Comments on people's comments on Jane Austen || Finish "Mansfield park"

1/ The other day I found this short article comparing Flaubert to Tolstoy:
"The spectrum of novelistic empathy: at one end, Tolstoy, who envelops his characters with an unconditional love, suffering himself as they go wrong and act foolishly; at the other end, Flaubert, whose razor-sharp wit ceaselessly probes the pretensions and false hopes of his creations, mercilessly exposing the shabbiness of their fantasies and the pettiness of their ambitions. Flaubert writes as a vivisectionist and coroner, for whom all souls are dead matter to be cut open and put on display, Tolstoy as a loving parent, who experiences acutely the anguish of a creator who extends without hesitation to his offspring the freedom to live outside his blessings. For Flaubert there is no hope — bourgeois society is irredeemably corrupt and noxiously superficial, while for Tolstoy, hope always abounds, and only our lapses in attention prevent us from grasping it and rising up into true fellowship with our fellow human beings."
(http://pypaik.wordpress.com)

And here 1 person discusses the difference between Flaubert and Jane Austen:
"Flaubert’s personality, for instance, is very evident in his novels. At times, he even speaks to the reader directly – such as in that famous passage in Madame Bovary where he speaks of language being a cracked kettle on which he beats out tunes for bears to dance to, when, instead, he wants to move the stars with pity. I say Flaubert “speaks” of this, for, when I read it, I feel as if this line were spoken. And it is spoken to me in a tone of resigned heartbreak.
That is the tone of voice I get in much of Flaubert – resigned heartbreak: and the cause of the heartbreak is that there is no option but to be resigned. Austen, who is as deeply ironic as Flaubert and as aware of human stupidity, has, however, a very different tone of voice: although she could be deeply serious, and even at times, as in Mansfield Park, sombre, her tone of voice is amused, happy to batter the cracked kettle with a virtuosic verve and gaiety without any thought of moving the stars with pity; or, indeed, without any thought of pity at all. On a personal level, I like the sound of Flaubert’s voice, even through the services of an interpreter (since I do not know French well enough to read the originals); Austen I am a bit frightened to sit too close to, in case she chooses me as the next object of her pitiless wit: and if she does, she would veil it in such subtle shades of irony, that I might not even notice. In any case, there are far too many people as it is sitting around Austen, enjoying her wicked wit, so there’s no point my adding to the throng."

"Somerset Maugham once wondered why Flaubert made Charles Bovary die of grief after Emma’s death. Surely, Maugham argued, if he’d got over it and married again, that would have added another note of futility. I think this is why, despite his talents, Maugham could never be anything other than a second-rater compared to someone like Flaubert. Because in Flaubert’s vision, one cannot dismiss humanity with a casual shrug of the shoulders, and a cheerful “What does it matter anyway?” That is far too easy. It does matter – it matters because these characters, absurd and stupid though they may be, are nonetheless sentient beings capable of depth of feeling. And that can’t be shrugged away. Even a figure as absurd and as stupid as Charles Bovary cannot be dismissed, because, despite everything, he is capable of feeling deeply. The scene where he and Homais stay up together after Emma’s death is almost unbearably moving – all the more so because Charles’ understanding of the situation is so inadequate.
Emma Bovary is not the brightest of people: her Romanticism is merely sentimental. To have presented her as a pure representative of Romantic ideals who is crushed by a philistine world would have been far too formulaic and crude for an author as subtle as Flaubert. Emma’s Romanticism is just as stupid and as insipid as Homais’ philistinism: the rebellion is just as flawed as that which it is rebelling against – and therein lies the profound sadness of it all.
We may or may not sympathise with Emma, but that, I think, is perhaps beside the point. The emotions we sympathise with – or at least, the emotions that I find myself sympathising with – are the author’s. And these are emotions of deep sadness – sadness that life should be like this, when those ideals that he still can’t bring himself to discard tell him it should be so much more. Romanticism urged us all to aspire towards something great and noble, and the sorrowful awareness that humanity is not capable of this is at the heart of just about everything Flaubert wrote.
Austen knew this too: of course humanity could not strive towards the transcendent as the Romantics urged them to do! The very idea! But where Flaubert found this tragic, Austen found this merely amusing. And there, I think, lies the difference. Where Austen refused to take human beings too seriously, Flaubert took them very seriously indeed. While Austen regarded human inadequacy with an amused smile, Flaubert shook his head in sadness.
It is this that accounts for Flaubert giving Charles Bovary depth of feeling, and Austen keeping from any strong emotion a decorous distance. In an Austen novel, a character such as Charles would have been no more than a laughing stock: unlike Flaubert, Austen seems temperamentally incapable of taking seriously a figure as absurd as Charles. Take for instance Austen’s representation of Miss Bates in Emma: Austen knows that despite her absurdity, she is a harmless lady, and that it is ungentle and unkind to poke fun at her. Mr Knightley says all this quite openly. And yet, Austen herself  just couldn’t resist poking fun at this harmless creature; and she didn’t (or couldn’t) depict any aspect of Miss Bates that gives her any sort of depth. She couldn’t, in short, make of her what Flaubert had made of Charles Bovary: at no point is Miss Bates depicted as anything other than a tiresome old bat.
Ultimately, what one does or does not respond to is a matter of individual temperament, and I don’t think I’ll ever enjoy Austen’s amused detachment. It is Flaubert’s deep sorrow that continues to attract me, and, indeed, to move me."
(http://argumentativeoldgit.wordpress.com)

