My lifelong love affair with Jane Austen began, aged sixteen, when we were set ‘Pride and Prejudice’ for A level English.
Much talk was made, in class, of what constituted a classic and one of the main conclusions was that it had to be something which still felt relevant or at least recognisable, many years later. The universality of ‘Pride and Prejudice’ really spoke to me. What sixteen year old girl wouldn’t have recognised the boy-obsessed, Lydia, with her ebullient spirits and flirtatious manner? Even if you weren’t like that yourself (I wasn’t, not without copious amounts of Bacardi, anyway) chances were that you knew plenty of girls who were. The world of 'Pride and Prejudice' felt at once familiar yet charmingly removed from my own life. The carriages, balls and servants were a world away from a working class, South West London suburb in the early 1990s but I recognised Austen's characters, especially the villains. Pompous, self-aggrandising, Lady Catherine de Burgh, simpering, servile, Mr Collins and uber bitch, Caroline Bingley, they all seemed familiar, if a little exaggerated. Our English teacher took pains to reiterate that if we’d been around at the time the book was set, we’d have been the ones who were up at 5 a.m, making up the fires and sweeping the floors.
Thus she ensured that that the momentary illusion of living through the characters was destroyed. It didn't matter in the long run though, the text still spoke to me. I still recognised that Miss Bingley was constantly trying to undermine our heroine, Elizabeth Bennett, because, in addition to being an inveterate snob, she had her sights set on Mr Darcy and viewed our Lizzie as a rival.
As a teenager, I revelled in the love story at the heart of 'Pride and Prejudice’ and fell for the taciturn, misunderstood and fantastically wealthy, Mr Darcy, however, what I have come to really adore about the book and the rest of Jane Austen’s cannon, is the social observation and the humour. It's this aspect of Austen's writing that endures and that you come to appreciate, more and more, on re-reading of the texts. The thing about re-reading books is that you get a jolt when you realise that you were younger than that central character when you first read it and now you're probably older than their parents! And yet they endure, they still reach you and touch you and shake you and you might notice something new, even on the 10th re-reading.
What surprised and delighted me about Austen, was that figures who were traditionally supposed to be above reproach, even in late twentieth century Britain, like the clergy and the aristocracy (think the way the media fawns over the royals if you are sceptical on this one), are presented as being ridiculous in her books. Foolish, simpering Mr Collins, who creates the mock dilemma in Lizzy's relationship with her parents, is far from being the only ludicrous vicar in Austen, we also have the risible Mr Elton in 'Emma’. Perhaps Mr Elton is even worse than Mr Collins because he's wilfully cruel, in his treatment of Harriet, and comes with an odious wife, the pretentious and overbearing Mrs Elton. Mrs Elton is one of Austen's bitches (I’m sorry, sisterhood, I can't think of a better word) and every one of her books has one. 'Sense and Sensibility’ has the aptly named Lucy Steele, who is steely of heart (which begs the question why wet fish, Edward Ferrars fell for her in the first place). In 'Northanger Abbey’ the 'bitch’, or perhaps we should say female antagonist, is Isabella Thorpe and in 'Persuasion’ it's Anne’s own sister, Elizabeth. Perhaps 'family’ in Jane Austen are another sacred cow that she lampoons and who furnish her with some of her choicest villains and figures of fun.
Many people are not what they first appear, in Austen's novels. Mr Darcy is not insufferably proud, more socially awkward, Mr Elton isn’t a nice guy but an arsehole with pretensions. Isabella Thorpe and her frat-boy oaf of a brother aren't true friends but opportunistic gold-diggers and Anne Elliot's cousin, William, is an out and out wrong 'un.
I’ve always used books for escapism and feel the need for that more than ever at the moment. To take a respite from the constant hailstorm of news articles - every time I see a headline about the state of the polar ice caps it's like someone has raked through my entrails with a metal claw, a person could do far worse than get lost in a good book. But can Austen do anything other than provide escapism?
I used to get irritated with a colleague of mine and her constant dismissal of Jane Austen, with the words ‘She wrote in the time of the Napoleonic wars and never mentioned them!’ Quite apart from the censorship that Austen and her contemporaries would have been subject to, did she really need to be reporting on the political situation at the time? Maybe her readers welcomed a respite from it.
I watched a programme about what people had got from the works of Austen, over the years. I was utterly charmed by the account of a soldier in the First World War, who recorded in a letter home, that he couldn't wait to get back to his 'Emma’. It provided solace to him in the trenches. This man didn't want to read about war, he was living it. I told my colleague about this but she remained unconvinced. For those of us not living in a war zone do we need an excuse for reading her books? (I don't think we do and hate it when people try to be prescriptive about books) However, I'm going to go back to the universality thing. There's a reason why Jane Bennett is not the heroine of Pride and Prejudice, and Elizabeth Bennett is, Jane is too nice (in the modern sense of the word) and doesn't really have anything to learn. Elizabeth Bennett is slightly flawed, she's quick to judge and credulous when a handsome young man (Wickham) spins her a sob story. Lizzy has to change (her mind) and Darcy has to change (his manners). We go on the journey with them and live through them - they are us. The eponymous heroine of ‘Emma’ is even more flawed than Elizabeth Bennett, and perhaps all the more plausible, to the modern reader, for it. However, Emma has the somewhat censorious figure of Mr Knightley to point out where she's going wrong, whereas Lizzy Bennett learns from her mistakes. Someone once posited the theory that Anne Elliot from Persuasion was suffering from depression, if you see the TV adaptation with Amanda Root and Ciaran Hinds, Root’s wonderfully nuanced performance seems to bear that out. If it is true that reading makes you more empathetic, you can get much more from Austen than bonnets, corsets and a few laughs.
The reason for all this fangirling is that I’ve just re-read Emma and it's had the effect of all really great books, in that it's momentarily ruined me for other literature. So if I can't read, the next best thing is to write.
Thank you for reading this essay - it's highly subjective and I doubt that it would even earn me a 'D’ for GCSE English but I’ve enjoyed writing it and I hope that it inspires you to read a bit of Austen or better yet throw a ball and invite me to it.
Further reading:
To get a more proletarian view of Pride and Prejudice - Longbourn by Jo Baker, written from the point of view of the servants.
A brilliant article in defence of Jane Austen:
