The Jane Austen Book Club

by Karen Joy Fowler

  Señor Obando was a great enthusiast, had enormous energy for a man his age. He was determined to get his plantation on the ecotour circuit, and not for himself, but for the birders. It was his dream, he said. Surely there was no plantation anywhere with better birds or better trails. They could see for themselves how good the accommodations were, how varied the feathered denizens.

  He and Bernadette sat on the veranda, drank something minty, and talked about everything under the sun. His relatives in San José—sadly infirm. They wrote often, but he rarely saw them. Books—“I’m afraid we don’t have the same taste in novels,” Bernadette said—and music. The relative merits of Lerner and Loewe versus Rodgers and Hammerstein. Señor Obando knew the songs from a dozen Broadway musicals. They sang “How Are Things in Gloccamora?” and “I Loved You Once in Silence,” and “A Cockeyed Optimist.” He encouraged Bernadette to talk more; he said listening to her would improve his English. A week later Bernadette had added Señor Obando to her Life List.

  She was married again. She showed us a ring set with a large aquamarine. “I really think this is the one,” she said. “I love a man with a vision.”

  She’d come back to see the kids, the grandkids, the great-grandkids, and to pack up her apartment. She was grabbing her coat and getting her hat. Just forward her mail to The Scarlet Macaw.

  We were happy for her, of course, and lucky Señor Obando, but we were a little sad, too. Costa Rica is far away.

  Grigg said that he, in particular, missed our meetings. Grigg and Jocelyn were just back from the World Fantasy Convention in Minneapolis. It was a serious convention, Jocelyn said. For serious readers. She’d liked everyone she’d met, and seen nothing of which to disapprove. Grigg said that she hadn’t been looking too closely.

  In fact, he’d thought her awkward and uncomfortable, surrounded by so many people she didn’t know. It didn’t worry us. Give her time to relax, give her time to see what was needed, and Jocelyn would have the whole community in order. The matchmaking alone could occupy her for years.

  “We could read someone else,” Grigg suggested. “Patrick O’Brian? Some of his books are very Austenish. More than you’d expect.”

  “I’m a big fan of boats,” Prudie told Grigg. “Ask anyone.” Her tone was polite, at best.

  Grigg never had quite gotten it. If we’d started with Patrick O’Brian, we could have then gone on to Austen. We couldn’t possibly go the other direction.

  We’d let Austen into our lives, and now we were all either married or dating. Could O’Brian have done this? How? When we needed to cook aboard ship, play a musical instrument, traverse Spain dressed like a bear, Patrick O’Brian would be our man. Till then, we’d just wait. In three or four years it would be time to read Austen again.

  Sylvia and Daniel had stayed at Jocelyn’s to watch the kennel while Jocelyn was at World Fantasy. Afterward, Daniel moved back home. Sylvia told us she picked up some useful marital tips from Sahara and the matriarchal Ridgebacks. She says that she’s happy, but she’s still Sylvia. Who can really tell?

  We see a lot less of Allegra these days. She moved back to San Francisco and back with Corinne. None of us expects this to last. Daniel told Sylvia the things Corinne had done, and Sylvia told Jocelyn, and now we all sort of know. It’s hard to like Corinne much now; it’s hard to have a good feeling about the relationship. You have to believe in fundamental reform. You have to trust Allegra. You remind yourself that no one can push Allegra around.

  There’s a whole story involving Samantha Yep, but Allegra says she’s never telling it, not to us, not to Corinne. It’s a good story, that’s why. She has no intention of finding it in The New Yorker some day.

  We all ordered a glass of Crêpe Bistro’s excellent hard cider and toasted Bernadette’s marriage. Sylvia brought out the Ask Austen, not to ask a question, just to give the last word to the right person.

  South or north, I know a black cloud when I see it.

  Except that Austen wouldn’t want us to end things that way.

  A single woman, of good fortune, is always respectable.

  Better. A good sentiment. Not so true, though, as other things she said. We’re sure you can think of exceptions.

  The mere habit of learning to love is the thing.

  There.

  In honor of Bernadette, with best wishes for her future health and happiness, Austen repeats herself:

  The mere habit of learning to love is the thing.

