Bad Austen

by Peter Archer

  Incorrect, imprecise, vulgar language is a clear reflection of character in Jane Austen’s writing, but the same cannot necessarily be said regarding speech that is entirely but merely correct, which might indicate nothing more than a good education.

  Pride and Paparazzi

  WENDY SIMARD

  When Paris and Nicky were alone, the former, who had been cautious in her praise of Justin Bieber before, expressed to her sister how very much she admired him.

  “He is just what a young man ought to be,” said she, “sensible, good humoured, lively; and I never saw such happy manners!—so much ease, with such perfect good breeding!”

  “He is also handsome, with good hair,” replied Nicky, “which a young man ought likewise to be, if he possibly can. His character is thereby complete.”

  “I was very much flattered by his asking me for cocaine a second time. I did not expect such a compliment.”

  “Did not you? I did for you, you are known for having the best product. But that is one great difference between us. Compliments always take you by surprise, and me never. What could be more natural than his asking you again? He could not help seeing that you were about five times as slutty as every other woman in the room. No thanks to his celebrity for that. Well, he certainly is very agreeable, and I give you leave to do a line with him. You have liked many a stupider person….”

  “WTF, Nicky!”

  “Oh! You are a great deal too apt, you know, to like people in general. You never see a fault in anybody. All the world is good and agreeable in your eyes. I never heard you speak ill of a human being in my life, except, of course, Britney … and maybe Lindsey … and that paparazzi you hit with your Bentley … and …”

  “OMG. I would wish not to be hasty in censuring anyone, but I always tweet what I think.”

  “I know you do, and it is that which makes the wonder. With your good sense, to be honestly blind to the follies and nonsense of others! Affectation of candour is common enough—one-night stands are easy enough to come by. But to be candid without ostentation or design—to take the good of every hot body and make it still hotter by your association, and say nothing of the bad—belongs to you alone. And so, you like this guy’s friends, too, do you? Their celebrity is not equal to his.”

  “Hell no, not at first. But they get hotter after you converse with them. Robert Pattinson is to live with Justin and keep the party going at his house, and I am much mistaken if we shall not find him a very charming neighbor in the Hollywood Hills.”

  Nicky listened in silence while texting her BFF, but was not convinced. Their behaviour at the Halloween bash had not been calculated to please in general, and with more quickness of observation and less ditziness than her sister, she was very little disposed to approve of these dudes. They were, in fact, very fine talents, not deficient in good humour when they were pleased, nor in the power of being agreeable where they chose it; but proud and conceited. They were rather handsome, had been educated by Disney, had a fortune to rival her Hilton inheritance, were in the habit of spending more than they ought and of associating with people of rank, and were therefore in every respect entitled to think well of themselves, and meanly of others. Pattinson was at least of a respectable family in the north of england, a circumstance more deeply impressed on their memories than Bieber’s fortune, which had been acquired mostly due to a haircut.

  PART 3

  Superheroes, Vampires, and Pemberley, Oh, My!

  Could there be anything more entertaining than Darcy as a vampire? We didn’t think so. of the entries in the Bad Austen contest, many of them were mashups of some of our favorite novels, television shows, and movies. Yes, we mean Star Wars. Read on for some Austen-esque stories that are the result of two very different worlds colliding.

  Bedside Manners

  C. MOORE

  “Any half-wit can see that she’s set her cap on Chase,” remarked the physician, “though I cannot see why. He’s a pretty pink, to be sure, but exceedingly vain.”

  “You’re just jealous,” said his colleague. “Besides, your own sense of vanity far outstrips his.”

  The first physician twirled his walking stick. “Foreman, why the deuce must you persist in wearing purple cravats? You’ll make our idiot patients cast up their accounts.”

  Foreman smiled. “A fine parry! See, I knew you were jealous.”

  “I do not desire Miss Cameron. She’s nubile, to be sure, but gold tresses do not suit her. ’tis Miss Cuddy whom I would fain bed.” The physician glanced up as a dark-haired lady entered his study. “Aha, good day, dear Miss Cuddy! She of the shapely posterior and plunging décolletages.”

