Jane Austen, the Secret Radical by Helena Kelly

 

Jane Austen, the Secret Radical was one of the May selections for the JASNA Northwoods Book Club.  Author Helena Kelly analyzes each of Austen’s novels for signs of the “secret radical” that she believes Austen was.

The introduction is an analysis of Jane Austen. Each chapter started with a narrative on Austen’s life and then followed by an analysis of each of her novels.  “”I would suggest that when dealing with someone like Jane Austen, we could add another, and more dangerous, class of knowledge; what might be termed the unknown knowns – things we don’t actually know but think we do.”

I thought the writing was engaging and not written like a dry academia book.  Sadly though, detailed notes were lacking in the book that could have explained why Kelly seemed to not agree with many items that seem to be established ideas from other scholars. 

I did like how the author brought out interesting thoughts and ideas about the characters and the novels.  In particular the Mansfield Park section had an interesting discussing about slavery.  I learned that Maria Edgeworth had to rewrite Belinda to remove a marriage between a white character and a black character after being ravaged by critics.  The links of Mansfield Park to slavery were detailed.

I was not happy about the analysis of Sense and Sensibility which heavily implied that both Edward Ferris and Colonel Brandon had strange sexual proclivities.  I was not amused and not feel like I can never look at these characters in the same way.  The analysis seemed to stretch way to far with these characters.

Favorite Quotes:

“She loves her family – truly, she does – but the days seem to slip through her fingers.  There is always some demand on her time:  someone needing to be nursed or entertained a letter of condolence to be written, paper boats to be sailed on the river, yet another new niece or nephew to sew caps for.”

“In a society where unmarried men and women were largely kept separate, and permitted to socialize only when properly chaperoned, how could a woman arrive at any sort of knowledge of a man’s character, and how could a man hope to understand the nature of the woman he married?”

Overall, Jane Austen, the Secret Radical, was an interesting read, but the analysis seemed off the rails at times.