Jennifer Petkus's Blog

Austen Authors relaunch; Jane, Actually giveaway

To celebrate the relaunch of Austen Authors (of which I am a member), I will be giving away Kindle copies of Jane, Actually on Jan. 24th and 25th. Just visit this link to get the book for free on those dates. And be sure to visit Austen Authors to learn more about your favorite Jane Austen fan fiction writers. There you can find Regina Jeffers, Sharon Lathan, Jeanna Ellsworth, Elizabeth Ann West, Alexa Adams, P.O. Dixon, Cecilia Gray, Brenda J Webb, Rebecca H Jamison, Jenni James, Katherine Reay, Anna Elliott, Diana J Oaks, Rose Fairbanks, Elizabeth Adams and Barbara Silkstone.

To celebrate the re-launch of Austen Authors, the blog is running a mystery prize giveaway, so be sure to take a look before Jan. 23.

Jane, Actually at the Dark Jane Austen Book Club

There are some advantages to being disembodied in my AfterNet novels; illness doesn’t slow you down. That’s why I’m so late in promoting my guest post at the Dark Jane Austen Book Club.

Unfortunately last Thursday, before the guest post was published, I came down with a stomach flu that’s literally knocked me out, and I’m using literally correctly, because I actually passed out and ended up on the bathroom floor with a “where am I?” vibe. I hit my head on the toilet seat on the way down. I don’t know if I was concussed, but I was definitely a little confused.

Anyway, please check out the DJBC and leave a comment to win a copy of the book. And now, back to the horizontal position.

Jane, Actually snags B.R.A.G. award

Jane, Actually has been award a B.R.A.G. (Book Reader’s Appreciation Group) medallion, for which  I’m quite chuffed. I’ve been pretty quiet lately promoting my writing, partially because I’ve been mulling over a new book that’s predictably Jane Austen related and also, predictably, is science fiction. A new book tends to monopolize my time; a sin I share with many authors, I think.

Thanks to IndieBrag, I’ve got another 5-star review at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and GoodReads. You can see its entry here. And I also get to include this bookplate on the website and in the book. You can also find IndieBrag on facebook.

An appreciation of Mansfield Park upon the 200th anniversary of its publication

My local chapter of the Jane Austen Society of North America will discuss Mansfield Park in April. It was first published in July 1814.

“I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like.”

— from A Memoir of Jane Austen by J.E. Austen Leigh

Jane Austen supposedly said this before writing Emma, but I think most readers have a different candidate for a heroine no one much likes—Fanny Price of Mansfield Park. Let’s be brutally honest and face facts: Mansfield Park is the least favorite Jane Austen novel. There are other reasons why it’s not loved irrespective of Fanny, but Fanny probably tops the list.

After my first reading of the six novels, I would also have listed Mansfield Park at the bottom of the list, but each time I re-read it I find my appreciation of it improves. This is different from the other novels, where I may from time to time re-evaluate or newly appreciate some aspect, but my basic understanding of it remains intact. Every time I read Mansfield Park or watch an adaptation of it, however, my sympathies and understanding of it seem to fundamentally alter. It’s like a different story each time and I think that’s the genius of the place.

If you’re unfamiliar with the story (or if you’ve never quite finished it), you can read a synopsis here.

My first reading

My first time reading Mansfield Park, I accepted it as a love story. I overlooked Fanny’s many failings—always tired, tearful or fearful; I overlooked that Mary Crawford seemed a much better match for Edmund Bertram, Fanny’s cousin; I overlooked the fact that the love story is mostly one sided.

My lack of vision was partly because I was first introduced to Mansfield Park in the 2007 ITV movie starring Billie Piper as Fanny. Not surprisingly, the producers and director of the movie didn’t want a Fanny too faithful to Austen’s original and so we see Piper’s Fanny laughing, playing badminton, racing her horse with Edmund and willfully disobeying her Aunt Norris. (In fact my first impressions of all Austen’s characters were based on the adaptations shown on PBS, which by and large, I think were accurate representations—except for Fanny.)