  —JANE AUSTEN, 1775–1817

  Reader’s Guide

  Jane Austen is weirdly capable of keeping everybody busy. The moralists, the Eros-and-Agape people, the Marxists, the Freudians, the Jungians, the semioticians, the deconstructors—all find an adventure playground in six samey novels about middle-class provincials. And for every generation of critics, and readers, her fiction effortlessly renews itself.

  —MARTIN AMIS, “JANE’S WORLD,” The New Yorker

  The Novels

  Emma was written between January 1814 and March 1815, published in 1815. The title character, Emma Woodhouse, is queen of her little community. She is lovely and wealthy. She has no mother; her fussy, fragile father imposes no curbs on either her behavior or her self-satisfaction. Everyone else in the village is deferentially lower in social standing. Only Mr. Knightley, an old family friend, ever suggests she needs improvement.

  Emma has a taste for matchmaking. When she meets pretty Harriet Smith, “the natural daughter of somebody,” Emma takes her up as both a friend and a cause. Under Emma’s direction, Harriet refuses a proposal from a local farmer, Robert Martin, so that Emma can engineer one from Mr. Elton, the vicar. Unluckily, Mr. Elton misunderstands the intrigues and believes Emma is interested in him for herself. He cannot be lowered to consider Harriet Smith.

  Things are further shaken by the return to the village by Jane Fairfax, niece to the garrulous Miss Bates; and by a visit from Frank Churchill, stepson of Emma’s ex-governess. He and Jane are secretly engaged, but as no one knows this, it has no impact on the matchmaking frenzy.

  The couples are eventually sorted out, if not according to Emma’s plan, at least to her satisfaction. Uninterested in marriage at the book’s beginning, she happily engages herself to Mr. Knightley before its end.

  Sense and Sensibility was written in the late 1790s, but much revised before publication in 1811. It is primarily the story of two sisters, Elinor and Marianne Dashwood. The death of their father has left them, with their mother and younger sister, financially pressed. Both women fall in love, each in her own characteristic way—Marianne is extravagant and public with her emotions, Elinor restrained and decorous.

  The object of Elinor’s interest is Edward Ferrars, brother to Fanny Dashwood, her odious, stingy sister-in-law. Elinor learns that Edward has been for some time secretly, unhappily, and inextricably engaged to a young woman named Lucy Steele. She learns this from Lucy, who, aware of Elinor’s interest though pretending not to be, chooses Elinor as her special confidante.

  Marianne hopes to marry John Willoughby, the book’s only sexy man. He deserts her for a financially advantageous match. The surprise and disappointment of this sends Marianne into a dangerous decline.

  When Lucy Steele jilts Edward for his brother Robert, Edward is finally free to marry Elinor. Edward seems quite dull, but is at least her own choice. Marianne marries Colonel Brandon, the dull man Elinor and her mother have picked out for her.

  Mansfield Park was written between 1811 and 1813, and published in 1814. It marks Austen’s return to novel writing after an interruption of more than a decade.

  Ten-year-old Fanny Price is taken from her impoverished home to the estate of her wealthy aunt and uncle Bertram. There she is tormented by her aunt Norris, disliked by her cousins Tom, Maria, and Julia, and befriended only by her cousin Edmund. Her position is less than a daughter, more like a servant. Years pass. Fanny grows up shrinking and sickly (though very pretty).

  While Uncle Bertram is away on business
, Henry and Mary Crawford come to stay at the nearby parsonage. The Crawfords, brother and sister, are lively and charming. Both Maria and Julia are taken with Henry. Edmund is equally smitten with Mary.

  Amateur theatricals are planned, then canceled by Uncle Bertram’s return. But the rehearsals have already encouraged several damaging flirtations. Maria, humiliated by Henry’s lack of real interest, marries Mr. Rushworth, a wealthy buffoon.

  Henry then falls in love with shy Fanny. She refuses the advantageous match and, as punishment, is sent back to her parents. Henry pursues her for a time, then has an affair with Maria that results in her disgrace. Edmund’s eyes are opened by Mary’s casual response to this.

  Tom, the eldest Bertram cousin, nearly dies of vice and dissipation; Fanny is fetched back to Mansfield Park to help nurse him. At the end of the book Edmund and Fanny marry. They seem well suited to each other, though not, as Kingsley Amis has pointed out, the sort of people you would like to have over for dinner.

