Living with Jane Austen (Austenprose PR Book Tour) by Janet Todd

 

What author would you like to learn more about?  I always love learning more about Jane Austen.

Living with Jane Austen is Janet Todd’s journey through Austen.  It was written to celebrate the 250^th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth this year.  It is Todd’s relationship with Austen throughout her life as well as a deep dive into different topics in Austen’s life and in her novels.

My thoughts on this book:

·       I thought this was interesting and it gave me a lot to ponder about Austen. For example, it made me want to read Sir Charles Grandison by Samuel Richardson.  Austen enjoyed the novel and apparently the estate in it has similarities to Pemberley.  It is one of the longest novels in the English language which sounds daunting.

·       This was a literary analysis mixed with memoir.

·       Todd compared and contrasted Mary Wollstonecraft and Jane Austen’s lives and works.  I thought that was interesting.  Their lives were so very different but were around the same time period.

·       The book is arranged by themes such as:  The Brightness of Pemberly, the Darkness of Darcy, Poor Nerves, Into Nature, How to Die, etc.  I liked this arrangement and learning more about these topics.

·       This was a slower read for me, but it was thought provoking and fascinating.

Overall, Living with Jane Austen by Janet Todd is part scholarly literary analysis part memoir, but 100 % intriguing.  It’s a great book for anyone that is interested in Jane Austen and her works.

Book Source:  Review copy from Cambridge University Press as part of the Austenprose PR Book Tour. Thank-you!  Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

BOOK DESCRIPTION

Fanny Price, in Mansfield Park, tells her persistent suitor that “we have all a better guide in ourselves...than any other person can be.” Sometimes, however, we crave external guidance: and when this happens we could do worse than seek it in Jane Austen's own subtle novels.

Written to coincide with Austen's 250th birthday, this approachable and intimate work shows why and how - for over half a century - Austen has inspired and challenged its author through different phases of her life. Part personal memoir, part expert interaction with all the letters, manuscripts and published novels, Janet Todd's book reveals what living with Jane Austen has meant to her and what it might also mean to others.

Todd celebrates the undimmable power of Austen's work to help us understand our own bodies and our environment, and teach us about patience, humour, beauty and the meaning of home.

ADVANCE PRAISE

“Intimate, knowledgeable and frequently unexpected, this is a book for all Jane Austen's readers by one of the very best of those readers.” —Richard Cronin, Emeritus Professor of English Literature, University of Glasgow

“Sharing a mind is as exciting as sharing a bed. In this gentle, witty, semi-memoir, Janet Todd reveals her eccentric encounters with books and shows us why the novels of Jane Austen should matter to all of us now.” —Miriam Margolyes, OBE, renowned British and Australian actor

“A timely, moving and masterful book by one of the English-speaking world’s foremost literary historians and a trailblazing scholar-heroine in Jane Austen studies.” —Devoney Looser, author of The Making of Jane Austen

AUTHOR BIO

Janet Todd is an internationally renowned novelist and academic, best known for her non-fiction feminist works on women writers including Jane Austen, Aphra Behn and Mary Wollenstonecraft. In recent years, she has turned her hand to writing novels, publishing Lady Susan Plays the Game (2013), A Man of Genius (2016) and Don’t You Know There’s a War On? (2020).

Janet has worked in universities around the world including Ghana, Puerto Rico, North America and India. She was a professor of English Literature at UEA, Glasgow and Aberdeen Universities, before becoming president of Lucy Cavendish College, University of Cambridge (2008-2015), Cambridge where she established the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize. She is now an Honorary Fellow of Newnham and Lucy Cavendish Colleges. In 2013, Janet was given an OBE for her services to higher education and literary scholarship. Connect with her online at www.janettodd.co.uk.

Camp Austen: My Life as an Accidental Jane Austen Superfan by Ted Scheinman

 

Title:  Camp Austen: My Life as an Accidental Jane Austen Superfan

Author:  Ted Scheinman

Narrated by:  Ted Scheinman

Publisher: Macmillan Audio

Length: Approximately 3 hours and 43 minutes

Source: Purchased from Audible.com.  Thank-you!

