And now a little word on one of my heroines…the most mysterious Jane austen

 Author of just a few romantic novels, and yet still the brain that produced “pride and prejudice “ “Emma” and “persuasion”. In just a few years, Austen created some of the most memorable characters in English literature. Mr Darcy. Elizabeth Bennet. Emma wood house. Anne Elliot from persuasion. These characters have captured the imagination of millions, but why?  What inestimable qualities did Austin’s characters have to warrant immortality?  

What a damn good question. 

I mean who could resist this man?  😉

In times of extreme distress I always watch or read Austen as a way to feel better—to revisit an orderly world is sometimes therapeutic for me. It reminds me of a time where the fugue of the twenty first century passes away for a little while.  

Well for me at least it’s a comfort and release, but I do not romanticize it. This was not a time for women in any sense to live freely or to find intellectual fulfillment. 

And yet we do have extraordinary moments of female power even at this time—Mary Shelley, for example, and her monster. In any time, and in any place, I believe you can find moments of power and intelligence;  moments of quiet rebellion and covert freedom. It’s a mistake to view people (women) of the past as victims. After all most didn’t think of themselves that way!

Jane Austen s work is filled with characters bursting with authority and strength—lady Catherine for one of “pride and prejudice”.   But, just as it’s a mistake to view her female characters in a certain light, so is it a mistake to view her male characters as monuments to a patriarchal order. Each male lead if you will, is a complex mixture of authority and humility, and each is well familiar with the concept of hubris. In short they’re all too human, and this is a tribute to austen as a great writer. 

What I find especially fascinating is that in the past thirty years there have been so many different adaptations of her work—from “clueless” to the most recent pride and prejudice with Keira knightly. You could even watch this rather gruesome rip off :

I mean, what the hell are some people thinking?

But my point is that Austen appears to still have some relevance today for modern audiences, zombies notwithstanding. 

It was an honorable world to be sure, one where the complexities of human nature were present in literature and subtly in interpersonal interactions.