  Miss Cuddy lifted one perfectly shaped brow. She was far too well-bred to acknowledge such a brutish greeting. Instead, she said, “good day, Dr. House. I have a new case for you. That is, unless you would rather earn yourself a fortnight’s clinic duty?”

  “Touché!” quipped Dr. House, casting a wry look at Foreman. “Do you see how this fair creature has me completely at sixes and sevens? I worship you, Miss Cuddy!”

  “You worship no other but yourself, sir. Now here is the file.” Dr. House took up said document and gave it a cursory perusal. As Miss Cuddy moved to withdraw, he beckoned her back. “tell me, my adored one, have you yet restored my steed to his rightful place in the stables?”

  Miss Cuddy sighed. “Your request was denied. There is another for whom walking further would be a still greater burden. You and I both know your alleged war injury was in fact sustained during a horserace.”

  “Racing, ay! Racing into battle!” objected House. “I earned a medal for that.”

  “You earned a fine purse, though you were dragged the last ten yards by the stirrups!” chortled Foreman.

  “Traitor!” snapped House, glaring. “And a liar, as well! every-one’s a liar in this dashed place!”

  Miss Cuddy smiled knowingly and exited without another word.

  Dr. House stewed in silence for a minute. Then he seized a quill, scratched out a quick note, and rang for the messenger.

  “What shall you do now?” wondered Dr. Foreman.

  “I’ll come up with a plan,” growled House, “just as soon as Wilson brings me a fresh bottle of laudanum!”

  DID YOU KNOW?

  Many people who haven’t actually read Jane Austen have an idea of her as a prim and proper writer of ladylike prose, or perhaps a writer of extravagant Regency romances. A reading of her novels, with their sharp, dry wit, splendid nonsense, and intricate exploration of the psychological truths behind human behavior, will completely explode these mistaken notions. However, even many of her most passionate fans have no idea how very far from “prim and proper” she can be. Austen’s letters are quite revealing in that regard, but the most illuminating evidence of her writerly interest in the vicious, violent, stupid, and silly (more to the taste of raucous boys than refined ladies) can be found in the juvenilia.

  Jack & Alice, written when Jane was in her early teens and dedicated to her brother Frank, then away at sea serving in the navy, contains an exuberantly drawn cast of flawed characters: “The Johnsons were a family of Love, & though a little addicted to the Bottle & the Dice, had many good Qualities.”

  The character Alice “almost came to Blows” against Lady Williams in one well-lubricated rage. Drunkenness was certainly very common at the time but is very little touched upon in Austen’s later work—and certainly not among women! Violence is relished, too: The lovely Lucy is caught in a man-trap and then poisoned by a rival who is herself hanged for the offense. And it is all rollicking fun.

  Gone with the Pride

  SANDRA LONG

  That a recent widower in possession of children must be in need of a wife was a belief held so strongly by Scarlett that she presumed Ashley would be her next of kin.

  “Ashley, I have pined for the loss of your affections, but you are now free to make me an offer.”

  “You have misunderstood. I cannot marry you.”
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  The lady was without speech; it was unfathomable to her that a woman could be refused an offer of marriage.

  Ashley observed an unusual lack of discourse and so, with a sense of propriety, quickly filled the void. “Indeed you are mistaken of my desires. My inclinations are not toward ladies.”

  “Don’t trifle with me, Ashley. No ladies? Surely you don’t mean you have affection only for commoners?”

  More contrary the truth could be not. “Scarlett, forgive me for being forthright: Feminine pulchritude does not sail my ship.”

  “Oh no! You mean you are … unusual? How can this be? You made known no such unusualness to me.”

  “Pink ruffled shirts?” A lady in possession of a sharper mind might have deduced the obvious, he surmised.

