Jane Austen

I think Emma is the most perfect in form, the most completely realised. But as Bruce would say: “They’re all my favourites”.

I think my preferences have changed over the years. Always used to love Persuasion best but now think my favourite is Emma. It always seems fresh and exciting and has one of the most heartbreaking moments in literature, in Emma's cruel treatment of Miss Bates. The portrayal of the whole Box Hill excursion is perfect.

I think Sense and Sensibility comes second for me. And I will always love Colonel Brandon as played by Alan Rickman.

The relentless re-doing of Pride and Prejudice on screen has left me bored shitless with it.

@MsAmerica "Sorry, @CurlewKate, I'm not a scholar, and don't keep track of every scholar I read. Nevertheless, first, I think it's a valid criticism, and, second, as I recall, I was initially trying to provide an even-handed reply"

Really? Surely you remember at least one?

@NineteenOhEight "
"Imagine Mr Bennet duelling Wickham."

I would LOVE Austen to have written that! Imagine the ironic edge.......

I think you were being mistaken for me, @CurlewKate — but feel free to draw your sword, or call for your duelling pistols.

Imagine Mr Bennet duelling Wickham. 😀

Well, I am an academic in Eng Lit, and while JA isn’t among my research interests, I have, like most people, taught her novels often on undergraduate courses. I’m struggling to think of a significant scholar who holds the views you impute to them. Even critics like FR Leavis and Harold Bloom, with their prescriptive ideas of the Great Tradition/ Western Canon include her work as important. Bloom wrote extensively on her and produced editions of several of the novels. Leavis starts The Great Tradition with ‘The great English novelists are Jane Austen, George Eliot, Henry James and Joseph Conrad.’

The growth of feminist scholarship since the 80s has only built on that.

Mark Twain famously hated her novels, and is very funny about it, but acknowledges ‘all the great critics’ praised her.

I've lost track of the thread-who was badgering me about what? Always delighted to leap to my own defence!

I assume she mistook @NineteenOhEight for @CurlewKate

I think if you reference “many scholars” and “critics” you should be able to name some of them. And you need to be able to explain why you think it’s valid.

Why are you continuing to badger a poster and tagging her in when she hasn't responded to you days later.

What odd behaviour

Sorry, @CurlewKate, I'm not a scholar, and don't keep track of every scholar I read. Nevertheless, first, I think it's a valid criticism, and, second, as I recall, I was initially trying to provide an even-handed reply.

Can you imagine anyone dismissing a male writer like this:

'The downside for some people is that they are also all alike in their narrow focus on men and war'.

I know, how dare an author centre the female view and bore the (mostly male) scholars and critics. And how dare women enjoy a book written from their view point when they could be enjoying one of the many many lauded books written from male viewpoints that barely acknowledge women at all. How very narrow of us.

Agreed. She can be patronised as “domestic realism”, but at least one doesn’t have to wade through paeans to the tsar.

They really don’t, unless you’re thinking of some of the more unthinkingly sexist past proponents of the Great Tradition, who default to books with battles in them being automatically more important than books with proposals.

Whose work are you thinking of?

Well, @CurlewKate I don't know how many literary critiques you've read of Austen, but it is a truth widely acknowledged that many scholars/critics consider her narrow focus a negative. I think I was originally trying to provide an even-handed reply. What aspects of Austen do you think are a downside?

It's notable that the newspaper which reports Maria and Crawford's affair does it in a similar style - 'Mr. R. of Wimpole Street; the beautiful Mrs. R'. I have always assumed that that was how the actual newspapers of the time would have written it. London high society was small enough that everyone knew who it was talking about, so it was scarcely to conceal their real identities.

Some of the 'Since you asked ...' stories at the end of John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme take the mick out of this convention.

@NineteenOhEight Thank you! It's as good as an English Lit course on Mumsnet!

It was just a common convention in English novels established well before Austen’s time — dating from Defoe, Smollett, Fielding and co, whose racy novels were often framed as ‘found texts’ presented by an editor and censored in key respects to give the impression of being slices of real life with identifying details removed to preserve anonymity. It was dying off by the generation after Austen, but some writers still did it, or invented placenames. Mrs Gaskell has ‘Darkshire’, Charlotte Bronte uses B—- in The Professor but invents snarky French placenames in Villette for her fictional version of Belgium.

I agree that Lady Bertram is merely indolent, it is her nature. The only 'busybody' among the sisters being Mrs. Norris.

Another thing has set me wondering - why was Jane Austen reluctant to name actual places?

For example, Tom sets off for --(we never find out where).

Maria begins to interest herself about the horse that Crawford is racing at B---

The regiment at Meryton located to the north, but we don't know where.

Yet some real locations such as Portsmouth, Lyme, are clearly identified.

She must have had a reason for this. Ideas?

Oh, and I actually loved Sanditon even though it was u unfinished . How I wish JA had been able to complete it. I do recommend Kate Riordan 's version, as although her voice is distinctly different from JA it is still a good read. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Mansfield Park is her deepest and best I think, but I have a soft spot for Catherine Morland of Northanger Abbey.

I agree, but I also think that if Maria had had a properly chaperoned London season, she might not have accepted the first rich guy who showed up. You're right that she was too selfish to be good for anyone, but she might have been happier. She also, to put it bluntly, might have got a bit more worldly before marriage and wised up a bit as to what behaviour would be overlooked/ how to cover her tracks better. In that respect, Mary Crawford is right that she was foolish to get caught.

Maria accepted Rushworth initially because he was rich, and it was about time she got married. Crawford awakened her to there being more out there but when he (to all intents and purposes) dumped her, she continued with her marriage to Rushworth as a consequence of anger and hurt pride, as well as wanting to be free of her father's restrictions.

Maria was never going to make a great wife to anyone because she had no idea of putting anyone else before herself.

The news about Matthew Perry has underlined what a terrible and debilitating thing opiate addiction is. Seeing Lady B in that light would make her more of a tragic figure. However, the poorer sister Mrs Price was also naturally inclined to idleness I recall, so maybe it’s in their genes or something, although I can’t imagine there was much opportunity for idleness with 9 children!