Meet me in LOUISVILLE – JASNA AGM 2015
The list of breakout speakers for the 2015 Annual General Meeting of the JANE AUSTEN SOCIETY OF NORTH AMERICA is up. Under the banner title of “LIVING IN JANE AUSTEN’S WORLD”, breakout speaker topics are diverse, and fascinating.
In the appropriately-named novel Emma, Jane Austen wrote of a marriage – that of Miss Taylor (Emma Woodhouse’s governess and dear friend) to Mr Weston, that resulted in the birth of a child! and a woman’s lying-in or “confinement” is the topic of my breakout talk, taking place in the Saturday, October 10th “D” session.
As before, that means _I_ miss some great speaker, such as: Sheryl Craig (whom I know) on “William Wickham”; Kristen Miller Zohn (whose AGM talk on miniatures I so enjoyed) on “silhouettes”; and Sue Forge on “London High Society” – which readers of this blog will know, I consider my Smiths & Goslings to be, if not “movers and shakers” in society, at least “prevalent” among the party-goers. And here’s why:
- see, 1816 Fashions, At Mrs Gosling’s Ball
- experience, Emma’s “London Season,” 1816
- and be part of the ‘crush’ in What if you threw a PARTY – and everyone came?!
- At the BookRat, go Behind the Facade
Of course, as an AMG participant, I must also pick speakers to hear. Too many to choose among!
Do I hear about Jane Austen’s ideas on being “Past the Bloom” (Stephanie Eddleman) or “A Quack or Dr. House” (Sharon Latham)?? When, equally, I’d dearly love to learn about Embroidery (which I used to enjoy) (Julie Buck)… or Estate Tenants (Linda Slothouber)… or Austen family cookbooks (Julienne Gehrer)… or Village Life (Sara Bowen)… or the treatment of poor George Austen, Jane Austen’s sometimes-forgotten brother (Bridget McAdam).
And that’s only the FIRST session! Good thing there are several months to think over the possibilities.
I’ll say more, at a later date, about my topic — “Who could be more prepared than she was?” True Tales of Life, Death, and Confinement: Childbirth in early 19th Century England — at a later date, but will take the time to say that many of the letters & diaries excerpts come from the copious examples of this Smith & Gosling research. From the “bantling” born in 1790 — the future 2nd Marquess of Northampton (Emma’s cousin “Lord Compton”), to the Confinements of Emma Austen herself.
And, no, I won’t forget Mrs Weston!
An “Emma” Riddle
I remember well Mr Elton’s charade on Court-Ship, and Mr Weston’s “two letters … that express perfection“; I’m hoping blog readers can tell me where in Emma the following occurs:
“Riddles and puns are used with great effect to exploit the comic misunderstandings between Emma and Mr Elton (his riddle on ‘woodhouse’ is blithely misinterpreted by Emma), but with the arrival of Frank Churchill we see a master game-player.” [The Real Jane Austen, p. 254]
What riddle on ‘woodhouse’??
The Jane Austen Guide to Happily Ever After (review)
Review copies of books often yield atrocious reads — no wonder “reviews” need to be sought out…. So when I was offered a copy of The Jane Austen Guide to Happily Ever After, by Elizabeth Kantor (Regnery Publishing) I was skeptical, … and reluctant. Ultimately, I said “what the hell” and gave my mailing address.
Marketing links The Jane Austen Guide to the self-help genre; one dust jacket review even terms it an “advice book”. This is definitely a misnomer for this erudite and thought-provoking treatise on Austen’s novels and the exploration of relationships within those novels. Kantor has given readers a detailed and well-argued dissection of relationships, and the comparison with today’s marriage and dating market not only serves to point up what might be missing in our current hustle-bustle living arrangements, but also to give point of reference to readers who may have little background knowledge of the early-nineteenth-century English gentry Austen writes about. Certainly, buy this book if you wish to change your current dating pattern. Better yet, buy this book and pull out your Austen novels; explore the novels with Kantor, and if you happen to live a bit more happily ever after, count that as a bonus.
Indifferent to The Jane Austen Guide’s effect as self-help advice, why recommend this volume take up precious space on your bookshelf beside your collection of Austen novels? From the introduction onwards, Kantor’s sly humor is evident, whether she’s discussing Bridget Jones’s Diary or her own relationship disasters. The quality of the writing and the discourse make this a delightful read.
“[Jane Austen’s] ideals are all about rational balance, not about running screaming from one extreme only to fall off the edge on the other side. If you’ve escaped from a fire, it’s still not a great idea to jump off a bridge and drown yourself.”