So I probably had a livelier image of Fanny in mind than Austen intended the first time I read the book. I was in complete sympathy with Fanny’s situation. I easily understood Fanny’s wretchedness at being removed from her family in Portsmouth to live with her uncle and his family in Northamptonshire. Fanny’s feelings of being the poor relation, of not quite belonging, and of being second choice in love, were not unknown to me.

My second reading

It wasn’t until my second reading of it—actually listening to a Librivox audio recording—that I began to appreciate what a bitter pill Fanny was. Now I saw her as sanctimonious, priggish and insipid (an opinion shared by Austen’s mother). I began to question the Edmund-Fanny love story and like many others, thought Edmund should have ended up with Mary Crawford.

Of course Mansfield Park is not really a love story. The plot certainly is driven by Fanny’s unquestioning love of Edmund, but the romantic love is almost entirely one sided. Some of Austen’s family and friends called it a “sensible novel” or praised it for its morality, which hardly sounds like a love story.

The 1983 adaptation

Then I saw the 1983 BBC miniseries with Sylvestra Le Touzel as Fanny, which I think is very faithful to the book. Le Touzel accurately portrays Fanny, I think, with all her timidity and suffering (and Anna Massey portrays Aunt Norris particularly well).

Le Touzel’s portrayal of Fanny—tired, tearful or fearful again—oddly renewed my sympathy for Fanny, and made me really appreciate what a complex character is Fanny. Only by emphasizing her weakness can one appreciate her strength. Austen loves teasing us that Fanny might abandon her principles. When the others urge her to act in the family theatrical, she says no, but just before Sir Thomas returns home, she is asked again when Mrs. Grant is prevented from playing cottager’s wife. She never does read the part because Sir Thomas returns home from Antigua and I wonder if she ultimately would have complied.

She is tested again when Henry Crawford proposes to her and she refuses. She must withstand the entreaties of Sir Thomas, Mary Crawford and worst of all, Edmund, to accept the proposal. And Austen teases us a second time when Henry visits her in Portsmouth. She is homesick for Mansfield Park, and I wonder whether she might have succumbed to his charms. Sometimes I think no, her resolve and love for Edmund is too strong; sometimes I think like everyone else in the novel, that Fanny would be a good influence on Henry and that Henry might improve Fanny. I think she might have accepted.

Did Austen intentionally write an unlikeable character?

What’s so amazing about Fanny is that Austen should have created her. I imagine that if Austen had ever known a real-life Fanny, she’d laugh at her the way we laugh at Mary Bennet in Pride and Prejudice. Fanny only starts to become interesting once she’s allowed to be an Austen heroine, when she has to stand up to Sir Thomas.

I think this is an example of Austen’s real daring—to make a hero of someone no one, not even her creator, would very much like (actually, I think Austen was quite proud of Fanny). Then Austen takes another daring step by creating a moral code for Mansfield Park that I doubt she shared. I’ve read that one of the reasons Fanny is so disliked is because she’s always proved right in the end, but she’s only proved right within the context of the novel.

For instance, we know the Austen family delighted in family theatricals and I can imagine them performing Lovers’ Vows, even if a family member were abroad and despite the subject matter (an illegitimate birth). We also know that Austen, encouraged by her father, read many books that the prudish Fanny would have found distasteful. Austen even included a “natural child,” Harriet Smith, in Emma. Within the moral code of Mansfield Park, however, staging the play was wrong.

The play’s the thing

So what’s so awful about Tom Bertram’s scheme to stage a production of Lovers’ Vows while waiting for Sir Thomas to return from Antigua? Unfortunately the lens of history makes it pretty hard for a modern reader to understand all the implications of the scheme. Two that immediately come to mind are the subject matter of the play and the perils that confronted Sir Thomas. Let’s look at this second matter first.

