots of other janeites. Reading Jane Austen has shown me that reading isn’t an activity distinct from real life, but that it’s an experience capable of infusing all of life. SCB: What do you think would Jane make of all this Hollywood attention? SC: I think she would be amused, flattered, and only occasionally indignant. Personally, I think the films help our imaginations run even wilder. If we imagine, for a moment, what the world would be like without the film adaptations, then we see a world in which Austen doesn’t matter quite as much. The films are not only excellent introductions to those who balk at classics and perceived “chick lit”; they also provide the battleground for fierce literary debates amongst long-standing devotees. Which Emma best captures the heroine’s officiousness, charm, and self-importance? Which Pride and Prejudice gets the right balance of romance and practicality? Should Mansfield Park depart from the book in order to appeal to modern viewers? Answering these questions about the movies helps us to get at what we really think about the books. Which Darcy is the most swoonworthy? The question is not assilly as it sounds, since our perceptionof Darcy as more stand-offishly aristocratic or as more broodingly romantic determines whether we read the entire novel as the product of the late regime of the eighteenth century or as a forerunner of the impending post-French-Revolutionary era of the mid-to-late nineteenth century. SCB: Jane herself has been turned into a fictional character. How do youfeel about taking real figures and imputing behaviour, emotions and language to them? SC: I tend to be a bit impatient with dramatic accounts of Jane Austen’s life — simply because we really know so little about it and any attempt to construct a narrative is destined to reveal more about those who want to construct it than about Austen herself. The BBC Jane Austen Regrets seems to acknowledge this difficulty and still give us a taste of the biographical personage. For a Vampire spoof, Michael Thomas Ford’s Jane Bites Back and the newly-released Jane Goes Batty are fun send-ups of traditional biographical fictions. SCB: Austen, like the Brontes, has achieved a kind of literary fame that is bestowed on very few writers. Is the Austen industry good for Austen'snovels as novels? SC: There is, as your question presumes, a sort of distortion which occurs when an author’s works are made to bear the weight of so much cultural expectation and attention. We end up reading them less as they are and more as we want — or even need — them to be. In other words, we make them do a sort of cultural work that they were never intended to do. In Austen’s case, that work has to do with romance, love, and general escapism. On the other hand, the novels wouldn’t be asked to do that work if certain elements weren’t already compatible, if they didn’t lend themselves to it, if, in short, Austen’s novels weren’t already in some way about romance, love, and general escapism. In the end, no matter how we interpret them on film and in our own imaginations, the texts of Austen’s novels will remain intact, ready for new generations of readersto discover the same traditional joys as well as their own new delights. Via http://www.mb.com.ph/articles/311458/no-plain-jane-the-uncommon-writings-jane-austen
