Today is Jane Austen’s 244th birthday.
Her reputation is strange and contradictory—Jane Austen, as I often say, is overhyped but underrated. Overhyped because her name is a brand in pop culture, with lots of related merchandise; there are balls and events for people to dress up Regency-style and imagine being in a Jane Austen novel; and compared to other classic authors, her works seem to have a lot more adaptations, modernisations, retellings, prequels, sequels, parodies, mash-ups, and other kinds of spin-offs.
Underrated because she’s profoundly misunderstood by many readers, misrepresented in pop culture, and seemingly not taken as seriously as she deserves. To many people, she’s still associated, wrongly, with romance and chicklit, with balls and pretty frocks, and dismissed as trivial, limited, and not a very serious writer. It is not only detractors but sometimes even fans and admirers. Just recently for example, I saw someone using the word “fangirling”, as though there is something frivolous and childish about loving Jane Austen’s works and readers cannot appreciate them with a cool judgment.
(I haven’t even mentioned the readers who only enjoy her works on the surface and admire her for all the wrong reasons).
To me, Jane Austen is among the greatest writers of Western literature. People, discussing her works, often talk about women’s rights, her depiction of society and critique of social norms and the patriarchy, as though social issues are the only things or even the main things that make her important and relevant. I love her elegant prose, her humour and use of irony. Above all, she has sharp observation and deep understanding of human behaviour. Nothing escapes her, nothing fools her—deception and hypocrisy, in different forms, are constantly in her works.
Among Jane Austen’s 6 complete novels, the most popular one might be Pride and Prejudice, but the best is either Mansfield Park or Emma. I can’t choose. Emma is a puzzle, a kind of mystery novel. It is in Emma that Jane Austen masters the free indirect speech, setting up lots of traps for readers, tricking us into ridiculing Miss Bates till we realise that we, just like Emma, forget that she too has feeling, or tricking us into seeing the Jane Fairfax affair from Emma’s perspective and failing to understand the truth, until the mystery is revealed, then when we reread the book, knowing the answer, we realise that the hints have been there all long, right before our eyes.
Mansfield Park is the most visual of her novels, the most dense and rich in detail. It is her least popular, or most misunderstood work, because it is the most complex—she creates very charming villains and challenges readers to resist them. Most fail the test, especially those who think Mary Crawford is another Elizabeth Bennet, not realising that she is frivolous, mercenary, selfish, shallow, and incapable of the self-reflection that Elizabeth Bennet shares with Fanny Price and the other heroines. As I wrote before, in order to understand Mansfield Park, sometimes a reader has to know all the other 5 novels, and understand Jane Austen’s ideas about love, relationships, self-reflection, and balance.
On their own terms the 6 novels are brilliant. In a way, they seem to be the same—by using the marriage plot, Jane Austen always writes about reflection, growth, perception, understanding of other people, and understanding of oneself. But when the novels are examined in relation to each other, we can start to see that they respond to each other, in different ways. We can also see more clearly her ideas of balance: between sense and sensibility, between emotional display and restraint, between a resolute character and a persuadable temper, between pride and humility, between wit or quickness of mind and self-reflection, between openness and reservedness, between honesty and civility, between being practical and being mercenary, and so on.
Apart from literary merit, Jane Austen’s novels have also influenced the way I think about life, love, relationships, and the way men and women treat each other. The author is elusive—as Virginia Woolf has written, Jane Austen writes without anger, without bitterness, without resentment; she doesn’t let her personality take over the page; it is hard to tell what the real Jane Austen was really like. But I wouldn’t be far off in thinking that she has no delusions about anything, not even herself; she sees compatibility, understanding, and respect as foundation for a strong relationship; she distrusts lack of openness and disapproves of men who toy with women’s feelings; and she believes that everything should be in balance.
Whilst literature should not be reduced to self-help books, these ideas and values are central to her works, and they make me feel closer to them on a personal level.
At the moment I’m reading Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, but thinking of rereading Mansfield Park soon, perhaps in January. Anyone can join the read-along if you want.
great post... i can't count the number of times i've tried to read "Emma" and failed... and some of the others as well... i did read Mansfield Park once and it seemed okay, but not brilliant by any means. i'm just at a loss as to why JA's writing just seems bland and, okay, boring to me... i really like Benjamin Disraeli a lot and he talks of many of the same things as JA, but i am unable to pinpoint why the difference... and as i don't have that many years left, i may never find out what it is... oh, well, we do what we can, i guess...
ReplyDeleteI haven't read Benjamin Disraeli so I can't say. They may talk about the same things, but writers have different styles, different approaches. You probably just don't like Jane Austen's.
DeleteI think Mansfield Park is a great novel, perhaps her greatest, or at least, her most complex one. When rereading, I'm going to write about what I think is great about it.
i'll look forward to that...
DeleteBut I assume you're more of a Dickens person?
DeleteThat's Himadri's theory, you see, you're either a Jane Austen person or a Dickens person.
Love the post. The observation that you never get a sense for her personality on the page exactly matches with my reading of Austen too. Looking forward to reading Mansfield Park for the first time in January
ReplyDeleteThank you.
DeleteNow that I've thought more about it, we do see a bit of her personality on the page, mostly that she's cynical but humane, and amused by human foibles, and she's not deceived easily by surfaces- she could see through everything.
Still, she never preached, and didn't let her anger or anything like that reveal in her works like some other writers.
Great post. Jane Austen was also a favourite when I was young. I'm originally from India and Austen was a huge favourite when I was growing up. My grandmother's and mother's generation read her and passed on the books to us, and she was always popular among women readers, literary-minded or not.
ReplyDeleteI suspect a large degree had to do with the marriage plot. Marriages arranged by the family (usually matchmaking within the family circle or neighbourhood) are still common, and the readers may have identified with the plot. I personally remember finding Charlotte in Pride and Prejudice particularly realistic and pragmatic, because it was far more likely that one would marry a Mr. Collins than the rare Mr.Darcy. Granted, this goes back to your problem of Austen being celebrated for the wrong reasons - 'identifiable' and 'relatable' are very superficial compliments.
But I also think that her study of human nature and character, and the seamless way they reveal themselves in the text is the fundamental reason readers find them immediately relatable. Human character is universal. I'm thinking Mrs. Bennet, Mr Wodehouse, Mr. Collins... we all know such people in our lives. Austen uses dialogue and mannerisms very effectively, but also melds them into the plot such that not just what they are saying, but what they are doing in the world she has built is true to character with not a hair out of place. (Like where Lady Catherine is outraged in Pride and Prejudice that Elizabeth refuses to promise she will never marry Darcy and immediately conveys it to him... it's character moving plot). It's realism, but at the same time her characters have the glow of the Platonic ideal - Mrs. Bennet embodies a Mrs.Bennet-ness that immediately evokes all the exemplars we know. Austen achieves this so seamlessly that the reader often hardly notices the craft, unless they are trained or primed to do so - which probably accounts for why she is underrated.
Hi,
DeleteThanks for stopping by, and welcome to my blog.
I suppose Jane Austen's books would always be more popular among women, and the marriage plot is one of the main reasons.
I perfectly see what you mean about the relatable characters in Jane Austen. Indeed, human character is universal, and it shows the universality and adaptability of her works that they're beloved across cultures and across periods of time. When I'm talking about people relating to characters and loving Jane Austen for the wrong reasons, I'm talking about people who identify with Elizabeth Bennet, think that Elizabeth is Jane Austen, and want to marry Mr Darcy, which in turn colours their reading of other works, including Mansfield Park. The popularity and sparkling charm of Pride and Prejudice is most harmful for the reception of Mansfield Park, because of the superficial similarity between Elizabeth and Mary Crawford.
Also, because Jane Austen's novels can be enjoyed by more or less anyone, including many people who never read serious literature and are not trained to do so, they sometimes don't see her depth, and don't realise what she was doing. Then they misunderstand her works and think she's doing something wrong.
(Yep I'm aware I sound very snobbish).
Continued...
ReplyDeleteI just finished George Eliot's 'The Mill on the Floss' and I can't help comparing a couple of Austenian characters that feature in it - Mrs. Glegg and Mrs. Pullet - with Austen's aesthetics. Eliot borrows techniques of dialogue and wit from Austen, however she doesn't have Austen's supreme detatchment. It's like Austen observes a natural scene from a distance and makes a sketch in her notebook, while Eliot peers through a microscope, meticulously draws the wiggles in her specimen, occasionally prodding it with a speculum to see how it changes shape.
For example, Mrs. Glegg, the most Austenean character in the novel, is a traditionalist, an upholder of family honour, a protector of family heirlooms. This is mostly achieved through dialogue and mannerisms, like in Austen. But she doesn't get to move the plot much. It's not quite so seamless as Austen, but Eliot has great skill to ensure that it doesn't become cartoonish. But once can definitely trace the influence, even a hat-tip.
However towards the end of the novel, in a moment I thought was imbued with great classicism, she rises in a flash to speak up for the disgraced protagonist Maggie - her notion of family honour meant that she would never let down a family member, no matter how badly they had behaved. It was consistent, keeping in character, but very rarely do we see such a moment of grace and large-heartedness - almost Tolstoyan - in Austen.
And that brings me to where I feel Austen is limited. Austen can never be transcendental. I think of a couple of 'interior' scenes from Tolstoy - for example, where Anna wears black and enters the ballroom in AK, instead of the more traditional lilac as Kitty expected her to. The shock leads to her subsequent mental breakdown. It's almost like coming face to face with an archetypically feminine character like Anna, whom she had shelved as a matronly older sister, gave the virginal Kitty a great shock. It's realistic, keeping in character, a touch dramatic maybe, but also supremely transcendental. Anna glows here, as she does in all the dramatic and dreamy scenes of the novel. Austen's aesthetics doesn't allow itself the possibility of transcendence.
I tried to read The Mill on the Floss once, and stopped after about 1/3 of it. George Eliot's work clashes with my aesthetics so much.
DeleteI believe I see what you mean about Jane Austen's aesthetics not allowing itself the possibility of transcendence. She's very grounded. At the same time, do you find the transcendental quality in many works?
I don't compare Jane Austen to Tolstoy because, 1, nobody compares to Tolstoy, and 2, he had expansive experience and could go everywhere and live many lives, so to speak, whereas she, as a woman, was very limited.
I cannot talk about that moment you mentioned in The Mill on the Floss because I haven't read it, but my problem with George Eliot, normally, is that she seemed to see life from the lens of morality, and divide people into selfish or selfless. There's no joy in her works. No passion. No bliss. I can find joy, rapture, passion in Jane Austen, even if there's much restraint, but none whatsoever in George Eliot, at least in the 3 novels I have read.