It’s about 4,000 miles from Antigua to England. A flight today would take eight to nine hours. There are few dates in Mansfield Park, but it is stated that Sir Thomas expects to be gone a year and is absent longer than that. It’s important to remember that in this time, a bon voyage party was almost a wake, and further, England was at war with France. Aunt Norris morbidly speculates on what calamity might befall Sir Thomas, so Edmund is correct in being concerned for his father’s safety.

Tom Bertram, the eldest son, says the play might help to dispel their mother’s worry about Sir Thomas, but then Edmund and Tom observe her dozing on the sofa, the very picture of tranquility and unconcern, both proving each other’s point.

When I examined the first objection to the play—the subject matter—I found that the play is not objectionable at all. It’s one of those moralistic melodramas where justice prevails, evil (in the person of Count Cassel) is banished, fathers and sons are reunited and the clergyman gets the girl. Compare this to Fanny’s assessment:

“Her curiosity was all awake, and she ran through [the script] with an eagerness which was suspended only by intervals of astonishment, that it could be chosen in the present instance, that it could be proposed and accepted in a private theatre! Agatha and Amelia appeared to her in their different ways so totally improper for home representation—the situation of one, and the language of the other, so unfit to be expressed by any woman of modesty, that she could hardly suppose her cousins could be aware of what they were engaging in; and longed to have them roused as soon as possible by the remonstrance which Edmund would certainly make.”

Read the play if you like, it’s actually pretty funny and the fact that Austen didn’t need to explain the play to her readers indicates it was well known. However Fanny’s fears are proved correct—Sir Thomas does object to the play. Yet again, Fanny is correct.

The moral compasses of Pride and Prejudice and Mansfield Park compared

Now compare the moral universe of Pride and Prejudice with that of Mansfield Park. When Lydia Bennet runs away with Wickham, without any intention of marrying, it is considered a major scandal. (Elizabeth is certain this means her chances with Darcy are ruined.) After Mr. Bennet learns that his brother-in-law, Mr. Gardiner, has paid off Wickham to marry Lydia, Mrs. Bennet believes the scandal to be averted and begins to plan for the Wickhams to settle nearby. But Mr. Bennet tells her:

“Mrs. Bennet, before you take any or all of these houses for your son and daughter, let us come to a right understanding. Into one house in this neighbourhood they shall never have admittance. I will not encourage the impudence of either, by receiving them at Longbourn.”

And yet after their marriage, that’s exactly what Mr. Bennet does. He accepts them, despite the very great embarrassment they’ve brought to his family.

Sir Thomas, however, cannot allow the disgraced Maria to remain under his roof. Granted her sin, a married woman flagrantly running off with a lover, may be greater than Lydia’s, but it’s a shade of distinction. Sir Thomas did forgive Julia her crime of eloping to Scotland with Mr. Yates, but as their intent was marriage, it’s not much of a crime.

My sympathies go back and forth here. Sir Thomas knows that many of the faults in his children can be traced back to his typical Austenian parental abdication. He allowed his children to be raised by his sister-in-law while he remained a distant figure.

Too late he became aware how unfavourable to the character of any young people must be the totally opposite treatment which Maria and Julia had been always experiencing at home, where the excessive indulgence and flattery of their aunt had been continually contrasted with his own severity. He saw how ill he had judged, in expecting to counteract what was wrong in Mrs. Norris by its reverse in himself; clearly saw that he had but increased the evil by teaching them to repress their spirits in his presence so as to make their real disposition unknown to him, and sending them for all their indulgences to a person who had been able to attach them only by the blindness of her affection, and the excess of her praise.

I’m left to wonder how Mr. Bennet would have treated Maria. I think Mr. Bennet knew he was an indifferent parent but at least he chose not to punish his children for his insufficiencies.