  Scarlett knew Rhett had a multitude of ruffles in his closet yet had no inclination to join the crew of Ashley’s ship. “Shame on you! Why did not you make this clear to me before? I can’t believe I have wasted my life waiting for you. You have injured me. Badly done, Ashley…. But are you truly firm in the certainty of your mind on this topic? Surely you could be swayed by the true love of a Southern Lady?”

  At this point of time, his inclinations were fixed and nothing forthcoming from Scarlett could affect change. “Alas, it is so. But now my current circumstance has given me leave to visit my true desires. gossip has been spreading that Rhett may be departing your company. I have taken notice of his ruffles, though pink they are not, and I am on my way to see if an attachment is a possibility between us.”

  “No!!! It cannot be. Your declaration has made me mind my own heart. I think I may be in love with Rhett. I may have loved him all along. No! You cannot have him. I love Rhett! I must leave for tara with haste. I cannot fret on this for a fortnight.”

  “I am sorry to have vexed you. Calm your nerves. Sit a while before you depart. Have some cold meats.”

  “I am not in need of sitting. I want to walk.”

  “Walk? It’s nearly a half-mile to tara. And in all this heat.”

  “I will walk. I pledge to god I shall never sit again until I reach tara. I am most exceedingly obliged to you, Ashley. Please accept my wishes for your health and happiness, but I must be off to tara to tell Rhett I love him.”

  Scarlett was as surprised as anyone to hear this proclamation. The working of her heart had been hardened by the business of maintaining tara, but tara now seemed a mere pile of bricks and wood that was tumbling down while her heart, a real woman’s heart, was building up.

  “Rhett, where are you? I walked a half-mile in the sun without a parasol to see you, and I would have walked a mile entire, just to tell you my feelings for you have changed. I am embarrassed to think what I said before, but now I know what I feel in my heart. You are the most amiable associate of my alliances. Please tell me I am not too late. Do I still have a chance to win you back?”

  Rhett descended the lengthy staircase, which was quite suitable to the position of a gentleman and by no means lacking in good taste. “Why Scarlett, I am all astonishment. But are you unwell?”

  “No, I assure you I am in complete wellness. Is there truth that you are quitting my company?”

  “It was my plan before you had arrived. I was prepared to tell you, by george I could care not a wit, but now I find my feelings are quite reversed. Your manners, on closer acquaintance, have improved. Could this be a dream, my darling Scarlett?”

  “No, I am sure I am awake. But let us put a test to that theory.”

  Rhett grasped Scarlett’s not unsmall waist. His back arched as he bowed down toward her pouty red mouth. The moment until their lips met seemed an eternity; indeed a flock of birds could have passed in the space between until they finally consummated the kiss. It was a dream of a kiss, but it was not a dream. Awake they were, and would be thus all night to the consternation of the neighbors.

  DID YOU KNOW?

  With the success of Sense and Sensibility, the publisher was certainly interested in Jane Austen’s next novel. In revising First Impressions, the novel she had begun in 1796, which her father had unsuccessfully tried to have published, Jane made the manuscript quite a bit shorter than the version Mr. Austen had sent to Thomas Cadell. Thomas Egerton offered £110 for the novel she now called Pride and Prejudice, and although Jane had hoped for more, she accepted his offer, apparently to save Henry (and Eliza) from having to advance money again. Pride and Prejudice was published in January of 1813.

  The reviews and general public response to this new novel were even more enthusiastic than they had been for Sense and Sensibility. Once again, Austen could enjoy the direct praise of only a few people because this book, too, was published anonymously, “by the Author of Sense and Sensibility.” In those days, ladies did not seek to draw public attention to themselves. Rather than basking in the limelight of successful authorship, Jane was quietly living in the Hampshire countryside. After the publication of the book Jane so lovingly—and rightly—referred to as “my own darling Child,” she and Mrs. Austen took turns reading from it to their neighbor, a poor spinster named Miss Benn. What an extraordinary picture that must have made, and all the more amusing because Miss Benn—also kept in the dark about Jane’s secret—did not know she was in the presence of the author!

