photo by Cara Mac Neil :)
A lot of people who consider themselves Jane Austen fans came out of the woodwork to say "I too haven't really read much besides P&P " or "I've read everything except Sense and Sensibility" and I'm wondering why exactly that seems to be the case. Surely Jane Austen is not a One Hit Wonder among female Victorian writers so it seems strange to me that she is known primarily for one novel. People assume that if they like P&P that they will love the rest of her books because she has developed a reputation for being formulaic: a Happy Endings type of writer.
I wonder if this is true, if this is false or if it is simply her genius.
Being about halfway through the book I cannot wait to have someone to talk about it with and am so excited that the society of English Majors seems to be a bond that lasts even after the college years become officially behind me.
Sometime in August (date TBA) we are all meeting to discuss this book and professors are even getting in on the deal! It really is amazing to feel like part of a literary community and it makes the reading experience sweeter knowing that I will absolutely get to dissect the nature of Mrs Jennings and other strange but loveables in this book.
It seems to me that we English Majors are full of sense..... and a bit of sensibility :)
-- Cara
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ReplyDeleteThis wasn't originally on my summer reading list so I'm glad you suggested doing the book club for it! Hopefully I can make it to the meeting (or we can have another?). I loved Mrs. Jennings btw!
ReplyDelete(What's with this spam?)
Nice job on the photograph, Cara! I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to meet with you and discuss "Sense and Sensibility" but I think this was a great idea, and you should do it again.
ReplyDeleteIn some ways, S and S portrays a much scarier world than P and P or Emma. The Dashwood sisters are not exactly hungry, but neither are they particularly warm and comfortable, and this is the novel in which Austen most looks like a near-feminist as she portrays the effects on women of property being kept in the hands of men. Because John Dashwood prefers to see his step-mom and sisters in poverty, that's where they are consigned. And no one in the novel, with the possible exception of Mrs Jenning and Col Brandon, ever seems to cut John Dashwood socially for his choice to abandon his female relations to poverty.
ReplyDeleteDiane Steinberg