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A review by paging_snidget
Jane Austen, the Secret Radical by Helena Kelly
3.0
An interesting but also at times frustrating read.
I was not impressed by the little fictional sections at the start of each chapter and felt that they added nothing to the text. I also hated the way Kelly consistently referred to Jane Austen as Jane as if she were her personal friend - that really irritated me.
Overall I found her conclusions to be hit and miss. Some things were incredibly interesting and I did learn a few things. However, there were also more than a few occasions where I felt that the conclusions were reached after some rather wild leaps of logic or with very little evidence. (Edward Ferrars' apparent sexual appetites for one. Harriet Smith's possible parentage for another.)
Nothing incredibly eye-opening here, at least the plausible theories weren't. A good read but the author's proprietary attitude toward Austen and her works - as if she was the only one who really knew Austen, and her reading of the novels was the only true one - kept me from really enjoying it.
I was not impressed by the little fictional sections at the start of each chapter and felt that they added nothing to the text. I also hated the way Kelly consistently referred to Jane Austen as Jane as if she were her personal friend - that really irritated me.
Overall I found her conclusions to be hit and miss. Some things were incredibly interesting and I did learn a few things. However, there were also more than a few occasions where I felt that the conclusions were reached after some rather wild leaps of logic or with very little evidence. (Edward Ferrars' apparent sexual appetites for one. Harriet Smith's possible parentage for another.)
Nothing incredibly eye-opening here, at least the plausible theories weren't. A good read but the author's proprietary attitude toward Austen and her works - as if she was the only one who really knew Austen, and her reading of the novels was the only true one - kept me from really enjoying it.