Having noticed these things, I don't think I feel the same way and arrive at the same conclusion.
Whilst I can't speak of the other novels by Flaubert, "Madame Bovary" gives me the impression that between these 2 authors, it's Flaubert that is colder and more ruthless. Jane Austen makes fun of the gossipy and garrulous Miss Bates, but on a more subtle level this "tiresome old bat" is also depicted as kind, generous, patient, generous, forgiving and rarely complaining. Jane Austen sees both sides and, at the beginning, portrays Miss Bates in such a way that makes the readers side with Emma Woodhouse's view only to later makes us ashamed of ourselves as we realise it the same moment Emma regrets her own thoughtlessness.
In contrast, the fact that Charles Bovary dies of grief doesn't make him less as a laughing stock but actually pushes to the extreme the stupidity, delusion and blind devotion of the character, who, lacking intelligence and observation, has never succeeded in his job as a doctor and who, as a husband, has never understood his wife nor suspected anything that would have been noticed by most people. On the other hand, Charles's kindness doesn't have much effect on the readers' perception of him as a pathetic, naive, weak character- it only makes Emma shrink more before our eyes as she becomes more and more sentimental, delusional and foolish in deceiving and taking advantage of a tedious but nice husband to fall for more charming but less reliable men. As written many times before, Emma Bovary isn't like Anna Karenina. While such things aren't relevant for the aesthetic value of the novel and "Madame Bovary" is a perfect work, the truth is that Emma is fatalistic and has nothing to condemn but herself and I doubt that many people may understand and sympathise with her, who initially may arouse sympathy for marrying a dull man and yearning for some excitement yet who later causes her own downfall for nothing worthwhile (Anna Karenina's fate is due to herself and more due to the society in which she lives). Gustave Flaubert, albeit having said "Madame Bovary, c'est moi", seems cold, merciless and pitiless towards both Charles and Emma Bovary.



2/ John Fowles on Jane Austen and James Joyce:

I agree.
Her novels are about ordinary people of the gentry class in ordinary life, the subject matter may be perceived by many people (including my "younger" self) as dull, unexciting. To write and finish such books like the works by Tolstoy, Victor Hugo... requires more knowledge, understanding, hard work, patience, determination and perseverance, but to write small-scaled books like Jane Austen, and succeed, is more difficult. Not many people can turn mundane matters into art as Jane Austen has done.
(I don't know much about James Joyce- having read nothing by him but the love letters to Nora, 1 short story, and some poems. But it seems to be true according to what I know about his writing- to imitate him would be risky and likely to become disastrous. But William Faulkner? He's great and has his place. Not as huge as James Joyce, but certainly acclaimed and important, and perhaps read by more people).



3/ "... it’s begun to seem like she’s now assumed the role of the designated highbrow writer for light readers. It’s not that she’s overrated. It’s that she’s in dire jeopardy of being overhyped—and dumbed down in the process.
[...] Something quiet and true about Austen is being lost in the trumpet blasts and the spin-offs.
[...] Most dispiriting of all, though was the recent attempt by a distinguished literary critic to repurpose Jane Austen for a faux-naive self-help book.
[...] And seriously, haven’t you had enough of intellectuals “discovering” that Jane Austen meets their high standards for complexity and moral seriousness? (It’s like landing at JFK’s international arrivals terminal and claiming to have “discovered” America. Discovering Jane Austen condescendingly was old when Lionel Trilling wrote his famous essay on Mansfield Park back in the ’50s.
Anyway, until I read Deresiewicz’s book, I always had respected and admired his intelligent literary criticism and I still can’t quite believe he committed this gimmicky dumbing down of serious literature into insipid self-help. In the book, he portrays himself as basically someone raised by wolves, an oafish fellow with no social skills or interpersonal sensitivity until—sacre bleu!—he “discovers” Jane Austen and learns by reading her that he has been a jerk all his life, and that she has Important Things to teach him about life and love that transform him into a civilized sensitive human being.
[...] This is the basic theme throughout the book: Jane Austen schools him out of his bad behavior.
Which I probably need not point out is not the point, and certainly not the measure, of great literature: to teach us to behave like good little boys and girls. The idea that literature should be mined for morality lessons does it a disservice. The hallmark of great literature is that it makes one question—without offering simplistic answers—the foundations of one's beliefs about the nature of human nature, the structure of moral strictures, and the meaning and purpose of human existence. The idea that literature as a whole and Austen in particular should chiefly be read for rules of behavior rather than, say, for the unique intensity of aesthetic pleasure that a beautifully crafted sentence can offer, the idea that literature is somehow simplistically about how to behave—that literature has a single unified view of morality, of the self (and thus self-help)—is ludicrously retrograde, antiquarian, and frankly anti-literary. What if he "discovered" Genet? Less chance of getting on Oprah's Book Club, I imagine.
But Deresiewicz’s book comes across as so childishly simpleminded, I just have to believe he’s putting us on. Is "Lolita" not literature? Is "Anna Karenina" not literature? Is "Coriolanus" not literature? I rest my case. Literature is not Miss Manners, an affirmation of bourgeois values. In fact Jane Austen’s works are not bourgeois; she wrote about—dissected—the bourgeoisie."
(Ron Rosenbaum- http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/the_spectator/2013/02/jane_austen_s_literary_reputation_is_she_overhyped_or_underappreciated_on.html)