  Northanger Abbey was written in the late 1790s, but published only posthumously. It is the story of a deliberately ordinary heroine named Catherine Morland. The book is divided into two parts. In the first, Catherine travels with family friends, the Allens, to Bath. There she meets two brother-sister pairs—John and Isabella Thorpe, and Henry and Eleanor Tilney. Her own brother, James, joins them and becomes engaged to Isabella. Catherine is attracted to Henry, a clergyman with witty and unorthodox manners.

  General Tilney, father to Henry and Eleanor, invites Catherine to visit them at home; this visit makes up the second half of the book. The General is at once solicitous and overbearing. Under the spell of the gothic novel she has been reading, Catherine imagines he has murdered his wife. Henry discovers this and sets her humiliatingly straight.

  Catherine receives a letter from James telling her that Isabella has ended their engagement. General Tilney, upon returning from London, has Catherine thrown out, to make her own way home. It is eventually understood that Catherine and James had been mistaken for people of great wealth, but the situation has been clarified.

  Henry is so outraged by his father’s behavior that he follows immediately after Catherine and proposes marriage. They cannot proceed without his father’s permission, but this is finally given in the happy madness of Eleanor’s marriage to a viscount.

  Pride and Prejudice was originally entitled First Impressions. It was written between 1796 and 1797, and heavily revised before its publication in 1813. It is the most famous of the novels. Austen herself characterized it as “rather too light and bright, and sparkling,” suggesting it needed some “solemn specious nonsense” for contrast. In an inversion of the classic Cinderella fairy tale, when the hero, Fitzwilliam Darcy, first sees the heroine, Elizabeth Bennet, at a ball, he refuses to dance with her.

  Elizabeth is one of five Bennet daughters, second in age only to the beautiful Jane. The Bennet estate is entailed on a male cousin, and although the girls are comfortable enough as long as their father lives, their long-term financial survival depends on their marrying.

  The story revolves around Elizabeth’s continued dislike of Darcy and Darcy’s growing attraction to Elizabeth. When she meets the rake Wickham, he dislikes Darcy intensely; she is quickly won over by their shared distaste.

  A subplot involves her father’s heir, the Reverend Collins, who attempts to amend his financial impact on the family by asking Elizabeth to marry him. Elizabeth rejects him—he is pompous and stupid—so he proposes to Charlotte Lucas, Elizabeth’s best friend, who accepts.

  Darcy proposes to Elizabeth, but rudely. Elizabeth rudely rejects him. Wickham elopes with Lydia, the youngest Bennet sister, and Darcy is instrumental in finding the couple and buying Lydia a marriage. This, along with his steadfast love and improved manners, convinces Elizabeth that he is the man for her after all. Jane marries Darcy’s friend Mr. Bingley on the same day Elizabeth and Darcy are married. Both sisters end up very rich.

  Persuasion was, like Northanger Abbey, published posthumously. It begins in the summer of 1814; peace has broken out; the navy is home. A vain and profligate widower, Sir Walter Elliot, is forced as an economy to let the family estate to an Admiral Croft, and move with his eldest daughter, Elizabeth, to Bath. A younger daughter, Anne Elliot, visits her delightfully whiny married sister, Mary, before joining them.

  Many years before, Anne was engaged to Admiral Croft’s brother-in-law, now Captain Frederick Wentworth. Her family’s disapproval and the advice of an old friend, Lady Russell, caused her to cancel the match, but she is still in love with him.

  Wentworth comes to call on his sister and begins a series of visits to see the Musgroves, the family into which Mary Elliot has married. This keeps him often in Anne’s path. She must watch as Wentworth appears to wife-hunt among the Musgrove daughters, favoring Louisa. On a trip to Lyme, Louisa suffers a bad fall, from which she is slow to recover.

  Anne joins her family in Bath, though they seem neither to miss her nor to want her. A cousin, the heir to her father’s title, has been attentive to her oldest sister. When Anne arrives, he turns his attentions to her.

  He is revealed by Anne’s old school chum Mrs. Smith to be a villain. Louisa’s engagement is announced, not to Wentworth, but rather to Benwick, a bereaved navyman who saw her often in Lyme. Wentworth follows Anne to Bath, and after several more misunderstandings, they marry at last.

