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Comment
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Terri
Windling
Registered User
(3/13/04 10:29 am)
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Jane Austen and fairy tales
We had a discussion thread running a while back on the subject of
Jane Austen and fairy tales. (It's somewhere in the archives now.)
I want to alert the folks who took part in that discussion to the
essay "Jane and Me" by the superb Karen Joy Fowler in
the March '04 issue of The Believer Magazine. (www.believermag.com.)
She draws upon fairy tales to a small extent in this fascinating
look at the ways Austen is read today. I highly recommend it.
Edited by: Terri Windling at: 3/13/04 10:30 am
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Heidi
Anne Heiner
ezOP
(3/13/04 1:37 pm)
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Re: Jane Austen and fairy tales
I will have to read that article, especially considering my recent revisit to everything Austen over the holidays and in January. There's a larger than usual number of Austen retellings and such appearing in bookstores right now. One of the best attempts to capture Austen's spirit is a trilogy by Pamela Aidan. Her views of Darcy resemble my own better than most. It's definitely not Austen, but much better than many of the other "sequels" which have been published over the years.
The first book is "An Assembly Such As This" at: www.amazon.com/exec/obido...lalufairyt
Here's a link to her site where Aidan has published some of her
work: crownhillwriters.com/AUS/index.html
The most "interesting" interpretation is the newly published "Pride and Prescience" by Carrie Bebris in which Elizabeth and Darcy solve a mystery shortly after their marriage. It's not good, but I will give high points for a new usage of the characters. Jasper Fforde does a much better job using literary characters in new ways.
Here's a link to the original Jane Austen and fairy tales discussion:
www.surlalunefairytales.c...usten.html
And here's the thread where we discussed manners in fairy tales where the Jane Austen thread was considered:
www.surlalunefairytales.c...page1.html
Heidi
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Terri
Windling
Registered User
(3/14/04 10:02 am)
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Re: Jane Austen and fairy tales
Thanks for the Pamela Aidan recommendation, Heidi. I'm going to go check it out.
Have you read Joan Aiken's YA novel Jane Fairfax
(based, of couse, on the character from Emma)?
I can't remember if we discussed this in the old Austen thread.
I didn't love the book; it hasn't got Austen's wit, but it's interesting,
if only because it's Aiken.
I read another "Austen sequel" last year...I can't remember the name of it because I hated it so much that I got rid of it quick! (I confess that I actually threw it in the recycling bin--which is not something I usually do to books!--because I didn't want to be responsible for passing it on to some other unsuspecting reader.) It was about the daughters of Lizzie and Darcy, and of Fitzwilliam Darcy....does that ring any bells? I thought it was just dreadful.
Karen Joy Fowler's new book, The Jane Austen Bookclub,
on the other hand, is pure delight.
Edited by: Terri Windling at: 3/14/04 10:03 am
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Heidi
Anne Heiner
ezOP
(3/14/04 3:04 pm)
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Re: Jane Austen and fairy tales
I think the book you threw away was Mr.
Darcy's Daughters : A Novel by Elizabeth Aston. I haven't
read that one, and now I will make sure I don't. I had given up
reading Austen sequels but agreed to give the first Aidan book a
try under duress. I finished it and found myself wanting to read
the next two books which are still online, but need more editorial
work. Aidan is about halfway through the third book, actually. A
few of Aidan's elements are a little too "cute" for my
taste, but the overall effect makes me forget them as minor irritants.
I liken her efforts more to Jill Paton Walsh's attempts to continue
Dorothy Sayers' books; Walsh's work is fine but far from stunning.
After all Austen, and even Sayers, are beloved because no one wrote
like them when they were at their best. Most of the other Austen
sequels remind me of Alexandra Ripley trying to continue Gone
With the Wind--they are horrifying.
I read the Aiken sequels, Jane Fairfax and Mansfield Revisited, years ago and really need to try them again. I don't remember having much of a reaction either way. Didn't throw them across the room, but didn't add personal copies to my library either. I will admit to enjoying most of Stephanie Barron's Jane Austen mysteries. Her visions of Austen match my own in many instances, even the fanciful ones that I know could never be true. Austen's wit is the hardest element for anyone to mirror, but at least I don't feel sacrilege has been committed when I read Barron and now Aidan's books.
Side note: My greatest pet peeve with many Pride and Prejudice sequels is the portrayal of Mr. Darcy. Many of the authors seem to confuse him with Mr. Rochester and portray him according to this weird vision. Darcy is not a Gothic hero and I cringe whenever he is depicted as such. (I also hate when Lizzie is made to simper, but that doesn't occur as frequently.) I always thought I could live with Mr. Darcy as my spouse, but never with Mr. Rochester. Married to Rochester, I'd become the next crazy wife living in the attic under Grace Poole's care.
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Laura
McCaffrey
Registered User
(3/14/04 3:26 pm)
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Re: Jane Austen and fairy tales
Haven't read any of the sequels, though you've both written enough to make me consider a few. I have to agree, I read Austen because I like Austen. And, I, too, have always thought could've lived with Darcy but not Rochester.
Going back over the discussion we had, it's funny we didn't bring up Northanger Abbey at all. In some ways, it's the most fairy tale like, with the many true and false friends, as well as Catherine getting kicked out of the house by the Tilney's father. Whenever I read it, I always think I need to read Radcliffe and the other writers Austen was referencing to truly get the story. Maybe someday. I'm tackling Tom Jones currently. Am enjoying Fielding's wit.
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Terri
Windling
Registered User
(3/15/04 8:32 am)
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Re: Jane Austen and fairy tales
You're right, the book I hated was by Elizabeth Ashton. Very worth avoiding! As are most Austen sequels -- but you've got me intrigued about Pamela Aiden, so I'll give the first book in her series a try.
I don't know if the Joan Aiken book warrant re-reading -- they're not great, they're just not as bad as most Austen sequels. I didn't really believe in her characters as Austen's characters, and they're missing Austen's sharp wit (which kind of misses the point of Austen), but at least I didn't feel like I wanted to throw the books across the room, as I have with other Austen sequels.
Totally agree with you about Darcy, Heidi. And if you hate watching
Lizzie simper in sequels, you would loathe what Ashton
has done to her daughters -- an idiotic bunch of girls that perhaps
clueless Lydia might raise, but certainly not Darcy and Lizzie.
<Shudder>
Laura, yes, it is odd that we left Northanger Abbey out, as it is the one most like a fairy tale.
Here's a quote from Karen's essay in The Believer:
"..why do I like Austen so much? What is it about
Austen? The most important thing to know about the answer is that
it can only ever be provisional. What I like most about Austen,
so far, has changed with each rereading....Now when I reread I'm
also in dialogue with an earlier me. How did I miss that?
I find myself wondering. How could I ever think that marriage
was a good idea? I can't quite imagine the books without this double
vision, though I'm confident they wouldn't suffer. Austen is far
too wily to depend upon your reading her any one way. She's proved
as unstable and, for me, as invulnerable to nostalgia, as the fairy
tales. Which is one reason I continue to be interested in both."
(-- from "Jane and Me," Karen Joy Fowler)
Edited by: Terri Windling at: 3/15/04 8:49 am
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