That reminds me of a discussion I read the other day, in which the author was talking about the descriptive language of Nora Roberts and Vladimir Nabokov and the aesthetic value of something by Nora Roberts and "Lolita", and some of the offended, enraged Nora Roberts fans defended her by attacking Nabokov, especially by dismissing "Lolita" altogether because of what they called moral value.
One may say, it's OK, Jane Austen means different things to different people. But William Deresiewicz is an author, essayist, literary critic, and like Ron Rosenbaum I see something quite wrong about his book "A Jane Austen education: How 6 novels taught me about love, friendship, and the things that really matter". That does her a huge disservice. Back then reading "Emma" and, the 1st time, "Sense and sensibility", I did see the foibles and faults satirised, and did see myself in some characters (Emma Woodhouse, Marianne Dashwood...), but that wasn't the point and didn't stop me from dismissing the author, and only recently is my view reversed and it's because in "Mansfield park" she's somehow comparable to Tolstoy in insight, sensitivity and observation, in close attention to details and nuances and subtleties, in the way she describes, portrays and handles her characters (even though considering all aspects, Jane Austen's not on the same level as Tolstoy, but then how many writers are on the same level as Tolstoy?). Self-help? This guy dismisses her entirely (unintentionally). What about her style? Sentences? Characterisation? Wit? Irony? Game with appearance and reality? Subtlety? Epigrams?...
This sentence caught my attention "she’s now assumed the role of the designated highbrow writer for light readers". This is true. I've once talked about the 2 groups of fans, which is why I, new as I am, am not very comfortable with saying I like Jane Austen or carrying her book around because of the idea that people may think I belong to the 2nd group (though of course, it's not the same as saying "I like Stephenie Meyer/ E. J. James..."). Guess I simply have to get used to it.
(Some days ago a guy told me he used to like her but no longer did, because she's (over)sentimental. Yeah, that's what he said).



4/ "... That elusive quality is, indeed, often made up of very different parts, which it needs a peculiar genius to bring together. The wit of Jane Austen has for partner the perfection of her taste. Her fool is a fool, her snob is a snob, because he departs from the model of sanity and sense which she has in mind, and conveys to us unmistakably even while she makes us laugh. Never did any novelist make more use of an impeccable sense of human values. It is against the disc of an unerring heart, an unfailing good taste, an almost stern morality, that she shows up those deviations from kindness, truth, and sincerity which are among the most delightful things in English literature. She depicts a Mary Crawford in her mixture of good and bad entirely by this means. She lets her rattle on against the clergy, or in favour of a baronetage and ten thousand a year, with all the ease and spirit possible; but now and again she strikes one note of her own, very quietly, but in perfect tune, and at once all Mary Crawford’s chatter, though it continues to amuse, rings flat. Hence the depth, the beauty, the complexity of her scenes. From such contrasts there comes a beauty, a solemnity even, which are not only as remarkable as her wit, but an inseparable part of it. In The Watsons she gives us a foretaste of this power; she makes us wonder why an ordinary act of kindness, as she describes it, becomes so full of meaning. In her masterpieces, the same gift is brought to perfection. Here is nothing out of the way; it is midday in Northamptonshire; a dull young man is talking to rather a weakly young woman on the stairs as they go up to dress for dinner, with housemaids passing. But, from triviality, from commonplace, their words become suddenly full of meaning, and the moment for both one of the most memorable in their lives. It fills itself; it shines; it glows; it hangs before us, deep, trembling, serene for a second; next, the housemaid passes, and this drop, in which all the happiness of life has collected, gently subsides again to become part of the ebb and flow of ordinary existence.
What more natural, then, with this insight into their profundity, than that Jane Austen should have chosen to write of the trivialities of day-to-day existence, of parties, picnics, and country dances? No “suggestions to alter her style of writing” from the Prince Regent or Mr. Clarke could tempt her; no romance, no adventure, no politics or intrigue could hold a candle to life on a country-house staircase as she saw it. Indeed, the Prince Regent and his librarian had run their heads against a very formidable obstacle; they were trying to tamper with an incorruptible conscience, to disturb an infallible discretion. The child who formed her sentences so finely when she was fifteen never ceased to form them, and never wrote for the Prince Regent or his Librarian, but for the world at large. She knew exactly what her powers were, and what material they were fitted to deal with as material should be dealt with by a writer whose standard of finality was high. There were impressions that lay outside her province; emotions that by no stretch or artifice could be properly coated and covered by her own resources. For example, she could not make a girl talk enthusiastically of banners and chapels. She could not throw herself whole-heartedly into a romantic moment. She had all sorts of devices for evading scenes of passion. Nature and its beauties she approached in a sidelong way of her own. She describes a beautiful night without once mentioning the moon. Nevertheless, as we read the few formal phrases about “the brilliancy of an unclouded night and the contrast of the deep shade of the woods”, the night is at once as “solemn, and soothing, and lovely” as she tells us, quite simply, that it was.
The balance of her gifts was singularly perfect. Among her finished novels there are no failures, and among her many chapters few that sink markedly below the level of the others. But, after all, she died at the age of forty-two. She died at the height of her powers. She was still subject to those changes which often make the final period of a writer’s career the most interesting of all. Vivacious, irrepressible, gifted with an invention of great vitality, there can be no doubt that she would have written more, had she lived, and it is tempting to consider whether she would not have written differently. The boundaries were marked; moons, mountains, and castles lay on the other side. But was she not sometimes tempted to trespass for a minute? Was she not beginning, in her own gay and brilliant manner, to contemplate a little voyage of discovery?"
(Virginia Woolf)

This passage answers the question above on her literary merit.
Virginia Woolf seems to be a huge Janeite. Back then in my British literature course, the professor didn't mention it. Some of the most noticeable influences of Jane Austen on Virginia Woolf are free indirect style and the everyday life subject. 