Beneath this effervescent surface, which does keep pages turning, are nuggets that will have Janeites reaching to take the novels off the shelf (as opposed to turning on the DVD). All the characters are there: from level-headed Lizzy Bennet, to boy-crazy Lydia; from Maria Bertram who “sells herself for ‘an escape from Mansfield’ and a ‘house in town’” to Charlotte Lucas, who wants to be assured of “three square meals a day” and discussions of why proud Darcy makes a better mate than the jocular, popular Wickham. No matter which novel, which couple, is your favorite, you will find a whole variety of characters given center-stage. Even the Juvenilia come under consideration, whenever a story involves love, happiness, and marriage. Love and Freindship’s heroine Laura “is proud of herself for allowing her life to be governed by intense emotions at the expense of common sense and even common decency. She falls in love in the approved Romantic manner, at first sight: ‘No sooner did I first behold him, then I felt that on him the happiness or Misery of my future Life may depend.’” Instantly, a precursor to Austen’s better-known Marianne Dashwood is established, and this makes for more correlations between Marianne and today’s reader – much as there would have been correlations felt by Austen’s original audience for Sense and Sensibility.
Male characters come under Kantor’s scrutiny as well. For instance, she nails down Wentworth’s character with this short portrait: Wentworth “was honor-bound to wait and see if his attentions to Louisa Musgrove had made Louisa expect to marry him. It was ‘dreadful,’ Wentworth tells Anne, ‘to be waiting so long in inaction.’ He never stops to think that he’s complaining about six weeks of terrible suspense to a woman who waited for him for seven years.” The crux behind Edmund Bertram’s stars dropping from his eyes is given as briefly and succinctly: “Mary’s reaction to this adulterous affair {Maria Rushworth running off with Mr. Crawford} finally opens Edmund’s eyes. He can hardly believe that the woman he wanted to marry thinks that Maria’s only real mistake in her affair with Henry was … getting caught.” Nowadays, that is the typical reaction; the ramifications of how this affair would have affected an entire family, like the disappearance of Lydia Bennet with Wickham, sometimes needs to be reasserted for less tutored readers. Kantor accomplishes that tutoring with ease, especially when she can equate past behavior with today’s behavior. For instance, in Mary Crawford’s handling of Edmund Bertram in a most “calculating way–as if the dating game were some kind of competition in looks, money, and status.” To Kantor much of Austen’s character-actions have “a very familiar flavor.”
Families, living arrangements, even “elbow room” then and now, help readers to see historically and rationally Austen’s milieu and how our own compares. “[C]olleges building new dorms with only ‘singles’ to accommodate freshman classes full of kids who’ve never shared a room in their lives; cell phones so ubiquitous that it’s becoming awkward even to ask a stranger the time”. Such comments cull current information for points of study that will make readers think about life today, i.e., what we might be missing as our lives continue to become more insular — as well as more insulated by parents and society. Food for thought, on many levels.
“[L]iving in the eighteen-teens, you pretty much had to learn to live with other people in a way that twenty-first-century people can mostly avoid. …. To hear music, you had to actually collect live musicians in one place. Games were with fellow guests around a card table, not at your solitary screen. And getting to a ball often meant having to be grateful to more well-to-do neighbors for a place in their carriage.”
In the end, Kantor recognizes, “It does make it dangerously easy for us to fall out of the habit of getting along with other people at close quarters. … And yet, ironically, we also find independence so compelling that we avoid putting ourselves in situations where we’re likely to form those kind of {i.e., close} friendships.”
Kantor’s delivery will delight younger-adult readers, and her lines of thought should provoke Austen scholars to think outside the box. Run to your nearest bookstore and buy your own copy of The Jane Austen Guide to Happily Ever After.
four filled-to-the-brim inkwells.
Hope Came in Costume
Well known to me for a few years is the costume specialist, Hope Greenberg. Hope gave an excellent talk to our JASNA Vermont group a couple years ago; and last night enthralled our group of Emma-readers with late-18th and early-19th century dress for men and women.
Hope was in a lovely maroon gown last night; and “dressed” for breakfast today too!
Don’t you wish you were here?
(Where’s “here”? The Governor’s House in Hyde Park!)
Mozart’s Birthday / Jane Austen Weekend
Something out of the ordinary this 27 January — while I listen to a lovely Mozart piano concerto, I’m also thinking of this evening’s “treat”: a Hyde Park bed & breakfast weekend centered around the Theme of Emma.
Just last night (thanks to Cathy Kawalek — more on Cathy later!) I was reading Clive Caplan’s biography on Henry Austen as “Jane Austen’s Soldier Brother”; and came across a notation that Jane must have used her knowledge of Henry’s thoughts and desires for his military career when it came to the writing of Emma. How so, you may ask… Because Austen put Mr Weston in a certain regiment that was then posted to Yorkshire — where he met his wife and begat his son, Frank Churchill.
Must admit I never really thought about Mr Weston’s earlier exploits much and through what means he might have met his wife. But how fortuitous to read Clive’s comment now, right before our Emma weekend!
More later, for my computer travels with me…
First Edition Jane Austen Novels
Readers of Two Teens in the Time Austen have probably come to realize that I *ADORE* anything that is “old” and “authentic” and “original”.
So a while back I S-E-A-R-C-H-E-D high and low for pages images (not text) or the early editions of Austen’s novels. I’m still searching for a couple of volumes. These multi-volumes for one title are a killer! So if anyone comes across the missing volumes do let me know…
In the meantime, enjoy the “originals”.
These can also be accessed by using the page link at the right –> Authentic Austen, Scott & Waldie. I like my Austen with a cup of tea; how about you??
