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3.93 AVERAGE
3.93 AVERAGE
Continuing my Austen education!
I probably should have waited until “Austen in August” but I have no self-control.
Which important Austen characters never speak? Is there any sex in Austen? What do the characters call one another, and why? What are the right and wrong ways to propose marriage? In What Matters in Jane Austen? John Mullan shows that we can best appreciate Austen's brilliance by looking at the intriguing quirks and intricacies of her fiction. Asking and answering some very specific questions about what goes on in her novels, he reveals the inner workings of their greatness.
I probably should have waited until “Austen in August” but I have no self-control.
Which important Austen characters never speak? Is there any sex in Austen? What do the characters call one another, and why? What are the right and wrong ways to propose marriage? In What Matters in Jane Austen? John Mullan shows that we can best appreciate Austen's brilliance by looking at the intriguing quirks and intricacies of her fiction. Asking and answering some very specific questions about what goes on in her novels, he reveals the inner workings of their greatness.
informative
slow-paced
Jane Austen July 2022 Prompt 3: Read a non-fiction work about Jane Austen or her time.
informative
relaxing
medium-paced
informative
fast-paced
There is a good reason this is one of the most recommended book by and for Jane Austen enthusiast. When you get to a point where you read all of her major novels (plus also possibly Lady Susan, Sanditon and The Watsons as well, because those are also mentioned) you might like to read this book which gives a focus chapters on twenty different areas - such as money, marriage proposals, blushing, silence and speech etc. - and gives a brief discussion in regard to the different novels.
This book does contain a lot of great information even though it quite often just barely scratches the surface. It is definitely a great piece of Jane Austen non-fiction to start with although definitely do read at least the main novels first, because there are heavy spoilers!
I did appreciate all the facts, but interestingly enough even with the same information my analysis and conclussions often different dramatically from Mullan. This was mostly fun, but sometimes uncomfortable when he was harsher than I would like toward characters that I love. It's sometimes also very clear that this book was written by a man and these were little things but that I found quite irritating. I just finished Jane Austen's Bookshelf: A Rare Book Collector's Quest to Find the Women Writers Who Shaped a Legend and as a result I couldn't unsee the way he pitted the female novelists against each other while he never did such thing with some of the male writers he talks about! There was also this very weird passage where he speculates about incestuous relationship between Jane and Cassandra while calling it gay - I mean obviously if that were the case it would have been both, but by leaving one of them out he equates them as if they were the same. Also the argument why this wasn't the case is that anyway, each of them had their own bed and did you see what Frances Burney and her sister had been up to? Now there is something fishy going on! Wtf are you talking about dude! This is so tasteless...
So yeah, there were a couple things I disagreed with, most of them amicably, some of them... not amicably. But overall, I think this book is definitely an interesting read and would recommend it to anyone who wants to get a little bit deeper understanding of the book. Couple of the author's observations are really quite brilliant.
I'm glad I finally read this, because this one had been on my tbr for a while!
This book does contain a lot of great information even though it quite often just barely scratches the surface. It is definitely a great piece of Jane Austen non-fiction to start with although definitely do read at least the main novels first, because there are heavy spoilers!
I did appreciate all the facts, but interestingly enough even with the same information my analysis and conclussions often different dramatically from Mullan. This was mostly fun, but sometimes uncomfortable when he was harsher than I would like toward characters that I love. It's sometimes also very clear that this book was written by a man and these were little things but that I found quite irritating. I just finished Jane Austen's Bookshelf: A Rare Book Collector's Quest to Find the Women Writers Who Shaped a Legend and as a result I couldn't unsee the way he pitted the female novelists against each other while he never did such thing with some of the male writers he talks about! There was also this very weird passage where he speculates about incestuous relationship between Jane and Cassandra while calling it gay - I mean obviously if that were the case it would have been both, but by leaving one of them out he equates them as if they were the same. Also the argument why this wasn't the case is that anyway, each of them had their own bed and did you see what Frances Burney and her sister had been up to? Now there is something fishy going on! Wtf are you talking about dude! This is so tasteless...
So yeah, there were a couple things I disagreed with, most of them amicably, some of them... not amicably. But overall, I think this book is definitely an interesting read and would recommend it to anyone who wants to get a little bit deeper understanding of the book. Couple of the author's observations are really quite brilliant.
I'm glad I finally read this, because this one had been on my tbr for a while!
informative
reflective
medium-paced
especially liked the last chapter about austen's literary innovations, so so interesting!! also specifically made me want to reread northanger abbey soooo bad for some reason
Unbelievable attention to the details of her work. Explanations for things!