"And what effect would all this have had upon the six novels that Jane Austen did not write? She would not have written of crime, of passion, or of adventure. She would not have been rushed by the importunity of publishers or the flattery of friends into slovenliness or insincerity. But she would have known more. Her sense of security would have been shaken. Her comedy would have suffered. She would have trusted less (this is already perceptible in Persuasion) to dialogue and more to reflection to give us a knowledge of her characters. Those marvellous little speeches which sum up, in a few minutes’ chatter, all that we need in order to know an Admiral Croft or a Mrs. Musgrove for ever, that shorthand, hit-or-miss method which contains chapters of analysis and psychology, would have become too crude to hold all that she now perceived of the complexity of human nature. She would have devised a method, clear and composed as ever, but deeper and more suggestive, for conveying not only what people say, but what they leave unsaid; not only what they are, but what life is. She would have stood farther away from her characters, and seen them more as a group, less as individuals. Her satire, while it played less incessantly, would have been more stringent and severe. She would have been the forerunner of Henry James and of Proust — but enough. Vain are these speculations: the most perfect artist among women, the writer whose books are immortal, died “just as she was beginning to feel confidence in her own success”."
(Virginia Woolf)

For the time being I can say nothing till I've read all of her novels, at least the 2 books in which I'm currently interested, "Northanger Abbey" and "Persuasion".
1 thing: "the most perfect artist among women". Is this the case? Recognising her talent doesn't mean I'm no longer aware of her limitations and the smallness of her world, doesn't clear away my ambivalence towards certain things about Jane Austen's writing. She has limitations and creates other limitations for herself through avoidance of misery and suffering and avoidance of anything with which she's not familiar and apparent oblivion to the outside world. Jane Austen's realistic in an extreme way- keeping strictly to what she knows and what is natural and possible in real life. It's not easy to call her great, to "catch her in the act of greatness" (Virginia Woolf's words), sometimes I can't help feeling that she's merely a hill beside the mountain Tolstoy. But maybe that's it, greatness and perfection are 2 different things.
(I, by the way, must read more works by Virginia Woolf. "Mrs Dalloway" isn't enough).



5/ Conrad Aiken on the 2 female writers above:


Doesn't this make both of them sound quite snobbish and conservative?
(Looking again at "Mrs Dalloway" makes me feel that perhaps Jane Austen's influence on Virginia Woolf runs more deeply than those things I've mentioned). 






__________________________________________________


I've just finished reading "Mansfield park". Superior to "Sense and sensibility" and more enjoyable than "Emma" and more complex than both.
I find words insufficient to express and explain what I mean, but the exploration of Fanny's feelings, that she hardly misses her family except the brother closest to her, that she feels alienated when coming back home, that she wants to get back to Mansfield park, that she has some selfish happiness in being called back while her relatives are suffering from sickness and scandal and grief, is remarkably excellent- Jane Austen knows human nature very well, making her superior to many writers who describe what should be rather than what usually is.

Fanny Price- L'Étranger

Fanny Price is an outsider, an outsider everywhere- the whole time at Mansfield park, constantly reminded of her inferior status, then back at home after many years, alienated from everyone and from the life she no longer knows. The feeling is exactly the same as that of one who leaves one's country for another, in some sense forever an outsider in the new country, but back at one's homeland, no longer seen by others and oneself as a part of one's own people.

"Mansfield park" and "The tenant of Wildfell hall"

1/ In August I made this silly diagram:

(larger size: http://s9.postimg.org/pc1ucx1gf/Austen_and_Brontes_a_diagram.png)
to demonstrate how different Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters are in (almost) everything, and that Anne is the reconciliation.
Perhaps the fact that I like Anne Bronte, a 'disappointment' to many fans of Charlotte and Emily, has foreshadowed my going against the generally believed rule that one either likes the Brontes or Jane Austen.
Now I like them all, though not to the same degree.


2/ "The tenant of Wildfell hall" can be seen in relation to:
- "Jane Eyre" (Charlotte Bronte)
- "Wuthering heights" (Emily Bronte)
- "A doll's house" (Henrik Ibsen)
- "Mansfield park" (Jane Austen)


