Suspense, narrative omniscience, and love in Pride and Prejudice

My fourth paper, written on Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.

"In Pride and Prejudice, the reader is usually well-informed about the experiences of the characters. The narrator’s omniscience suspends the suspense of the novel, allowing the reader’s attention to focus elsewhere, and drawing it back to romance when the omniscience fails."

Pride and Prejudice

Pride and Prejudice is often dismissed by Austen scholars, I think, for being well-written and fun and engaging, but also rather light and foamy. I dismissed it as such, until I reread it last week. I can't fight the charm of Elizabeth Bennet anymore, and I can't fight the appeal of Mr. Darcy. And I can't ignore how good the book is-- I found something interesting or engaging on every page. It's remarkably rich in allusion and foreshadowing and-- wow-- it's just so good.

If you haven't read it, you should, and right now. However, I'll put up a summary now.

Sacrifice and selfishness in Sense and Sensibility

My third paper, written on Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen.

"Instead, Austen begins by identifying each sister with her respective quality, and as the novel progresses, each quality is invested with the personality and behavior of its respective sister, and so becomes more complex. For example, the dichotomy of sense and sensibility also becomes one of sacrifice and selfishness. If one has sense, one will see the necessity of sacrificing one’s own happiness or release for the sake of others. But how does this affect the happiness of the character with sense? This dichotomy and its association with the titular dichotomy creates an approach to one of the main problems of the story, of deciding which sister is more admirable, and which sister’s philosophy is best."

Sense and Sensibility

For a very long time, Sense and Sensibility was my favorite novel by Jane Austen. And when I say "a very long time," I mean up until a few days ago, when I reread Pride and Prejudice. Sense and Sensibility is enjoyable partially because the characters are largely appealing, but also flawed. Elinor is practical and intelligent and caring, but she's also boring-- Marianne is passionate and clever and witty, but she's also cruel.

And then, there's Edward Ferrars, who is just completely unappealing.

And here's a summary for you.

The establishment of a new kind of heroine in Northanger Abbey

My second paper, written on Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen.

"By writing in opposition to the Gothic style, Austen is doing something interesting and different: she is creating a romance of reality. Her heroine is not perfect like Adeline, the heroine of Ann Radcliffe’s The Romance of the Forest, and her adventures are not as dramatic and fantastic. For these reasons, the story becomes one the reader can enter into without a suspension of reality; the reader can identify with the heroine and her life in the most accepting manner."

Northanger Abbey

This is the second book I've read for my tutorial, although obviously I've read it before. Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen, is, of course, the focus of this project. I have lived fairly intimately with this book for the last two months. So I'm a little glad to only spend a week on it for this blog. A lot of people don't like it-- they think it's too much an amateur work of Austen's, that it's not subtle or likeable enough.

It's worth reading to see what you think, anyway. But here's the summary.

The importance of the family in The Romance of the Forest

My first paper, written on The Romance of the Forest by Ann Radcliffe.

"Family becomes the unnamed goal for Adeline and the focal point of the story: it has the power to accelerate the events of the novel and creates the sense of interconnectedness and fortunate coincidence so important to the ending."

The Romance of the Forest

The Romance of the Forest, by Ann Radcliffe, is the Gothic novel I was assigned to read for the tutorial, since I'm focusing on Northanger Abbey for this project. If it's taken me into the mind of Jane Austen, oh, how I fear for the mind of Jane Austen. After reading it, I can say that I didn't hate it, but I wasn't a fan either. And maybe that's not unexpected. It was a pleasure to see where Jane Austen was basically mining material from in Northanger Abbey, though. There are some scenes-- like when Adeline descends into the chambers beneath her room and finds a rusty dagger and a manuscript-- where Austen's writing seemed bizarre and funny to me before and now has acquired some level of heaviness that I didn't expect. It's just-- it almost ceases to be parody and approaches plagiarism.

But, you say, you're not telling me what the book is about.

"What is this blog?" you query.

This blog is a part of my Chappell-Lougee project, through Stanford University. I am studying Austen and the culture of Janeites, and particularly the ways in which the cult of an author affects the public's experience of that author's books. My project consists of three parts:

1) Touring through Austen Territory. If you're not aware, there is a pretty significant Austen tourist industry in England. Some people actually make money off of this, leading others on tours around the significant geographical highlights of Austen territory. Others make the pilgrimage on their own. I chose the second option. At the beginning of May 2005, I spent about nine days in Bath, where Austen lived for several years and where two of her books, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, take place. I visited the houses where Austen lived, saw the specific places mentioned in her books, dined at the Pump-Room, and took a look at the Jane Austen Centre. I moved from Bath to Chawton, where Austen spent the latter part of her life. Her brother inherited the manor there (now a significant library of women's fiction) and gave Austen and her sister and mother a cottage on the land. I also visited Winchester, where Austen died and is buried. The pictures are a pretty significant part of this blog. I'm doing this largely to experience the culture of the Janeites.

2) This blog, Austen and Academia. I am currently studying abroad at the Stanford Centre in Oxford, where I am taking a tutorial on Austen. I'm starting with Ann Radcliffe's The Romance of the Forest and then progressing through all six of Austen's major novels in chronological order. I will be writing a paper on a topic of my choice for each book. Originally I thought I might write a more general survey of what I've been reading. Instead, I'll just write a short summary of each book, with my thoughts, and post to the paper. The point of this part of the project is to get a better grasp of Austen as a writer for myself. Whereas the travel blog was a way of distancing myself from the books, this brings me in closer again. I'll be working on this blog for the next month and a half.

3) The last blog, of an unforeseen title as of yet. I will link to it from my other blogs, but will have no links to the other blogs from it. This blog will be fiction. It will be a modern reinterpretation of Northanger Abbey, Austen's first novel. It will be written from the perspective of a teenage Janeite, probably American, probably much like myself, and definitely bearing some likeness to Catherine Morland. It will be terrible. Possibly. I'll be writing that this summer.

I had grand delusions of making a gorgeous website for my project originally, but then I realized two things. First, I have no skills to use to make a gorgeous website. Second, the blog is a democratic medium. Although I admire beautiful blogs greatly, this sort of roughly-hewn, jumbled, quadruple-blog effort is realism. We are the pioneers of blogging! (Despite the figure I heard on the radio the other day, of five milllion blogs currently operating on the internet.) Our blogs are the log cabins of the internet!

Or so my Catherine Morland would say.