Mary Crawford is punished for being practical

I’m also troubled by Edmund’s rejection of Mary Crawford after she tried to dismiss Maria’s and Henry’s behavior as folly and also Mary’s lament that disaster might have been adverted had Fanny accepted Henry’s proposal—“She would have fixed him; she would have made him happy for ever.” I’m sure there are any number of people who think this as well.

Edmund also rejects her when she offers this advice:

“We must persuade Henry to marry [Maria],” said she; “and what with honour, and the certainty of having shut himself out for ever from Fanny, I do not despair of it. …  When once married, and properly supported by her own family, people of respectability as they are, she may recover her footing in society to a certain degree. … What I advise is, that your father be quiet. Do not let him injure his own cause by interference. Persuade him to let things take their course.”

This is, of course, the exact course the Bennets take to rescue Lydia’s reputation.

(Of course it all comes down to acting and directing and camera angles in an adaptation. The 1999 movie, which I don’t much like, presents Mary Crawford’s practical advice quite chillingly.)

My third reading

So this is my third time reading Mansfield Park. It’s been a combination of listening to a different Librivox recording and reading the book. I’ve watched parts of three adaptations and read Lovers’ Vows. I now have to significantly alter my estimation of Mansfield Park. It’s still the least entertaining story. It still has the least likable hero and heroine. But it’s certainly the most complex and I think rewarding novel and the finest example of Austen’s skill as a writer. It’s her most daring novel, especially when you consider it’s her third novel, when she should have banked on the success of Pride and Prejudice with a straightforward love story.

Instead of creating a heroine with the wit of Elizabeth Bennet or the good sense of Elinor Dashwood or the passion or Marianne Dashwood, she created a dull, timid creature whose only heroic act was to behave as an Austen heroine should—to marry only for love.

Other observations

It’s interesting to note that Austen would have been writing Mansfield Park during the 200th anniversary of Shakespeare’s Henry VIII, the play from which Henry Crawford reads for Lady Bertram, Edmund and Fanny.

One other interesting observation concerns the 1999 movie directed by Patricia Rozema. Although I think it not very good, the movie did cause me to wonder what happened in Antigua to change Sir Thomas. If there is a dark subtext to be found in Jane Austen, I would begin my search in Antigua. (The 1999 movie addresses Antigua.)

“Problems” (as others may see it) with Mansfield Park

It’s very long, about 160,000 words, just a few hundred less than Emma.

There’s no declaration of love between the main characters. Any Janeite knows that Austen novels never depict an actual marriage proposal; it’s generally dealt with in paraphrase and there’s never that one kiss that rewards movie and television viewers. There are, however, genuine words of love exchanged between the lovers in her other books but the final chapter of Mansfield Park contains not a single line of dialog. This chapter must do the happy work of exiling Aunt Norris and Maria to their mutual hell, kill off Dr. Grant, make Fanny’s sister Susan a permanent resident of Mansfield Park, explain why Henry Crawford behaved as he did, bring Tom Bertram back to health … really a whole laundry list of tyings up … and still find room for a few paragraphs to explain how Edmund got over his love for Mary Crawford and transfer that love to Fanny.

Scarcely had he done regretting Mary Crawford, and observing to Fanny how impossible it was that he should ever meet with such another woman, before it began to strike him whether a very different kind of woman might not do just as well, or a great deal better: whether Fanny herself were not growing as dear, as important to him in all her smiles and all her ways, as Mary Crawford had ever been; and whether it might not be a possible, an hopeful undertaking to persuade her that her warm and sisterly regard for him would be foundation enough for wedded love.

Cousins marrying. Film and television adaptations rarely include these words from Mrs. Norris in the very first chapter of Mansfield Park:

“You are thinking of your sons—but do not you know that, of all things upon earth, that is the least likely to happen, brought up as they would be, always together like brothers and sisters? It is morally impossible. I never knew an instance of it. It is, in fact, the only sure way of providing against the connexion. Suppose her a pretty girl, and seen by Tom or Edmund for the first time seven years hence, and I dare say there would be mischief. The very idea of her having been suffered to grow up at a distance from us all in poverty and neglect, would be enough to make either of the dear, sweet-tempered boys in love with her. But breed her up with them from this time, and suppose her even to have the beauty of an angel, and she will never be more to either than a sister.”

