2006-01-08 Patchy, but a nice introduction to a kind of critical interp

I have some reservations on it from the start. I found Jennifer Cruise to be mostly quite good in her (short) introductions to each chapter, but was occassionally annoyed by her blithe ignorance. At one point, for instance, she insisted that Jane Austen 'scholars' all thought of Jane as 'never having a thought that wasn't pure"......Excuse me?! Austen scholars who have studied her letters know indeed, despite Cassandra's heavy editing and likely huge destruction of her sisters Letters, that Jane Austen had many thoughts that were not indulgent and pure.

There were 25 Essays in here, of which 5 were fan fiction or continuations, and at least 2 others might as well have been. There was one quite fun script for a Bennet/bacherlorette reality show. But for the most part these ones just didn't interest me greatly and I skimmed through them.

Beth Kendricks first item sets the tone of the book, relating the choosing of a husband (Elizabeth's burden as a single woman) to modern day choices. For the most part I enjoyed this, but one thing I felt she could have mentioned was that under property laws of the time not only was Elizabeth without money, but any she had became the property of her husband. Choosing a husband was more than a simple process of hit and miss as it is now - it really was for life.

Jennifer O'connells next essay struck me with the same issues - of course her friends wouldn't give Charlotte the advice not to marry Mr Collins - Charlotte was competing for husbands with the 5 Bennet Girls, she also had her younger sister following behind. Mr Collins had money or at least the living at Lady de bourghs, and would be rich once Mr Bennet died, and he was not cruel, just a fool. So for Elizabeth to persist in advising her otherwise was against Charlottes best interests. Still it was salient advice for modern readers

The two best essays, I thought were Jane Austen and History and these are highly recommnended. Jo Beverly gives a very interesting and readable outline of just why there were Gold Diggers in 1813 (the year this book was published) and what the income meant for the Bennet family. Also pointing out that Men were gold diggers too. Beverly pointed out Mr Wickham was a gold digger but interestingly she didn't point out that Darcy's cousin whom Elizabeth met at Rosings was also a gold digger - he had to be as he had no money himself - the difference between himself and Wickham is that he had ethical standards.

Lawrence Watt-Evans also wrote an excellent essay on 'a world at war' pointing out the conflict in dates. The book was first written around 1797 and revised in 1802, but revised again somewhere between 1809 and 1812 and published in 1813. The action takes part over a year from June through to the following june, however the three dates in the book do not correspond to two consecutive years. Watt-Evans outlines the two major arguments from R W Chapman (1811-1812) and PBS Andrews who settles for a period 1797-1802 (saying that it was started in 1797 but the latter half revised substantially in 1802 thus the descrepancy in dates and the small section at the end which talks about Peace (referring to Peace in Amiens). This is a great small outline of the research of these dates, but I think he would have done well - given that his article is about war with the French to have read John Brehan and Clive Caplan;s Article in Persuasions #14 which convincingly argues that the date this was set is in actuality more likely 1794/5 because after that date no Militia were billeted out of season in inland towns of Britain as barracks were built for them. The key element of Pride and Prejudice, the billeting of the Militia could not happened after 1795. There is a great deal more convincing edidence in this article and I strongly recommend it

Elisabeth Fairchild wrote a reasonable review of Pride and Prejudice in Chick lit but I found it unnecessarily confusing as she referred to onions, broccoli to try to clarify them....yeah, confusing isn't it? I just couldn't read Adam Roberts article about the Masturbating Critic, it just was too self indulgent. I also found Elizabeth Baratz-Logsted's article about who has Pride and who has prejudice unncessarily naive. Surely the themes of Pride and of Prejudice relate to all characters at one time or another?

I loved Jennifer Reillys analogy of Pride and Prejudice with Fiddler on the Roof - Masterful! I also really enjoyed Laura Resnick's take on Bride and Prejudice - I would only add that the opening number in this movie (reflecting the sedate country dance in the novel) is a hugely ironic moment by the director and Well done to her, the movie was great by the way.

I guess I could go on, but the only one I will mention in passing here is Erin Daileys short peice in the form of a questionnaire - I didn't think I would like it, and I don't generally find these amusing, but I loved her questions - they have a great modern hilariousness to them for instance, "The guy you liked dumped you because his friend told him to, now he is suddenly interested in you again.....what do you do? I mean when you put it like that don't Bingley and Darcy sound callow?

So the theme of this book is bringing Austen to the modern reader and I think this book does it more than averagely well. There is really no way that you can translate her work from one century to another without loosing something. So these various angles on either explaining it or interpreting it for the modern reader are varied in approach and in success. However I would definitely recommend this to anyone who is interested in Austen. A pretty good attempt.