 Do you have a fandom that you are a part of?   Sports, comics, movies, shows, books – there are a lot of things that people become part of a fan group.  Perhaps one of the most surprising would be the worldwide fandom for an author that has been dead for two hundred years, Jane Austen.

 Ted Scheinman is the son of a respected Jane Austen scholar.  He grew up with Jane Austen in the background, but wasn’t a super fan himself.  When he is in graduate school, he got the opportunity to participate in the first ever UNC-Chapel Hill Jane Austen Summer Camp.  Ted becomes immersed in the Janeite world and also attends his first Jane Austen Society of North American (JASNA) conference in Minneapolis as well.  This memoir is part academic discussing Austen’s works and information about the author herself, and also a look at the fans and fandom that is still running strong.  I loved listening to this on audiobook narrated by the author as it really felt like his personal tale.  It’s his experience learning about this fandom and he tells about all of the very different people that inhabit it from scholars to a couple keeping their romance alive with the dances.  He also gets to dress and play the part of Mr. Darcy which sounds like a lot of fun.

 I really loved learning about Rudyard Kipling’s love for Jane Austen and the discussion of the short story he wrote about Janeites who were veterans of the first world war.  I need to find this story!

Author Ted Scheinman was a fun narrator and I really enjoyed listening to his story.

 This was the January selection for the JASNA Northwoods book discussion.  I missed the discussion this month as I was sadly traveling back to Michigan for my Grandma’s funeral.

Overall, this was a fun look into the world of Jane Austen fandom.

The Brontes: A Beginner’s Guide by Steve Eddy

I bought The Brontes: A Beginner’s Guide in 2004 while I was perusing the shelves at the downtown Milwaukee Border’s Book Store. That bookstore is sadly gone, but I still have many fine books that I discovered there amongst its shelves. My Milwaukee book club at the time was focusing on the Bronte sisters for the month, so I thought this book would be a quick reminder of what to focus on while I reread the works of the Bronte sisters.


The Brontes: A Beginner’s Guide, is indeed a very helpful book for one who wants to get a bit more out of the works of the Bronte sisters and has either never studied them in school, or can’t remember what was emphasized. The chapters include “Why Read the Brontes Today,” “How to Approach the Brontes’ Work,” “Biography and Influences,” “Major Themes,” “Major Works,” “Contemporary Critical Approaches,” “Modern Critical Approaches,” “Where Next.” At a slim eighty-two pages, this book packs in a lot of good information in a short amount of space. Pictures are included and it is written in a way that is easy for any reader to pick up and understand.

I really liked how this book discussed the Bronte sisters’ keen interest in women’s rights and how they incorporated this into their novels. All three sisters wrote about strong heroines that did not bend to the will of men and searched for meaning in their lives. I find it very interesting.

I’ll admit that I did get a bit lost in the modern critical approaches chapter. It was interesting that as time as passed, critics have come to rate Emily above Charlotte in their reviews. Charlotte is much beloved by feminist critics, and there has been an increase in interest in Anne. Contemporary critics hardly reviewed Anne’s novels, which is a shame as I would rate Anne’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall right up there with Charlotte’s Jane Eyre and Emily’s Wuthering Heights. It’s also interesting that contemporary critics of Charlotte Bronte said this of Jane Eyre, “ the plot is most extravagantly improbable.” I disagree. While there are some fantastical elements of the plot, so much of it is based on Charlotte’s real world experiences growing up that it has a deep sense of truth to it.

The major works chapter focuses on Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, Shirley (by Charlotte Bronte), Villette (also by Charlotte), The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (Anne), and their poems. I thought that since Agnes Grey by Anne and The Professor by Charlotte were the only two novels left out; maybe they just should have included them. I’ve read all of their collected works and I think those two novels are worth reading and discussing as well. I know the chapter was titled “major,” but if that were the case, I probably would have left out Shirley and Villette and just focused on the most famous work by each sister.