  Woman of Wonder

  SHANNON WINSLOW

  No one who had ever seen Wonder Woman in her infancy would have supposed her born to be a heroine. Her character, situation, and temper were all equally against such an eventuality. And fate seemed at first wholly disinclined to lend a hand.

  A glimpse of little Diana—for so she was then called—surely conjured up no image of future greatness in the behold-er’s eye. Indeed, as Amazons go, her looks did not exceed the average by a single jot. A graceless figure, an awkward fashion sense, and a total want of complexion combined to ill effect. The resulting picture all but shouted that this child was destined for mediocrity.

  Equally unpropitious for heroism seemed the turn of little Diana’s mind. She greatly preferred reading to the more standard juvenile pursuits—swordplay, mastering the lasso, fending off lightning bolts—and rarely attended to the insinuations of her well-intentioned relations that she would be wise to cultivate whatsoever latent superpowers she might possess.

  Such were Diana’s youthful propensities. But when a young lady is to be a heroine, the perverseness of every disobliging circumstance imaginable cannot prevent her. Something must and will happen to throw a call to heroism in her way.

  By and by, her looks improved tolerably, and her other abilities developed apace to the point that her marshal arts master went so far as to call her efforts “satisfactory.” Then, on the day of her eighteenth birthday, she cast a most auspicious gaze across the mystical veil that hung betwixt her home on the island of Themiscyra and the sphere of Man. Diana happened to spy there a handsome mortal of a more than usually interesting aspect, whom she thereafter made the subject of her constant study.

  During a mandatory warrior-training class one day, she confided her observations to her best friend, Anita, who is also known as Power girl. “He is just what a young man ought to be,” Diana said, deftly evading the saber thrust of her male sparing partner. “tall—a singular virtue to which every young man must by all means aspire—and I never saw such a happy union of noble character and physical perfection. Certainly, I’ve not encountered his equal in this place,” she said with a disdainful glare at the feeble specimen cowering at the point of her sword.

  “Then I give you leave to like him … from afar, that is,” replied Anita, registering a hit against her opponent as well. “I daresay this man of yours may be possessed of a little more wit than the rest, but mortals are by nature stupid and helpless creatures.”

  “What care I for such trifles? I simply must be near him; nothing else will do.”

  “Do not be rash, Diana! As you well know, the only way for one of us to cross over to the human world is in the guise of a superhero.”

&nbs
p; “Then my course is clear.”

  And thus, Wonder Woman came into being.

  DID YOU KNOW?

  Jane fainted at news of her family’s move to Bath, tradition has it, not only because she very much loved Steventon—the only home she’d ever known—but also because she hated Bath—and, indeed, cities in general. Critics and biographers have turned to the letters Jane wrote while she was anticipating the move and detected that she was putting on a good front but was in fact very unhappy.

  Jane describes Bath in a letter as “vapour, shadow, smoke & confusion,” which does not sound as if she liked the place very much. Her other letters from the first weeks in Bath are also rather depressed-sounding. “I cannot anyhow continue to find people agreeable,” she writes rather hopelessly to Cassandra. Jane attends social gatherings and gives reports of them that are either complaints about their disagreeableness or sharp-edged jokes about those present. There is little evidence that she was finding life in Bath very enjoyable at the beginning of her stay there.

  In Northanger Abbey, Catherine Morland finds it a delightful place, astonishing in the variety of people and activities it offers, especially when compared with the sleepy country village she has come from. As Mrs. Allen inimitably puts it, “it is just the place for young people—and indeed for every body else too.” Catherine more sensibly, if naively, exclaims, “Oh! who can ever be tired of Bath?” Henry Tilney’s answer to her probably rhetorical question may hold the key to evaluating Bath’s general pleasantness or unpleasantness: “Not those who bring such fresh feelings of every sort to it, as you do.” In other words, Catherine “was come to be happy,” and thus Bath made her so. Did Jane Austen come there to be happy herself?