Guess she's not to everyone's taste. I find her cruel wit and subversive observations a delight. But I was never forced to read her, I did it of my own free will :) S&S isn't my favourite. If I had to pick only two, they would be Emma and Persuasion.

Sense and Sensibility is awful. I was jolted awake midway through by something mildly resembling a plot twist and it kept me from sinking into a coma....for a while. I'm on Northanger Abbey now, which is a lot better, actually. I'll be on to your titles next....

Have you liked her other books? I've forgotten...

This is my first time reading her. I'm in an Austen course required for getting my master's. I prefer Bronte. :)

Northanger Abbey is a hoot! I thought so anyway :)

I do have to admit that the narrator of Northanger has had me smiling a bit...

Don't try to compare her with Bronte or you'll never like her. If you want some suggestions on what makes it more interesting (and funnier), let me know.

I'll take anything I can get! :)

Okay, um, short(ish) version. Jane Austen is coming out of the eighteenth century English literature universe. Those nice people who brought you A Modest Proposal, The Dunciad, and Johnson's freaking dictionary. They're not kind; they're cutting and like to show their intellectual superiority with word play, satire, and mocking humor. They also admire common sense. And they always, always play by the rules of society. The one that can be the funniest, put the most people down, end up the richest, and still be seen by polite society to have behaved well wins.

There's also a large faction in this society that loves the sentimental, the romantic, the gothic, etc., and want to sigh over their books. Jane Austen among them.

So you smush them together and you get the Austen novels, half of which were first written when she was a teenager and intended to be read aloud to family and friends (who would recognize characters among their acquaintance). Everything in them is trying balance these requirements, so everything is subtle, and if you think she might be trying to be funny, you're right, go with that feeling. The deep emotion is in the absences, what is not said, and the humor is in the forefront to kind of hide it.

Remember how little Lucy Snowe tells you in Villette? But you see her pacing, waiting for the mail man, and then she buries those letters but she never tells you why. Obvious, right? Austen is the same way. I think of S&S as a story about sisters and the power of their relationship. There's a lot of funny stuff to distract you: Marianne weeping over being parted from her beloved trees; Mrs. Jennings and Anne's obsession with beaux; and the sheer absurdity of Lady Middleton (a woman who loves whomever will praise her obnoxious kids). It's still about the dangers posed to women by having no control over financials, by the cruelty of blood relations and the kindness of strangers, the story that if you give up your prejudices (view spoiler)[about not loving more than once (hide spoiler)] you can find love. In all of those things, I think she is very similar to Charlotte Bronte but the style is totally different.

There's a school of thought that almost everything in Austen should be read ironically; that's she's got one eyebrow raised and a satisfied smile on her face throughout. I think there's a lot of that, especially in Northanger Abbey; she's having a lot of fun there. I think you might also look at it from the perspective of how trapped these women are, and how precarious their positions are, being alone and unwed. That's where the tension comes in. They really will be desperately poor if they cannot succeed at the one profession open to them, which is to marry well. Their whole lives depend on it. They really do. So there's a real darkness under all the glittery dances and flirtations that gives the books weight.

Good luck!

Thanks a million, Elizabeth! If you have any ideas for paper topics, I'd love to hear them, too. :)

Of course:

Why Jane Austen has a lot more emotional upheaval than people gave her credit for.

Why Clueless is the best movie adaption of any Austen work ever.

How Austen manages to create pretty vivid male characters while giving us almost no information about them.

Why Nabokov in his essay on Mansfield Park is completely wrong.

I can come up with some others, I'm sure. :-) You might try www.jasna.org for additional support, ideas, and research.

I didn't know you were such an austen expert! How did that escape me??

I have no idea. I'm on about her all the time.

These are basically of lot of Jane Eyres in prettier clothes who aren't allowed to ever speak their minds, and yet we can still understand what they're feeling, if we look closely enough.

I will get off the soap box, eventually.

Elizabeth wrote: "These are basically of lot of Jane Eyres in prettier clothes who aren't allowed to ever speak their minds, and yet we can still understand what they're feeling, if we look closely enough."

I like the soap box. Forgive me for still hating Austen. Just finished Northanger Abbey and pretty much want to bury my head under my pillow and cry at the brain cells I wasted reading it. :)

Aw. :-(

I've got to say you're not starting with the strongest ones. May I recommend a gateway drug perhaps? Have you see the A&E miniseries of Pride and Prejudice starring Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth? That or the 1996 version of Persuasion with Amanda Root. Or, of course, Clueless.

Clueless was my favorite movie in high school and I even drove a white jeep like Cher. :) the rest, no, but my group has to present on film adaptations of austen novels.....

Well, that's what Austen is doing, parodying her society and pop culture. You didn't like any of the Catherine's attempts to defend novel reading? How about when Tilney tells her that she must obviously keep a journal, being a girl of a certain age and class? Those always make me laugh.

You didn't like the bad guys either? Scheming girls trying to claw their way to the best match possible; men who care only about money...

I like putting Austen books in modern terms. What's the equivalent of poor Catherine going to Bath, getting invited home with a friend, and then having to find her own way home, all at 19 without money? That would be pretty tough for anyone to do, even now.

Just to tempt you, the BBC P&P series Elizabeth mentioned has Colin Firth in wet jodhpurs -- unforgettable, and not in the book ;)

I don't often like film adaptations of books I love, but I enjoyed this one. And although Sense and Sensibility is by no means my favourite Austen, Ang Lee's 1995 adaptation is really good.

Thank you, this is a big help for the presentation. Gahhhhhd one more year of grad school.....eye on prize......eye...on...prize. ;)

Oh my, I love this thread! (Elizabeth, can I unfriend you so I can friend you all over again?!)

LPA, I remember that slog. Best wishes.

Thanks, Koeeoaddi.

Oh, yeah, the Ang Lee Sense and Sensibility. LPA, you must see that. You totally get why JA is so funny from that film. When I saw it in the theater, when it first came out, it was packed. Marianne has just gone out for her first walk in the rain, Willoghby's horse materializes out of the mist, Margaret lets out a scream, and someone from the audience yells, "Heathcliff!"

The whole place cracked up. It was perfect. You really saw how JA created a perfect moment of the romantic hero, and how kind of absurd it was.

The Heathcliff thing is hilarious! :)

I find it so interesting that you think Jane Austen (love!) is boring but gave 5 stars to Villette!! I've been slogging through it for weeks now and I'm throwing in the towel - MOST. BORING. BOOK. EVER.

Tippi wrote: "I find it so interesting that you think Jane Austen (love!) is boring but gave 5 stars to Villette!! I've been slogging through it for weeks now and I'm throwing in the towel - MOST. BORING. BOOK. ..."

Ohhhhh Tippi, I looooove Villette, literally every word takes my breath away. :) Ok, I admit, that is funny. :)