The collected poetry of the sisters is only discussed briefly, but overall it states that by far, Emily’s poems are the best and most original of the three sisters.

While not as extensive as a full biography of the sisters, The Brontes: A Beginner’s Guide is a great quick read packed full of great information about the Bronte sisters and their major works. It gives great themes and symbols to look for when you read their works.

This is my second item for the Victorian Challenge 2012.

A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, and the Things that Really Matter by William Deresiewicz

As an engineering student, I chose to take “literary expressions” as a thematic in my degree and took a variety of literature courses while at Michigan Technological University. It was not a hardship for me as I am a strange person that loves being an engineer, and also harbors secret dreams of becoming an English professor. I was fortunate to take one class called “The British Novel” with a delightful professor, Dr. Barry Pegg. He picked great novels and also had a British accent, which only enhanced the entire experience. It was also the first and only time in my high school, college, or graduate school experience that I was able to read an Austen novel with a class and discuss it. We read Pride and Prejudice. While it was not my first time reading the novel, Dr. Pegg managed to get me to think about the novel in an entirely different way than I had ever thought about it before. I loved the new insights and discussing it with a class.

What does this have to do with A Jane Austen Education? A Jane Austen Education is a superb new book by William Deresiewicz. Deresiewicz was an English Professor at Yale University and I felt that like Dr. Pegg, Deresiewicz was able to give me new insight into all of Austen novels in a delightful and enjoyable way.

A Jane Austen Education is part memoir and part literary criticism of all six of Jane Austen’s novels. Deresiewicz takes us on his journey of discovering Austen, her novels, and the part they played in enhancing his own life.

As a graduate student, Deresiewicz prided himself on his heavy “manly” reading. When he was forced to read an Austen novel (Emma) for one of his courses, he was not enthused. Once he started reading the book, he at first thought his worst fears had been realized. “The story seemed to consist of nothing more than a lot of chitchat among a bunch of commonplace characters in a country village. No grand events, no great issues, and inexplicably for a writer of romance novels, not even any passion.”

As Deresiewicz continued to read Emma, he finally had an epiphany and understood the novel. “Austen, I realized, had not been writing about everyday things because she couldn’t’ think of anything else to talk about. She had been writing about them because she wanted to show how important they really are. . . Austen wasn’t silly and superficial; she was much, much smarter – and much wiser – than I could ever have imagined.”

As Deresiewicz learned while reading Emma, “To pay attention to ‘minute particulars’ is to notice your life as it passes, before it passes.” I loved this sentence. It is so true and such a lovely sentence in itself.

I loved the way this book was written. The entire tone of the book, the breaking down of Austen’s novels in a fun way that was at one with the author’s life and understanding of Austen, was very interesting and a good read. I also loved how Deresiewicz would go through the plot of the novel and his initial reactions, and then his deeper thought process. While it was a great book to think further about Austen’s novels, it was not a dry read.

Although this book does not seem like a page turner, I admit that I had a hard time putting it down and looked forward to every opportunity to return to reading it. Deresiewicz did a great job of writing about himself, I enjoyed and commiserated with his graduate school experiences and the hard time he had finding true love. I also enjoyed reading about his snobbishness in realizing there is a world outside of New York City. It gave me a few good chuckles trying to imagine his friend’s reactions to a place like rural Kewaunee, Wisconsin.

I must also say that this book had the perfect ending. I won’t give it away, but it gave me a happy laugh at the very end when I closed the book. I love having a reading experience like that!

Overall, if you are a lover of Jane Austen and her novels, or if you are someone that wonders what the fuss is about Jane Austen, I highly recommend this book. You will not be disappointed. Now I need to somehow take what I learned from this book and convince my husband to give Jane Austen a chance!

I reviewed this book as part of the TLC Book Tours. For more reviews of this novel, please check out other stops on the tour at this link.




Book Source: Review Copy from Penguin Books. Thank-you!