Tuesday, March 15, 2005
The Jane Austen Book Club
I don't actually know Karen Joy Fowler, but we are members of the same organization (The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America) and know some of the same people. If a disclaimer is necessary, there it is.
The Jane Austem Book Club isn't really about Jane Austen, or even about reading Jane Austen, although the club is at the center of the story and most of the episodes are modeled after the books that the club reads in them. Think of it as an homage to Austen. (A lot of Janeites call her by her first name, much as New Yorkers refer to Woody, but the ladies -- and one man -- in this club take offense at such familiarity.)
And the book has many of the characteristics of the Nineteenth Century novel. There is a series of romantic complications, with roughly predicable results (Trollope, for one, apologizes in one novel -- I think it is The Eustace Diamonds -- for introducing an element that might be a surprise.) No one behaves out of character, and character is the real focus of the story. (I know there are whole other genres of novels in the Nineteenth Century, such as gothic and sensational, but I'm talking about the main line of those books that are still read. No one really reads Mrs. Radcliffe -- besides one of the characters in The Jane Austen Book Club -- and hardly anyone reads Wilkie Collins.)
The book is also informed by the Austenian spirit. It is witty and closely observed, and each character is fully drawn, with a past and present and future all linked by motives public and private.
It does not reach the level of Austen, though. (This is hardly a criticism from someone who considers Austen one of the founding genuises of our craft.) Austen's characters are individuals, yes, but they are people of their time, and by investigating them Austen studies and analyzes her world. The members of the Jane Austen book club are carefully designed to be a cross-section of a particular world -- the woman who has never married, the woman going through a painful divorce, her lesbian daughter, the spinsterish (but married) teacher, the eligible male, the older woman who's had a wild life -- but they don't, for me at least, combine into a portrait of that world. Part of Fowler's problem is, of course, that our world is much bigger than Austen's ever was. She wrote of the rural gentry, and there simply is no such coherent class in modern Sacramento (where the book is set).
Still, I enjoyed the book, and I enjoyed spending time with those people. Fowler shares Austen's clear affection for even the most obnoxious of her characters, and shares that with us. She also enjoys Austen (I find it hard to imagine a serious novelist who doesn't, although I'm sure such must exist) and finding ways that she might fit into our world.
I suspect this may be a book that would reward a more careful reading (I listened to it); at the least, it would be a pleasant way to spend the time.
dmh
The Jane Austem Book Club isn't really about Jane Austen, or even about reading Jane Austen, although the club is at the center of the story and most of the episodes are modeled after the books that the club reads in them. Think of it as an homage to Austen. (A lot of Janeites call her by her first name, much as New Yorkers refer to Woody, but the ladies -- and one man -- in this club take offense at such familiarity.)
And the book has many of the characteristics of the Nineteenth Century novel. There is a series of romantic complications, with roughly predicable results (Trollope, for one, apologizes in one novel -- I think it is The Eustace Diamonds -- for introducing an element that might be a surprise.) No one behaves out of character, and character is the real focus of the story. (I know there are whole other genres of novels in the Nineteenth Century, such as gothic and sensational, but I'm talking about the main line of those books that are still read. No one really reads Mrs. Radcliffe -- besides one of the characters in The Jane Austen Book Club -- and hardly anyone reads Wilkie Collins.)
The book is also informed by the Austenian spirit. It is witty and closely observed, and each character is fully drawn, with a past and present and future all linked by motives public and private.
It does not reach the level of Austen, though. (This is hardly a criticism from someone who considers Austen one of the founding genuises of our craft.) Austen's characters are individuals, yes, but they are people of their time, and by investigating them Austen studies and analyzes her world. The members of the Jane Austen book club are carefully designed to be a cross-section of a particular world -- the woman who has never married, the woman going through a painful divorce, her lesbian daughter, the spinsterish (but married) teacher, the eligible male, the older woman who's had a wild life -- but they don't, for me at least, combine into a portrait of that world. Part of Fowler's problem is, of course, that our world is much bigger than Austen's ever was. She wrote of the rural gentry, and there simply is no such coherent class in modern Sacramento (where the book is set).
Still, I enjoyed the book, and I enjoyed spending time with those people. Fowler shares Austen's clear affection for even the most obnoxious of her characters, and shares that with us. She also enjoys Austen (I find it hard to imagine a serious novelist who doesn't, although I'm sure such must exist) and finding ways that she might fit into our world.