3/ An excerpt from "The tenant of Wildfell hall":
"How distinctly I remember our conversation that evening before our departure for town, when we were sitting together over the fire, my uncle having gone to bed with a slight attack of the gout.
‘Helen,’ said she, after a thoughtful silence, ‘do you ever think about marriage?’
‘Yes, aunt, often.’
‘And do you ever contemplate the possibility of being married yourself, or engaged, before the season is over?’
‘Sometimes; but I don’t think it at all likely that I ever shall.’
‘Why so?’
‘Because, I imagine, there must be only a very, very few men in the world that I should like to marry; and of those few, it is ten to one I may never be acquainted with one; or if I should, it is twenty to one he may not happen to be single, or to take a fancy to me.’
‘That is no argument at all.  It may be very true—and I hope is true, that there are very few men whom you would choose to marry, of yourself.  It is not, indeed, to be supposed that you would wish to marry any one till you were asked: a girl’s affections should never be won unsought.  But when they are sought—when the citadel of the heart is fairly besieged—it is apt to surrender sooner than the owner is aware of, and often against her better judgment, and in opposition to all her preconceived ideas of what she could have loved, unless she be extremely careful and discreet.  Now, I want to warn you, Helen, of these things, and to exhort you to be watchful and circumspect from the very commencement of your career, and not to suffer your heart to be stolen from you by the first foolish or unprincipled person that covets the possession of it.—You know, my dear, you are only just eighteen; there is plenty of time before you, and neither your uncle nor I are in any hurry to get you off our hands, and I may venture to say, there will be no lack of suitors; for you can boast a good family, a pretty considerable fortune and expectations, and, I may as well tell you likewise—for, if I don’t, others will—that you have a fair share of beauty besides—and I hope you may never have cause to regret it!’
‘I hope not, aunt; but why should you fear it?’
‘Because, my dear, beauty is that quality which, next to money, is generally the most attractive to the worst kinds of men; and, therefore, it is likely to entail a great deal of trouble on the possessor.’
‘Have you been troubled in that way, aunt?’
‘No, Helen,’ said she, with reproachful gravity, ‘but I know many that have; and some, through carelessness, have been the wretched victims of deceit; and some, through weakness, have fallen into snares and temptations terrible to relate.’
‘Well, I shall be neither careless nor weak.’
‘Remember Peter, Helen!  Don’t boast, but watch.  Keep a guard over your eyes and ears as the inlets of your heart, and over your lips as the outlet, lest they betray you in a moment of unwariness.  Receive, coldly and dispassionately, every attention, till you have ascertained and duly considered the worth of the aspirant; and let your affections be consequent upon approbation alone.  First study; then approve; then love.  Let your eyes be blind to all external attractions, your ears deaf to all the fascinations of flattery and light discourse.—These are nothing—and worse than nothing—snares and wiles of the tempter, to lure the thoughtless to their own destruction.  Principle is the first thing, after all; and next to that, good sense, respectability, and moderate wealth.  If you should marry the handsomest, and most accomplished and superficially agreeable man in the world, you little know the misery that would overwhelm you if, after all, you should find him to be a worthless reprobate, or even an impracticable fool.’
‘But what are all the poor fools and reprobates to do, aunt?  If everybody followed your advice, the world would soon come to an end.’
‘Never fear, my dear! the male fools and reprobates will never want for partners, while there are so many of the other sex to match them; but do you follow my advice.  And this is no subject for jesting, Helen—I am sorry to see you treat the matter in that light way.  Believe me, matrimony is a serious thing.’ And she spoke it so seriously, that one might have fancied she had known it to her cost; but I asked no more impertinent questions, and merely answered,—‘I know it is; and I know there is truth and sense in what you say; but you need not fear me, for I not only should think it wrong to marry a man that was deficient in sense or in principle, but I should never be tempted to do it; for I could not like him, if he were ever so handsome, and ever so charming, in other respects; I should hate him—despise him—pity him—anything but love him.  My affections not only ought to be founded on approbation, but they will and must be so: for, without approving, I cannot love.  It is needless to say, I ought to be able to respect and honour the man I marry, as well as love him, for I cannot love him without.  So set your mind at rest.’
‘I hope it may be so,’ answered she.
‘I know it is so,’ persisted I.
‘You have not been tried yet, Helen—we can but hope,’ said she in her cold, cautious way.
‘I was vexed at her incredulity; but I am not sure her doubts were entirely without sagacity; I fear I have found it much easier to remember her advice than to profit by it;—indeed, I have sometimes been led to question the soundness of her doctrines on those subjects.  Her counsels may be good, as far as they go—in the main points at least;—but there are some things she has overlooked in her calculations.  I wonder if she was ever in love."

Reading this, one can't help thinking of Jane Austen.

Pay attention to this part:
"‘And do you ever contemplate the possibility of being married yourself, or engaged, before the season is over?’
‘Sometimes; but I don’t think it at all likely that I ever shall.’
‘Why so?’
‘Because, I imagine, there must be only a very, very few men in the world that I should like to marry; and of those few, it is ten to one I may never be acquainted with one; or if I should, it is twenty to one he may not happen to be single, or to take a fancy to me.’"

This is reminiscent of a passage from Jane Austen's "Emma":
"She pondered, but could think of nothing. After a mutual silence of some minutes, Harriet thus began again—
'I do so wonder, Miss Woodhouse, that you should not be married, or going to be married! so charming as you are!'
Emma laughed, and replied,
'My being charming, Harriet, is not quite enough to induce me to marry; I must find other people charming—one other person at least. And I am not only, not going to be married, at present, but have very little intention of ever marrying at all.'
'Ah!—so you say; but I cannot believe it.'
'I must see somebody very superior to any one I have seen yet, to be tempted; Mr. Elton, you know, (recollecting herself,) is out of the question: and I do not wish to see any such person. I would rather not be tempted. I cannot really change for the better. If I were to marry, I must expect to repent it.'
'Dear me!—it is so odd to hear a woman talk so!'
'I have none of the usual inducements of women to marry. Were I to fall in love, indeed, it would be a different thing! but I never have been in love; it is not my way, or my nature; and I do not think I ever shall. And, without love, I am sure I should be a fool to change such a situation as mine. Fortune I do not want; employment I do not want; consequence I do not want: I believe few married women are half as much mistress of their husband's house as I am of Hartfield; and never, never could I expect to be so truly beloved and important; so always first and always right in any man's eyes as I am in my father's.'"


4/ 1 of the most crucial shortcomings of "The tenant of Wildfell hall" is the structure. I like how Anne Bronte wants to have 2 narrators, a mingling of voices, but to have Helen's diary inside Gilbert's letter (and thus frame the whole novel as a letter) is a very poor choice.


5/ An excerpt from "The tenant of Wildfell hall":
"‘Who was the gentleman you danced with last,’ resumed she, after a pause—‘that was so officious in helping you on with your shawl?’
‘He was not officious at all, aunt: he never attempted to help me till he saw Mr. Boarham coming to do so; and then he stepped laughingly forward and said, “Come, I’ll preserve you from that infliction.”’
‘Who was it, I ask?’ said she, with frigid gravity.
‘It was Mr. Huntingdon, the son of uncle’s old friend.’"

From "Mansfield park":
"Fanny's last feeling in the visit was disappointment: for the shawl which Edmund was quietly taking from the servant to bring and put round her shoulders was seized by Mr. Crawford's quicker hand, and she was obliged to be indebted to his more prominent attention." 

The similarities between these 2 novels, of course, are more than that bit and the word Huntingdon, the name of Helen's husband in "The tenant of Wildfell hall" (1848), which happens to appear on the 1st page of "Mansfield park" (1814). 
There are a lot more. This article is a good analysis: http://thebriarfieldchronicles.blogspot.no/2013/08/mansfield-park-and-tenant-of-wildfell.html
"Both have a rakish suitor who pursue a moralistic heroine. In "Tenant", Arthur Huntingdon pursues the naïve Helen Lawrence. After their marriage her moralistic strain comes out; she condemns her husband soundly for drinking, swearing, adultering, and raising their son wrongly. In "MP", the rakish Henry Crawford pursues innocent Fanny Price, a prim moralistic girl. Both men, note it, are well-off; both girls do not have fortunes. Crawford flirts with Maria Bertram, and after her mercenary marriage to Mr Rushworth, commits adultery with her, and runs away with her, leaving Fanny Price. Unlike Helen, Fanny refuses Crawford's marriage proposal. Edmund and Fanny marry, after Edmund gets over his first love and Fanny refuses Crawford. Helen and Gilbert marry, after Huntingdon dies and Gilbert gets over his infatuation for Eliza Millward.
But it is startlingly similar. Huntingdon's mistress, Lady Lowborough was the former Miss Arabella Wilmot, who after his marriage to Helen, marries Lord Lowborough, a reformed drunk and rake. He reforms after his marriage to please his wife. Arabella married Lowborough for his money and title, just as Maria married Rushworth. Arabella had trouble getting married early because she was a big flirt. Maria is not old when she marries but it is likely Huntingdon married prudish Helen because he knew Helen would be faithful and look after the children well, and he may have thought Arabella an easy lay to sleep with - someone you don't have a long-term relationship with. He may have thought her unfaithful, as she proves to be with her husband. This may be why Crawford doesn't propose to Maria, which leads her to accept Rushworth. She is a flirt; he doesn't want to commit, he may think she's an easy lay, unlike virtuous Fanny, unattainable and trustworthy. (Also, there were no other girls to flirt with when Fanny's around). Still, he could easily flirt with Fanny without proposing to her. Either Austen made a mistake in his psychology, but Miss Sneyd of Mansfield Park blog says that it is significant Crawford is a plain man. Perhaps he has an inferiority complex with regards to flirtatious women, who may cheat on him. Though he is charming. He knows he will get the second bite of the cherry, so to speak, and the fact Fanny is an unplucked cherry may be a further incentive to pursue her. (Little does he know she is pining away for Edmund). He may be a beta male with alpha charm (a high beta though) and steals women easily. But he is a fun-lover and he likes fun-lovers, and he realises that these fun-loving women may cheat on him or lose interest due to his plain looks. They are experienced and and easily bored and will move on easily. Fanny has strong attachments, she is honest and virtuous and lacks experience, and will never cheat on a man. This may be a hard pill to swallow but those days even rakish men actually liked to marry virtuous women. (Nowadays it is a stigma to be constant to one lover). Maria marries Rushworth when she realises Crawford will never marry her, whereas Fanny, despite knowing she has no chance with Edmund, sticks steadfastly to her love for him and refuses Crawford."

Above all, both shatter the bad boy fantasy: http://jill-rg.livejournal.com/9373.html
As written before, Anne Bronte's different from her sisters in that she has enough sense and insight to reject the idea(l) of Byronic heroes, having no illusion that douchbags may be reformed. She and Jane Austen thus have the same stance, though they differ in execution. 
In a way, Anne Bronte pushes the point to the extreme by letting Helen naively marry a self-indulgent, incorrigible man, making her novel more powerful and haunting through the vivid depiction and exploration of Helen's unhappy marriage and tragic life. The novel's also shocking and ahead of its time when Helen leaves her husband* (though not as shocking as "A doll's house", in which Nora slams the door right in her husband's face). 
Helen's attracted to Arthur the way good girls may be drawn to bad guys, teased by them, provoked by them, infuriated with them and drawn even more to them. Having seen his faults, she ignores her aunt's advice because she's an independent, stubborn and proud person who wants to prove herself, and has the illusion that she may change Arthur. Such a thought is not uncommon. On the other side, bad guys may once in a while be attracted to good girls- Helen's not meek and week but pious and from a good family, he teases her, flirts with her and starts liking her. When marrying her, he believes that she's moral and religious enough not to do anything to be frowned upon, and meek enough to let him go out and have fun. A bad guy, instead of marrying a bad girl, is in reality more likely to hook up with bad girls but marry a good girl that stays home and takes care of the family. 
On the other hand Jane Austen, without depicting the unhappy marriage, without dwelling on misery and suffering, makes her point just as strongly, and more masterfully, by 3 things: 1st, Henry Crawford has many colours and layers to him- he's charming, intelligent, gallant and has a good taste, even Fanny has to acknowledge him to be the best actor in the play, he's not pure evil with no redeeming quality like Arthur Huntingdon. 2nd, Fanny, intellectually attracted but morally repulsed by him, declines his proposal even though she hardly has any chance with Edmund (nor with anyone else, it seems). And 3rd, she holds on to her decision and principle even when her refusal is seen as ingratitude and obstinacy, even when everyone and everything is against her. 
Objectively speaking, "Mansfield park" is the greater, more perfect work, with better character development and more complexity, and attention to details and nuances. It all comes down to the question of aesthetic quality in the end- what matters is whether a book is well written or badly written. That is all. 
Nevertheless, I love "The tenant of Wildfell hall" for its merits, and embrace its flaws.


