Letter no. 6

Crazy Baby, Lonely Blog.

Dear Anne,

I apologize for my long delay in responding. My writing and accomplishments have been somewhat stifled by a daily battle with an almost-one-year-old, who happily sets about destroying my house from 5:00am onward. 

The Jane Austen Tea was lovely as always. I have yet to receive the photos from Katina, the photographer. Perhaps this gentle nudge will remind her. 

I agree that Anne Elliot is the loneliest of Austen's main characters. I'd like to disagree for the sake of a conversation, but so it is. Though Marianne of S&S was more overtly broken-hearted and tortured, her friends and family were principally concerned for her well-being, when she felt most lonely.  Conversely, Anne was almost entirely ignored for the better part of a decade, and even her friend Mrs. Russle largely disregarded her feelings regarding the Captain. 

The book chosen for next year is Emma. It was my least favourite book until recently. I hadn't read it since I was about Emma's age, and at the time I couldn't forgive her insolence and immaturity;  but like many things, upon reviewing it after doing some maturing of my own, my feelings are quite the opposite. I find her exceedingly charming now. I am truly looking forward to next year's event! 

Alas! Wee Angus has stirred from his nap, and is now attempting to scale the bars of his crib. I must be off!

-A

Letter No. 5

Dear Ashleigh

Thank you so much for hosting the third Jane Austen Tea.  It is exceedingly generous of you to open your home to the readers and non-readers of Jane’s work at a time in your life when every moment is filled with the needs of your wee Angus.  Our reading guests found Persuasion to be a great source for discussion.  We covered feminism, insensible parents, rejection, meddling, and types of carriages.  Our non-readers took home prizes!  The Elliot-Wentworth cake is a keeper.  Perhaps you have a picture?

I have thought a great deal about invisibility since spending this time reading and listening to Persuasion.  Anne Elliot is so invisible to her family and many of their acquaintances.  Frederick Wentworth appears to not see her but we learn that he is conscious of her presence at every moment, unknown to Anne.  The tension is heartbreaking as Anne moves through her daily life doing what she reliably does, all the while thinking about Frederick, what is taking place with the flirtatious Musgroves and what might have been.  She tells no one, unable to talk with her friend Lady Russell assuming that she will not approve since she separated them 8 years before.   Is Anne the loneliest of Jane’s characters?  Fanny Price has Edward’s friendship and Eleanor has her family.

Persuasion presents us with the best example of the stable and experienced marriage in Admirable and Mrs. Croft.  They have travelled the world together, lived in small spaces, and seen wars and storms.  I am sure that they have had lively conversations with each other on many topics.  We see Mrs. Croft challenging her brother on his outdated attitude about women. We can only project compatible and congenial relationships between Darcy and Elizabeth, Jane and Bingley, Col. Brandon and Marianne, Emma and Mr. Knightly and Eleanor and Edward and so on.

You have heard me say that the best confrontations are in Pride and Prejudice and the most extraordinary apologies are in Sense and Sensibility.  Persuasion has unrelenting tension: the arrogant, self -centred people; the agony of past rejection; loss and grief; a head injury; deceptive people; a friend who is destitute; misunderstandings; and rules of conduct associated with the time and class.  That might explain why the movie has Anne running through Bath like a mad woman in search of Frederick!

Have we picked out book for the next Tea?  I have forgotten.  As you know I went off the road into a snow bank after our tea.  That would not have happened had I been in one of the 5 carriages mentioned in the book.  I hope wee Angus has a good sleep this night.

Yours truly,  Anne

Letter No. 4

Dear Anne,

Thank you for your letter. No need to apologize on your delayed response. I can well understand the distractions of life. I too have been delayed. I feel my "year off" for maternity leave is most certainly the most consuming employment I have experienced - being on duty 24 hours a day, and trying to keep a haphazard baby alive and all.

I thought on it, and off the top, aside from Aunt Gardener, I can only think of Mrs. Dashwood, as far as reasonable, older women go. Though she may have been unreasonably eager to see her daughters married off. Perhaps Jane had some deep seated issues with the older women in her life!

It got me thinking about the cast of Jane's novels, and with whom I identify with. When the TV series Sex and the City was all the rage, women everywhere were identifying as Carries, or Charlottes, or Mirandas, or Samanthas, or all of them at once. I feel I am a little bit Lizzy, a little bit Darcy, a little bit Mr. Woodhouse, and even a little Sir Walter Elliott. I think you know me well enough to know how I identify with the bulk of that list, but I may have you wondering over the last. I will be posting soon about my resistance to retrenching.

Speaking on relating to people of our respective generations, I can't think of any Austen enthusiasts of my generation, among my acquaintance.  It is a sad, lonely feeling for me. I am quite looking forward to our upcoming Jane Austen Tea, to include others in our Austen discussions. Though the guests of my generation have agreed to attend out of obligation, or a love of preserves, I know there will be many others who have a great deal to contribute to the day's discussion.

I must be off to prepare for this afternoon's Art-a-Thon. I hope to see you there!

-Ashleigh

Letter No. 3

Letter Number Three

Dear Ashleigh

It has been some time since I have written.  Life gets so filled up with people, activities and distractions.  Wouldn’t it be grand to observe a day in Jane Austen’s life to see the people, activities and distractions that took her away from writing?  I just had this shock of awareness at what those distractions and necessities cost us.  Imagine the books!  Imagine the new characters.