Sense and Sensibility
(the first edition is missing vol. III though…; let’s hope all the pages are present in the others)
*1811 edition vol. I; vol. II; vol. III
*1833 Bentley edition (books.google.com) (complete)
Pride and Prejudice
*1813 edition vol. I; vol. II; vol. III (vol. 2 & 3: complete)
Mansfield Park
*1814 edition vol. I; vol. II; vol. III (all: complete)
*1816 (2nd) edition vol. I; vol. II; vol. III (all: complete)
Emma
*1816 edition vol. I; vol. II; vol. III (all: complete)
Northanger Abbey & Persuasion
*1818 edition vol. I (inc: biographical notice); vol. II; vol. III; vol. IV
(vol. 2 & 4: complete)
December 16th Birthdays
Listening to the radio this morning, there were announcements for the birthday of Noel Coward (in 1899). The interesting comment attached to this was that at one point he had to “reinvent” himself. Ah, aren’t we all having to do, just to keep treading water, sometimes.
The radio station’s next comment on Coward’s birthday also included Beethoven’s birthday (1770). More a Mozart fan, I must admit to forgetting the birth dates of other composers. Discussion of him, and a piece played by composer Johann Nepomuk Hummel, just transported me back to Vienna. Oh, gosh! to be able to travel! I’ve not seen Vienna in fifteen years… And my German was almost “decent” back then.
When I reached work, after having been out a couple days, I was greeted with “Happy Jane Austen’s birthday”. I hope Jane did have some happy birthdays. But no one can ever know the ups and downs she may have experienced over her lot in life. Yet her writings show that for those who need to express themselves in words, they will always find a way to do so. Austen was among the lucky: she saw her works printed. Even if she didn’t have a long life, even if she didn’t make a lot of money, she saw her works go out beyond her family.
Imagine Beethoven, who in the end couldn’t hear his own compositions. Coward was probably the luckiest of them all: he saw his works give him riches and fame. Though most artists might be happy just to have to the ability to perform the art they love doing — a livable wage and a responsive, encouraging audience.
A lot can be said about the thoughts behind the word ENCOURAGEMENT. Home, sick, the last few days, I’ve had a LOT of time to think. Wish there had been some one person, in a position to help, who took the time to encourage me. Those of you out there who feel the guiding hand of a mentor are perhaps the luckiest of everyone.
In my own research there is no December 16th birthday, but there is a December 16th wedding: Emma Smith and James Edward Austen. I know that in the early days of their engagement (a few months before their wedding), they were reading Emma together. What might have suggested that book? I have no definitive clues that the Smith girls read much Austen until after 1817 — although they had known James Edward quite some years, running into him at The Vyne, the estate of their Aunt and Uncle Chute. In the 1820s, one letter mentions a left-behind volume of Pride and Prejudice and some slim comments about characters the letter-writer found particularly worthy of comment (the usual suspects being singled out: Mr Collins and Mary Bennet!).
When Edward brought Emma around Winchester — and they visited the Cathedral — they must have stopped at Aunt Jane’s graveside; but, again, they have left no concrete clue.
But: Was December 16th just a convenient date, or was there some significance for bride or groom in marrying on that date?
It’s funny little questions like that which keep the attention slowly burning, for who doesn’t like a puzzle in need of solving?
Old Friends
Monday, after sending off a book chapter — and now that it’s two weeks beyond the JASNA AGM, I found myself with nothing that HAD to be done. BUT: I wanted to work, to read and see my dear Smiths & Goslings. Being in the midst of some hunt, I ended up in Emma’s 1828 diary. And a few entries sent me back to the beginning of the year and a complete read-through.
My thoughts came right from the mouth of Sweeney Todd
These are my friends…
Speak to me friend — Whisper,
I’ll listen.
I know, I know — you’ve been locked out of sight all these years…
(My faithful friends)
I’ve come home to find you waiting.
I include this link to Johnny Depp singing this song on YouTube.
I was oh, so happy to welcome back my old friends! It’s been three months of intense work on other things; even my newest diaries — those of Richard Seymour — were barely touched.
And what a treat Emma’s life in 1828 is: she even ended the year reading Emma and getting engaged to James Edward Austen.
Living In: Emma
Happy July! and to celebrate today (Canada Day for those north of the Border from me in VT), I post this link to a fabulous “continuing” series of LIVING IN found on Design*Sponge, and written by Amy Merrick. This one was posted for the First Day of Summer, and particularly targets the Gwyneth Paltrow Emma and its picnic scenes:
Reading through the comments, it is AMAZING how many people just love Austen’s novel and her heroine! (Must admit, at least at present, Emma is my favorite.)
Amy has included a “shopping list” of items you might like for your own picnic: English Willow Picnic Basket and Cheshire Cheese, to Floppy Straw Hat and Chloe Ballet Flats (expensive!!)
Amy confesses that her “all-time favorite Austen adaptation” is Thompson’s Sense & Sensibility — and you can find that film’s LIVING IN here.
Be sure to check out other films based on books; among my favorites are DANGEROUS LIAISONS and JANE EYRE. And having just talked of AMELIE with a Montreal friend, I include the link to that one also!