The first time I was troubled at the thought of cousins marrying, but I dismissed it, thinking that it was common among the British aristocracy. It wasn’t until my third reading that these words really caught my attention. Austen went out of her way to indicate this was a problem, but she still went ahead and did it.

There really is no villain to the piece. But … but what about Mrs. Norris? you exasperatedly ask. I argue that though she is an unpleasant character and must have made Fanny’s life hell, she never really stands as an impediment to Fanny’s desires. She never falsely accuses Fanny of anything (other than always being on the sofa); she never absolutely forbids Fanny from doing anything. Consider what Dickens could have done with Mrs. Norris and you’ll see what I mean.

Mary Crawford also isn’t much of a threat. She’s very open about her intentions toward Edmund; she never tries to hide her true character, and she objects to Edmund’s desire to be a clergyman. As Edmund says: “She never has danced with a clergyman, she says, and she never will.” I cannot dislike Mary at all.

Henry Crawford certainly exhibits some villainy, but as his villainous act frees Fanny of his proposal, I think we can discount him. Maria, certainly within the moral guidelines of the novel, got what she deserved.

If you think about it, Fanny’s only real impediment is that she does nothing to make Edmund see her as a lover—that and the fact that they are cousins.

Edmund’s unsuitability as a hero, which is very reminiscent of Edward Ferrar’s deficiencies in Sense and Sensibility. Edmund goes about like a love-struck teen (of course he is in his early twenties) and fails to understand Mary’s character, even though she never tries to deny it. After he realizes Mary’s true nature, he quickly changes his attachment to Fanny. He seems very inconstant to me and although I predict a long and happy marriage for Edmund and Fanny, I don’t it will be a very passionate one. Edmund’s hope for passion ended with Mary.

Mansfield Park synopsis

If you’re unfamiliar with Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park, here’s a synopsis: Rich Sir Thomas Bertram offers to raise his niece, Fanny Price, the eldest daughter of his wife’s sister. The Prices are numerous, with nine children, and Sir Thomas’ offer would relieve them the expense of raising one child and so Fanny leaves for Sir Thomas’ home, Mansfield Park. Fanny is a timid child and feels the poor relation and her Aunt Norris, Lady Bertram’s sister, constantly reminds her of her lowly status.

The family, however, is not actively unkind to Fanny and realistically she wants for nothing, other than love and affection. She has a real friend in her cousin Edmund, Sir Thomas’ second son, however, and grows to love him as more than a relation. She has three other cousins, Tom, the eldest brother (a wastrel), Maria and Julia (the youngest).

The story begins in earnest when Henry and Mary Crawford arrive at the Mansfield Park parsonage to visit their sister: Mrs. Grant and her husband. The Crawfords are young and exciting and reasonably well off and Henry proves attractive to both Maria and Julia, although Maria has just become engaged to the very rich and silly Mr. Rushworth. Mary Crawford first has designs on the eldest son, but Tom Bertram leaves with his father to visit the family’s plantation in Antigua.

Mary then turns her attention to Edmund, despite the unwelcome news that Edmund plans to be ordained, and Edmund is smitten with Mary, despite her prejudice against the clergy and despite her improprieties (and an off-color pun about sodomy in the Royal Navy).

The Henry/Maria/Julia triangle is tested when the family visits Sotherton, Mr. Rushworth’s estate. Maria is busy showing off her what will be her home after her marriage to Mr. Rushworth while at the same time flirting with Henry Crawford, in competition with Julia. During a tour of the grounds at Sotherton, Edmund walks with Fanny and Mary Crawford, but eventually Fanny tires and they leave her alone for a considerable time. Henry Crawford and Maria slip through a locked gate, eluding both Julia and Maria’s fiancé, Mr. Rushworth.