  The Response

  IN WHICH JANE AUSTEN’S FAMILY AND FRIENDS COMMENT ONMansfield Park, OPINIONS COLLECTED AND RECORDED BY AUSTEN HERSELF1

  My Mother—not liked it so well as P. & P.—Thought Fanny insipid.—Enjoyed Mrs Norris.—

  Cassandra [sister]—thought it quite as clever, tho’ not so brilliant as P. & P.—Fond of Fanny.—Delighted much in Mr Rushworth’s stupidity.—

  My Eldest Brother [James]—a warm admirer of it in general.—Delighted with the Portsmouth Scene.

  Mr & Mrs Cooke [godmother]—very much pleased with it—particularly with the Manner in which the Clergy are treated.—Mr Cooke called it ‘the most sensible Novel he had ever read.’—Mrs Cooke wished for a good Matronly Character.—

  Mrs Augusta Bramstone [elderly sister of Wither Bramstone]—owned that she thought S & S.—and P. & P. downright nonsense, but expected to like M P. better, & having finished the 1st vol.—flattered herself she had got through the worst.

  Mrs Bramstone [wife of Wither Bramstone]—much pleased with it; particularly with the character of Fanny, as being so very natural. Thought Lady Bertram like herself.—Preferred it to either of the others—but imagined that might be her want of Taste—as she does not understand Wit.—

  IN WHICH JANE AUSTEN’S FAMILY AND FRIENDS COMMENT ONEmma2

  My Mother—thought it more entertaining than M. P.—but not so interesting as P. & P.—No characters in it equal to Ly Catherine & Mr Collins.—

  Cassandra—better than P. & P.—but not so well as M. P.—

  Mr & Mrs J. A. [James Austen]—did not like it so well as either of the 3 others. Language different from the others; not so easily read.—

  Captn. Austen [Francis William]—liked it extremely, observing that though there might be more Wit in P & P—& an higher Morality in M P—yet altogether, on account of it’s [sic] peculiar air of Nature throughout, he preferred it to either.

  Mr Sherer [vicar]—did not think it equal to either M P—(which he liked the best of all) or P & P.—Displeased with my pictures of Clergymen.—

  Miss Isabella Herries—did not like it—objected to my exposing the sex in the character of the Heroine—convinced that I had meant Mrs & Miss Bates for some acquaintance of theirs—People whom I never heard of before.—

  Mr Cockerelle—liked it so little, that Fanny wd not send me his opinion.—

  Mr Fowle [friend since childhood]—read only the first & last Chapters, because he had heard it was not interesting.—

  Mr Jeffery [editor of the Edinburgh Review] was kept up by it three nights.

  IN WH
ICH CRITICS, WRITERS, AND LITERARY FIGURES COMMENT ON AUSTEN, HER NOVELS, HER ADMIRERS, AND HER DETRACTORS THROUGH TWO CENTURIES

  1812—Unsigned review of Sense and Sensibility3

  We will, however, detain our female friends no longer than to assure them, that they may peruse these volumes not only with satisfaction but with real benefits, for they may learn from them, if they please, many sober and salutary maxims for the conduct of life, exemplified in a very pleasing and entertaining narrative.

  1814—Mary Russell Mitford, review of Pride and Prejudice4

  It is impossible not to feel in every line of Pride and Prejudice, in every word of “Elizabeth,” the entire want of taste which could produce so pert, so worldly a heroine as the beloved of such a man as Darcy. Wickham is equally bad. Oh! they were just fit for each other, and I cannot forgive that delightful Darcy for parting them. Darcy should have married Jane.

  1815—Sir Walter Scott, review of Emma5

  Upon the whole, the turn of this author’s novels bears the same relation to that sentimental and romantic cast, that cornfields and cottages and meadows bear to the highly adorned grounds of a show mansion, or the rugged sublimities of a mountain landscape. It is neither so captivating as the one, nor so grand as the other, but it affords to those who frequent it a pleasure nearly allied with the experience of their own social habits; and what is of some importance, the youthful wanderer may return from his promenade to the ordinary business of life, without any chance of having his head turned by the recollection of the scene through which he has been wandering.