Since our last talk, I have been thinking about the older women in the Austen books.  The women of my generation are not inspiring.  Lady Catherine is arrogant, controlling and lacks the awareness to see how this disconnects her from others.  Mrs. Bennet is flighty and attention seeking.  She does not deal with adversity in a manner that her children could model.  Lady Russell, although she appears to care for Anne, interferes with the relationship between Anne and Frederick.  Mrs. Jennings and Miss Bates are well intentioned but talk a great deal, drawing the contempt of the young women, Mary Anne and Emma.  Aunt Norris is as heartless a character as Wickham or Crawford.  Lady Bertram wins the unenviable title of the most passive person in all the novels.  In one of the films she is portrayed as drugged with laudanum.

Mrs. Bennet, Pride and Prejudice, 

Helen Sewell’s Illustrations

It is a fantasy of mine that Jane would have reached the age of 60 and written about women of my generation as wise, calm and inspiring.  But as you pointed out, if the conflict between Elizabeth and Darcy had not taken place we would not go back to the story repeatedly.  These older women provide the tension that demands that the younger women be assertive, or as in Emma’s case, humble.  There is Aunt Gardiner who likes to travel and writes letters.  I bet she knits!

Let’s finalize our plans for the tea this week.

Yours truly,

Anne

Letter No.2

To see the full exchange, please visit the Epistles page.

Dear Anne

It was such a delight to read your letter!

Today marks the "real" 200th anniversary of our esteemed Pride & Prejudice! We can take comfort in the immortality of the written word though. Our Lizzy Bennet is still but not quite one-and-twenty. She would be no fun at all to visit at 200.

I haven't read Reading Lolita in Tehran- is there a sumptuous love story? I mostly read love stories. I first read P&P about 12 years ago when my friend Kelly insisted I read it before we had a BBC marathon viewing of the 1995 film. It was a favourite of her's. I loved it so much that when the film was not available from the video rental store, we went halves on the VHS box set and shared custody over it like the baby it was to us.

I like your description of your relationship filter for books. Upon thinking on it, my filter may be emotions (perhaps the Scorpio in me). Or more simply, happiness and relief. From the onset of any book, I want everything resolved, and for all to be happy. When Lizzy first argues with Darcy at the Netherfield ball, I am immediately anxious. Yes, he is a bit-standoffish at that point in their acquaintance, but she couldn't at least give him a try? I give her credit for rejecting his first proposal while in Kent. Not many women would be able turn it down, no matter how many sister's lives he destroyed. She chose the more difficult path - she knew how easily she could save her sisters from destitution simply by accepting the affection of a very rich and very attractive man! There is a brief sense of finality at the end of the rejection, but upon reading his letter that addresses "the offences laid against him", the anxiety returns. How soon after reading it does she begin to regret her rejection? Though, no woman of sound mind could regret, at least momentarily, rejecting such an insulting proposal. There is some relief from their meeting at Pemberly - an opportunity to set everything straight. Alas, Lydia and her foolishness get in the way - though I have to admit, I was never very anxious about her running off, beyond the impact it had on driving away Mr. Darcy. If only they could have finished off a lovely evening together. I confess I did not clue in to the implications of Lady Catherine's visit to Longbourn when I first read the book. How did she come to possess the knowledge of a possible relationship anyway? When Darcy returns to Netherfield and they are able to resolve everything, the relief floods in, but along with it, the disappointment of an underwhelming 18th century proposal and not a hot makeout scene to be seen. It is all quite exhausting. I would be quite happy to read a book with no conflict at all, though I might end up reading a non-fiction piece on lawn maintenance or some such nonsense.

All that said, a Pride & Prejudice without conflict would be void of Lizzy's unmatched use of language, as described in your previous letter. And as the literary adopter that I am, I'd be left without so much of my own language. It is well worth suffering through the anxieties of it all I suppose.

Happy 200th!

Ashleigh

Letter no. 1

26, January, 2013

Dear Ashleigh

What a wonderful visit at Frida’s.  It was so diverting.  You have asked some very good questions about my experience reading Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.

First, I have come late to reading Austen.  My first reading followed Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi. After reading this book I decided to read all the books that the women in Tehran risked torture and imprisonment to read and discuss.  How could I treat reading so casually when others risk so much?

Elizabeth Bennet is now one of my close friends.  I spend time with her regularly and it is very comforting.  She has people in her life that she loves, those that she tolerates and those that she judges as having faults.  I can identify with that.  Neither of us is perfect!

 Age,class and gender do not prevent her from speaking her truth. She skilfully confronts her father about his laissez-faire handling of Lydia, although he does not heed her warning.  She does not let Mr. Darcy get away with incivility. She sets boundaries with Lady Catherine de Burg. “I am only resolved to act in that manner, which will, in my own opinion, constitute my happiness,without reference to you, or to a any person so wholly unconnected with me.”  What an extraordinary statement.  Can you imagine what life would be like if every 10 year old memorized these words? It might just put me out of business because the preoccupation about what others might think is the second most frequent cause of inaction!

Relationship is the filter through which I make sense of any book.   The social worker in me observes the interaction between the characters and the development of the relationship e.g.acquaintance, friendship, emotional connection, conflict, disconnection and reconnection.  A lot of this arc happens between Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy when they are not in contact with each other.  She is in Longborn thinking she will never see him again and he is in London tracking Wickham and Lydia.  The reconnection is so tentative and reserved when he returns to visit Netherfield with Mr. Bingley.  At this time they work at making amends, he for his pride and she for her prejudice. A lovely circle don’t you think?

Anne