I suspect this may be a book that would reward a more careful reading (I listened to it); at the least, it would be a pleasant way to spend the time.
dmh
Saturday, March 05, 2005
Anatole France
Does anyone read Anatole France any more? Judging by how much of his work is available at Audible.com (where I get my audiobooks), no. There's exactly one title by this Nobel Prize winner, and I suspect it isn't his best.
Of course, there are a lot of Nobelists whom nobody reads today: Bunin, Lagerlof, Laxness, Maeterlinck, Tagore, Sholokhov, and Quasimodo all come to mind, and there are plenty more. (That's only the ones who are not read widely in America. I have no idea if they're in the canon in other countries.) Upstairs, in the anthology section, I have a book of short stories by the Nobelists, so I've read at least one story by a lot of the fiction writers (the book is thirty or forty years old, and could probably use an update), but that isn't the same as being familiar with their work. But at one time they were all considered pretty good, potentially timeless, so they ought to be worth a try.
That was what I was thinking when I picked up Penguin Island. Well, that and that it might have something to do with penguins. I like penguins, as some of you know.
The penguin connection is tenuous. A misguided and nearsighted saint, lost in the north (?), lands on an island inhabited by penguins and baptizes them. After a debate in heaven on the validity of the baptism, God settles the issue by making the penguins human, even though He knows nothing good will come of this. (The alternative is validating the baptism of animals, after all.) After that, it's a parody history of France.
And in that vein, it reminds me of Mark Twain, but with a clearer political leaning. (Twain, of course, is famous for saying, "I belong to no organized political party; I'm a Democrat," but Will Rogers actually said it.) France didn't have much sympathy for Socialists, but some for socialism, at least as far as it favored egalitarianism. He seems to have considered all politicians corrupt.
I suspect that the book would be funnier if I knew more about French history; it was probably even funnier if you read it within five or ten years of its composition. This is the problem with a lot of satire -- it doesn't stay topical over a long period. Even some of Twain's satire falls flat today. But some of Penguin Island is still funny, and the characters are interesting, if somewhat archetypal. I'd read some more France if the opportunity came up.
I'm still working on Phineas Finn and Agape Agape (that's pronounced a-GA-pay a-GAPE), and have now started listening to The Brothers Karamazov. My reading habits at home have gotten a bit stalled, but this is spring break, so maybe I'll get back on track.
dmh
Of course, there are a lot of Nobelists whom nobody reads today: Bunin, Lagerlof, Laxness, Maeterlinck, Tagore, Sholokhov, and Quasimodo all come to mind, and there are plenty more. (That's only the ones who are not read widely in America. I have no idea if they're in the canon in other countries.) Upstairs, in the anthology section, I have a book of short stories by the Nobelists, so I've read at least one story by a lot of the fiction writers (the book is thirty or forty years old, and could probably use an update), but that isn't the same as being familiar with their work. But at one time they were all considered pretty good, potentially timeless, so they ought to be worth a try.
That was what I was thinking when I picked up Penguin Island. Well, that and that it might have something to do with penguins. I like penguins, as some of you know.
The penguin connection is tenuous. A misguided and nearsighted saint, lost in the north (?), lands on an island inhabited by penguins and baptizes them. After a debate in heaven on the validity of the baptism, God settles the issue by making the penguins human, even though He knows nothing good will come of this. (The alternative is validating the baptism of animals, after all.) After that, it's a parody history of France.
And in that vein, it reminds me of Mark Twain, but with a clearer political leaning. (Twain, of course, is famous for saying, "I belong to no organized political party; I'm a Democrat," but Will Rogers actually said it.) France didn't have much sympathy for Socialists, but some for socialism, at least as far as it favored egalitarianism. He seems to have considered all politicians corrupt.
I suspect that the book would be funnier if I knew more about French history; it was probably even funnier if you read it within five or ten years of its composition. This is the problem with a lot of satire -- it doesn't stay topical over a long period. Even some of Twain's satire falls flat today. But some of Penguin Island is still funny, and the characters are interesting, if somewhat archetypal. I'd read some more France if the opportunity came up.
I'm still working on Phineas Finn and Agape Agape (that's pronounced a-GA-pay a-GAPE), and have now started listening to The Brothers Karamazov. My reading habits at home have gotten a bit stalled, but this is spring break, so maybe I'll get back on track.
dmh