6/ The article "Mansfield Park and Wildfell Hall: Destruction of the "Bad Boy" Fantasy and the Intolerance Thereof" above also makes me think: 
Is the deconstruction of the bad boy fantasy the reason these 2 novels are underrated? 
"Mansfield park", in my opinion, is far superior to "Sense and sensibility" and "Emma", and is perhaps more interesting than "Pride and prejudice", which I haven't read. But it's seldom mentioned. 
"The tenant of Wildfell hall", lacking the originality and intensity of "Jane Eyre" and "Wuthering heights", is very good. Flawed, yes, but so is "Jane Eyre". Yet "The tenant of Wildfell hall", sadly, is never mentioned and known to very few people. 


7/ George Moore declared, "Anne had all the qualities of Jane Austen and other qualities". 
She has prudence, rationality, thoughtfulness, shrewdness, insight, independence, beautiful writing style and a detached tone. 
More courage, more boldness, more ambition (perhaps less interest in trifles?). 
But she doesn't have what makes Austen Austen: dry wit, irony, humour, subtlety, sharp eye and sharp tongue. 
(Confession: I might like to have a meal with Anne Bronte but wouldn't want to be in the same room with Jane Austen, to be observed by her and secretly laughed at). 



 *: I'm aware, that's not the only shocking part of the novel. The book was, when 1st coming out, criticised for its 'coarse' language, detailed description of alcoholism, debauchery, decadence...

More musings on the ending of "Jane Eyre"

Let's look again at the ending.
On 4/12, I wrote "Rochester may not be a cruel man by nature, but he isn't nice. Grumpy, coarse, irritable and moody, he doesn't treat women nicely- by "women", I do not mean the insane Bertha Mason but Adele's mother and all the women he meets between Bertha and Jane and perhaps also the young girl Adele, and even in the relationship with Jane, he can be dominating (for example, before the marriage he forces her to go to shops and then 'adorns' her, insensitive to her protest- chapter 24)." 
Rochester isn't a cruel, evil man by nature. I don't think his moodiness, harshness, irritability is what he's born with, but something that develops over time because of his tragic life, because of the horrendous situation in which he's stuck, because of his great secret, which otherwise he could get rid of, were he a bad-natured, selfish, heartless man, but which, because he is good at heart, remains and continues tormenting him for years and hardening him.
In the end, Rochester's liberated- free from his mad wife, free from the dreadful marriage, free from the awful secret, free from all the things that have acted as hindrances and obstacles to his happiness and at the same time, having lost his house, his sight and a limb but then regained his dear Jane Eyre and found happiness, let's say, he is changed. 
1 thing intrigues me, however.
Jane Eyre returns to Rochester when hearing his voice in her head, as the relationship between her and St John Rivers becomes strained because Jane not only refuses to get married to him but even says "If I were to marry you, you would kill me. You are killing me now." and the more he tries to persuade her, the more determined she becomes, and the more stubborn she is to him, the colder and cruel his attitude is and their relations increasingly worsen to the point that she feels uncomfortable, suffocated. She comes back to find Rochester, unaware of his current situation, unaware that their marriage is now possible.
Now let's change it a bit, and say that she comes back to find everything the same, the house unburnt, the wife alive and Rochester intact. What would she do? I don't mean Bertha's burning of the house is no more than a literary device, a tool to bring Jane Eyre and Rochester together and bring about a happy ending for the novel, because such a mad woman is always capable of setting the whole house on fire and killing everybody, and has attempted so before, but I'm curious to know, Jane has chosen once not to do something she considers immoral, and disrespectful to herself, but to follow her conscience and leave Rochester, what she would do now under a slightly different circumstance.