The excursion firmly sets Julia against Maria, leaves Mr. Rushworth suspicious of Henry Crawford, confirms Fanny’s low opinion of Mary Crawford and leaves Edmund even more infatuated with Mary.

The tensions only increase when Tom Bertram arrives home from Antigua ahead of his father and continues his wastrel ways. He has picked up a friend, Mr. Yates, who had been deprived of partaking in another family’s amateur theatrical, and Tom and Mr. Yates propose they should stage a play ahead of Sir Thomas’ return.

Edmund is aghast that they should entertain themselves while Sir Thomas’ life remains in peril (because of his impending sea voyage) and because he’s certain his father would disapprove of their having fun. He’s drawn into the play himself, however, when they’re unable to find someone to act as Mary Crawford’s love interest in the play.

Lady Bertram offers only an indolent demurral to the play and Aunt Norris busy bodily approves. A stage is built in the billiard room and Sir Thomas’ study is turned into a green room. Only Fanny refuses to be drawn into the scheme, although she must help with the preparations and to her horror, both Edmund and Mary arrive in Fanny’s room asking for help in rehearsing their roles. Meanwhile, the flirtation of Henry and Maria continues, Tom becomes almost manic in his desire to stage the play, Mr. Rushworth’s suspicion of Henry increases … and Sir Thomas arrives home early. He is not pleased at what has happened while away and the play is canceled.

Sir Thomas’ return also puts an end to the Henry/Maria romance. Maria is wed to Mr. Rushworth, even though Sir Thomas asks his daughter if she truly wants to marry a man Sir Thomas is convinced to be very stupid. Maria and Mr. Rushworth leave for their honeymoon, accompanied by Julia (a not uncommon practice and their rift is reconciled by Maria’s marriage).

Sir Thomas is a changed man upon his return from Antigua and pays particular favor to Fanny, noting how her looks have improved upon his absence. Upon the occasion of Fanny’s brother William, a midshipman, paying a visit to Mansfield Park, Sir Thomas proposes to hold a ball for Fanny and William. Fanny’s unaccustomed to the attention but still she enjoys the ball, especially now that William has a commission as a lieutenant, secured by Henry Crawford from his uncle, the admiral.

The gratitude she must show Henry, however, is balanced against his unwelcome proposal of marriage. Knowing of Henry’s dalliance with Maria and being in love with Edmund despite her cousin’s love for Mary, Fanny refuses Henry. (Bereft of other interests, Henry had decided to pursue Fanny as another dalliance, but he quickly fell in love with her, probably because of her coldness toward him.)

Fanny’s refusal comes as a surprise to Sir Thomas. Fanny is a penniless girl whose only asset is her uncle’s name. A match with Henry Crawford would be much to Fanny’s advantage, and he tries to persuade her to accept the proposal. She stands her ground, however, and Sir Thomas, not willing to browbeat his niece, suggests she think on it.

Fanny continues to refuse Henry, even though he does his best to ingratiate himself with her. Even worse, Edmund pleads with her on Henry’s behalf. Fortunately for Fanny, however, the Crawfords quit Mansfield Park. Mary leaves for London and Henry returns to Everingham, his estate.

Sir Thomas then has a plan that he thinks might convince Fanny of the wisdom of marrying Henry. He suggests Fanny should visit her family in Portsmouth, to which Fanny happily agrees. Sir Thomas hopes that time with her destitute family in Portsmouth will make Fanny remember that she’s still a penniless girl and that a marriage with Henry Crawford would secure her future.

The plan partially succeeds. Fanny is surprised to find how coarse and low her real family is and how little she was missed while at Mansfield Park. She realizes that her real home is Mansfield. She’s further mortified when Henry Crawford pays her a visit at home. Although she doesn’t welcome his attentions, she does not like the thought that he should be put off by the vulgarity of her relations.