"It was Austen who had taught later novelists to filter narration through the minds of their own characters. It was Austen who made dialogue the evidence of motives that were never stated. It was Austen, A Jamesian avant la lettre, who made the morality with which her characters act depend on the nice judgements of her readers." (8-9).
"Austen's stories rely on an acknowledgement of men's sexual appetites, which explain why that 'truth universally acknowledged', an affluent bachelor's desire for a wife, is in fact true. There are several men in Austen's fiction who do 'want' a wife for reasons beyond financial calculation" (107)
"Austen is always careful with her sums of money..." (197).
"For the extraordinary thing is that everyone in Austen's fiction seems to know about everyone else's money." (201) "Not only is the income of another family a discussable matter -- just -- but it is also a knowable matter." (203)
"Equally evident to the regency reader would have been the wastefulness of Mr. Bennet, a character always blamed less by us than by Austen's own heroine. His estate brings an income of $2000 a year, which should be enough for a surplus to be put aside for dowries for all his daughters." (207)
"Caring about lover rather than money is admirable" (209)...Catherine Morland's "delusion is the belief that others are above caring about money."
"...books for Austen are not just the solemn matter of improvement. They are the means by which people live out their desires or their follies." (242)
"The managing of the attraction between Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy, for instance, is a triumph of technique as much as of psychological subtlety. Elizabeth Bennet is an unprecedented creation not just because of her wit and 'archness', but because Austen is able to give us a sense of her self-ignorance. (307) 'Without knowing what she did'. It is the most innocent of phrases, but read one way directs us to perhaps the most important fact about Pride and Prejudice for most readers: the strong current of attraction between two characters who are superficially at odds. Elizabeth does something despite herself..."
".,,Austen's irony, as she commends the self-control that will eventually turn out to have been a self-delusion. But it is also something like Mr Darcy's self-commendation, for the sentence clearly adopts his own stiff and self-important turn of phrase: 'nothing that could elevate her with the hope of influencing his felicity'. (308)
"Extraordinarily, Austen not only discovered the possibilities of free indirect style, she produced in Emma an example of its use that has hardly been matched. So confident did she feel about her control of the technique that she made her plot depend upon it." (310) "Her mistakenness is dutifully followed by the narrator, who shares with her the illusion that Harriet wishes to marry Frank Churchill. "
"It was Austen who had taught later novelists to filter narration through the minds of their own characters. It was Austen who made dialogue the evidence of motives that were never stated. It was Austen, A Jamesian avant la lettre, who made the morality with which her characters act depend on the nice judgements of her readers." (8-9).
"Austen's stories rely on an acknowledgement of men's sexual appetites, which explain why that 'truth universally acknowledged', an affluent bachelor's desire for a wife, is in fact true. There are several men in Austen's fiction who do 'want' a wife for reasons beyond financial calculation" (107)
"Austen is always careful with her sums of money..." (197).
"For the extraordinary thing is that everyone in Austen's fiction seems to know about everyone else's money." (201) "Not only is the income of another family a discussable matter -- just -- but it is also a knowable matter." (203)
"Equally evident to the regency reader would have been the wastefulness of Mr. Bennet, a character always blamed less by us than by Austen's own heroine. His estate brings an income of $2000 a year, which should be enough for a surplus to be put aside for dowries for all his daughters." (207)
"Caring about lover rather than money is admirable" (209)...Catherine Morland's "delusion is the belief that others are above caring about money."
"...books for Austen are not just the solemn matter of improvement. They are the means by which people live out their desires or their follies." (242)
"The managing of the attraction between Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy, for instance, is a triumph of technique as much as of psychological subtlety. Elizabeth Bennet is an unprecedented creation not just because of her wit and 'archness', but because Austen is able to give us a sense of her self-ignorance. (307) 'Without knowing what she did'. It is the most innocent of phrases, but read one way directs us to perhaps the most important fact about Pride and Prejudice for most readers: the strong current of attraction between two characters who are superficially at odds. Elizabeth does something despite herself..."
".,,Austen's irony, as she commends the self-control that will eventually turn out to have been a self-delusion. But it is also something like Mr Darcy's self-commendation, for the sentence clearly adopts his own stiff and self-important turn of phrase: 'nothing that could elevate her with the hope of influencing his felicity'. (308)
"Extraordinarily, Austen not only discovered the possibilities of free indirect style, she produced in Emma an example of its use that has hardly been matched. So confident did she feel about her control of the technique that she made her plot depend upon it." (310) "Her mistakenness is dutifully followed by the narrator, who shares with her the illusion that Harriet wishes to marry Frank Churchill. "
Here I am, leaning in a little harder to my Janeite era. I heard about this book from the Reading Jane Austen podcast, and really enjoyed delving deeper into the brilliance of these novels I’ve loved nearly all my life. The last chapter on free indirect style was particularly interesting.