J. D. Salinger& Jane Austen; or I now see Jane Austen with different eyes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._D._Salinger#Writing_in_the_1950s_and_move_to_Cornish
J. D. Salinger:
"A writer, when he's asked to discuss his craft, ought to get up and call out in a loud voice just the names of the writers he loves. I love Kafka, Flaubert, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Dostoevsky, Proust, O'Casey, Rilke, Lorca, Keats, Rimbaud, Burns, E. Brontë, Jane Austen, Henry James, Blake, Coleridge. I won't name any living writers. I don't think it's right."
I noticed it a while ago, but long before this I had read most of his books and at the time didn't pay much attention to the mention of Jane Austen in "Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut". Only today was I reminded of it:
"Oh, God! I don't know. He told me he loved Jane Austen. He told me her books meant a great deal to him. That's exactly what he said. I found out after we were married that he hadn't even read one of her books."
That is, my memory stored this part: "He told me he loved [some writer]. He told me her books meant a great deal to him. That's exactly what he said. I found out after we were married that he hadn't even read one of her books." That how it was. Which is why now I am amazed to realise that the name that totally disappeared from my memory was Jane Austen.
(Eloise's words echo these lines in "Sense and sensibility" about Marianne and Willoughby: "Encouraged by this to a further examination of his opinions, she proceeded to question him on the subject of books; her favourite authors were brought forward and dwelt upon with so rapturous a delight, that any young man of five-and-twenty must have been insensible indeed, not to become an immediate convert to the excellence of such works, however disregarded before. Their taste was strikingly alike. The same books, the same passages were idolized by each -- or, if any difference appeared, any objection arose, it lasted no longer than till the force of her arguments and the brightness of her eyes could be displayed. He acquiesced in all her decisions, caught all her enthusiasm, and long before his visit concluded, they conversed with the familiarity of a long-established acquaintance.")
The connection and influence are discussed here:
http://sharpelvessociety.blogspot.no/2010/06/jd-salinger-and-jane-austen.html
http://sharpelvessociety.blogspot.no/2013/07/jd-salinger-jane-austen-revisited.html
As it turns out, in "Hapworth 16, 1924", which I haven't read, Salinger lets Seymour Glass say:
"Jane Austen, in entirety or in any shape or form, discounting 'Pride and Prejudice,' which is already in possession. I will not disturb this incomparable girl’s genius with dubious remarks; I have already hurt Miss Overman’s feelings inexcusably by refusing to discuss this girl, but I lack even the slight decency to regret it very much. Quite in a pinch, I would be willing to meet somebody at Rosings, but I cannot enter into a discussion of a womanly genius this humorous, magnificent, and personal to me; I have made some feeble, human attempts, but nothing at all meritorious."



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As Arnie Perlstein of "Sharp elves society" has pointed out, both J. D. Salinger and Jane Austen share an acute eye for and an intense dislike of phonies (also shared by F. Scott Fitzgerald, another favourite writer of Salinger): Mr Spencer, Stradlater, Ackley, the crying mother at the cinema, the roommate with cheap suitcases... in "The catcher in the rye", Muriel Glass and her mother in "A perfect day for bananafish"; John and Fanny Dashwood, John Willoughby, Lucy Steele, Lady Middleton... in "Sense and sensibility", Philip and Augusta Elton in "Emma", Mrs Norris, Maria and July Bertram, Henry and Mary Crawford... in "Mansfield park".
That's not the only thing they have in common, however.
The clearest influence of Jane Austen on Salinger is the depiction of characters through the use of dialogue, by creating a different voice for each character, especially in Salinger's short fiction (though his ear for dialogue can also be said to be inherited from Fitzgerald and Hemingway). Vladimir Nabokov, Franz Kafka, William Faulkner, Virginia Woolf, Gustave Flaubert... are, in contrast, not particularly fond of this technique. And though these 2 writers sound cynical and sometimes seem not to like people very much, they both have humour, mostly in "The catcher in the rye" for Salinger and in everything by Jane Austen, who always makes fun of something, laughs at something.









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Anyone who knows me must find it shocking and incomprehensible that 4 months after declaring it would be fine if the whole world adored Jane Austen and I was the only one who abhorred her, now I'm seeing her in an entirely different light.
I acknowledge that before touching her works I had certain prejudices that recently have been proven to be wrong. For example, like V. S. Naipaul I thought she was sentimental, romantic, naively hopeful and unrealistic. That's terribly wrong. I don't think her books really have a light-hearted tone either. Apparently popularity has done her reputation more harm than good.   
Now, reading "Mansfield park", I sometimes find Jane Austen unbearably tedious but sometimes particularly enjoyable, sharp and thought-provoking; in a way conservative, unimaginative, indifferent to the outside world and too content in her little world, boring one to death with the tendency to confine herself in her comfort zone but on the other hand admirably proud, independent, daring and courageous in her insistence on realism, disdain for the genres and methods and devices of her predecessors and contemporaries, determination to go her own way in a patriarchal society with no regard for male authors' grander topics, and the way she pokes fun at everything and everybody- the sentimental novel, the gothic novel, and "such novelistic clichés as love at first sight, the primacy of passion over all other emotions and/or duties, the chivalric exploits of the hero, the vulnerable sensitivity of the heroine, the lovers' proclaimed indifference to financial considerations, and the cruel crudity of parents". (It should be noted too that Jane Austen never bothered to conceal her gender, albeit hiding her name, she published as "a lady"). 
From about chapter 14 (I'm currently in the middle of chapter 17), "Mansfield park" is astonishingly well-written. Astonishing, because it becomes much better. The greatness is, most of the time, in the tiny details, some gestures, a few words, very subtle. Jane Austen's characters are not unique like those created by Emily Bronte, Dostoyevsky..., what makes them valuable and memorable is that they're like ordinary people- I can see myself in them or recognise in them somebody I know. Her world is a little, limited one and standing alone each of her characters, especially the supporting ones, may be quite flat now and then, but put them together one sees all humanity. That's the appeal of Jane Austen. That's the reason 200 years later she's still widely read and studied and discussed- society has changed, customs and traditions have changed, but human faults are still there, from prejudice, self-delusion, inquisitiveness, garrulousness, flattery, self-importance, insincerity, impulsiveness, vanity, officiousness, egotism, vulgarity, insipidity, pretentiousness... to hypocrisy, deceit, disloyalty, mercenariness, self-indulgence, stinginess... Her characters embody these faults, as she makes fun of people and herself and critiques social hypocrisy, without becoming caricatures like Dickens's.
Her limitations, mentioned on my blog 4 months ago, I still see clearly. I can never call her the best writer of all time. But her strengths and values, as it turns out, are much more than just a pretty writing style, the well-constructed sentences and that gentle laugh behind the lines. 
Will discuss more later.