Henry, however, is all charm and Fanny’s family, which is a handsome if poor family, does not cause too much embarrassment. He leaves Fanny with a good impression of him, mostly left because he represents a link to Mansfield Park.

Fanny’s stay at Portsmouth becomes extended (all part of Sir Thomas’ plan) to three months with less and less news of Mansfield Park until she learns her cousin Tom, Edmund’s older brother, has taken ill after a drunken fall during a night of carousing. The family fears for Tom’s life, but eventually he recovers. Fanny during this period despairs that she is not home at Mansfield Park to offer comfort to her aunt, Lady Bertram.

Then Fanny gets a letter from Mary Crawford, urging her not to believe the rumor she might have heard. She is confused because she has heard no rumor until her father reads in the newspaper that her cousin Maria has deserted Mr. Rushworth and that she left accompanied by Henry Crawford. Edmund then arrives to take Fanny and her sister Susan (the only member of her Portsmouth family besides William with whom she feels a connection) back to Mansfield Park.

Returned to Mansfield Park, Fanny learns the whole story: Henry found himself in London and met Maria there. He had not intended to pursue her, being still devoted to Fanny, but he took Maria’s cold reception as a challenge and tried to regain her favor, to the extent that Maria left her husband. Meanwhile Maria’s sister Julia eloped with Mr. Yates, the other thespian, to Scotland to marry.

She also learns that Edmund is now free of Mary Crawford. Upon meeting Mary in London, she bemoaned the folly of her brother and his sister, an observation that shocks Edmund, for their conduct exceeds the description of folly. Mary also advises that Sir Thomas should do nothing to provoke matters, that in due course Henry might be persuaded to marry Maria, which might with careful management, salvage Maria’s reputation.

Edmund finally realizes that Mary’s moral compass points in such an opposite direction as his that he can no longer hope to marry her. He still loves her, however, and turns to Fanny for comfort. In time, he begins to realize that Fanny is better suited to him as a wife.

Sir Thomas eventually forgives Julia, Tom improves from his illness with a more sober outlook on life, Edmund and Fanny marry and eventually move into the parsonage after Mrs. Grant and her husband leave. Susan takes Fanny’s place at Mansfield Park as a comfort to Lady Bertram.

Mr. Rushworth divorces his wife and inevitably, Henry leaves Maria. Sir Thomas provides for her but will not suffer her under the same roof and so she is banished with Aunt Norris to live elsewhere, “remote and private, where, shut up together with little society, on one side no affection, on the other no judgment, it may be reasonably supposed that their tempers became their mutual punishment.”

Oh dear, it seems that I was murdered

BBC Radio 4 is presenting a five-part series that is a dramatization of Lindsay Ashford’s The Mysterious Death of Jane Austen. I remember how ruefully I greeted this book when it was published in 2011 but time has softened my reaction. After all, I am not a vampire, werewolf, space alien or zombie and that is something to be proud of in this day and age.

It is free to listen to for seven days as of even date (24 February 2014). You might also enjoy a three-part dramatization of Pride and Prejudice, but have only six days hence to listen. Both these offerings are abridged dramatizations.

Jane Austen and deep time; my pathetic quest for immortality

“It will be a favourite, I believe, from this hour,” replied Crawford; “but I do not think I have had a volume of Shakespeare in my hand before since I was fifteen. I once saw Henry the Eighth acted, or I have heard of it from somebody who did, I am not certain which. But Shakespeare one gets acquainted with without knowing how. It is a part of an Englishman’s constitution. His thoughts and beauties are so spread abroad that one touches them everywhere; one is intimate with him by instinct. No man of any brain can open at a good part of one of his plays without falling into the flow of his meaning immediately.”

Henry Crawford says this to Edmund Bertram in Mansfield Park. He has been reading to Edmund, Lady Bertram and Fanny Price selected passages from Henry VIII. Crawford is trying to impress Fanny Price with his oratorical skills.

I started writing this a few days after watching the Beatles television special, marking the 50th anniversary of their first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964. I was a little too young to be affected by Beatlemania but I nonetheless understood the importance of the anniversary.

This year is, of course, the 200th anniversary of the publication of Mansfield Park and it may be the 201st anniversary of Shakespeare’s play, assuming the play was new when it was performed at the Globe theatre in 1613.1 And soon we’ll have the 400th anniversary of the death of Shakespeare in 1616 and the 200th anniversary of Austen’s death in 1817.

Recognizing these relative distances is very much like my husband’s annoying habit of remarking, when watching an old movie that was itself a self-conscious period piece, that we are further removed in time from the release date of the movie than the movie was from the events depicted in the movie.

Late middle-aged reflections

As you can guess from these observations, I’ve been in philosophic mood lately and indulging in late middle-aged reflections on mortality and posterity. Too many things in life we leave unfinished, unattempted or even unaware of—for instance the five decades of my life before discovering Jane Austen.

My musings were also triggered by the meeting of the Denver-Boulder region of the Jane Austen Society of North America this past Sunday. We listened to author Deborah Yaffe talk about her book, Among the Janeites, and someone I was sitting with asked (through a convoluted thread of conversation) what Jane would have made of the railroad.

That, of course, made me think of the circumstances that resurrected Austen’s star after her books had fallen out of print (about 1820–1832). Before 1814, an author’s copyright lasted only 14 years (although it could be renewed for another 14 years2 if the author lived that long).

It was also a common practice to sell the copyright to your book, essentially giving up rights to your work. Austen sold the copyright to what would become Northanger Abbey for £10 and the publisher sat on it for twelve years until she bought it back.

The act of 1814, however, lengthened the duration of the copyright to 28 years or the author’s life, so the copyright of Mansfield Park, published in 1814, would expire in 1842.

Steampunk Jane

In 1832, publisher Richard Bentley bought from Austen’s heirs (Austen’s sister Cassandra lived until 1845) the remaining copyright to five of the novels for what I understand was a good price and published them in his Standard Novels editions. By the 1840s, however, Austen’s novels were becoming public domain and anyone could print them, which is coincidentally about the time that train travel was becoming commonplace. I doubt many read on trains in 1832—between the novelty and the fear of death, most passengers were too preoccupied to read, but by mid-century, passengers needed something to entertain themselves.

Of course, we think it nearly impossible that anyone could have read on a Victorian train—lighting was poor, carriages weren’t heated and rails were not welded—but it was undoubtedly easier than reading in a horse-drawn coach. Book stalls at railway stations became common and understandably book sellers wanted maximum return. Selling public domain books made good sense and unlike today, public domain books were of relatively recent vintage.

I find it a troubling thought that a technological coincidence helped ensure Austen’s popularity to the present day. Would we be reading her today had copyright laws and the growth of the railroads not kept her in the public consciousness? Would James Austen-Leigh’s biography of his aunt, A Memoir of Jane Austen published in 1869, been as successful had Austen’s novels not been a staple of railroad reading?

Austen goes to war

Armed conflict also played an improbable role in keeping Austen read. Considering Austen’s reputation today as chick lit, it’s important to remember that her earliest champions were literary men. Men continued reading her when England went to war, most famously in  Rudyard Kipling’s World War I story The Janeite, and again during World War II when editions of her works were printed to fit in standard uniform pockets.

Many famous things have been forgotten and rediscovered as this clever self-promotional piece by Barter Books suggests.

Austen belongs to the ages

So many coincidences and collisions have contributed to Austen’s popularity since the nearly 200 years since she died. Most recently we’ve seen the confluence of a spate of Austen film and television adaptations in the mid-1990s (movie studios needn’t pay Austen or her descendants a dime for her stories) and the rise of the Internet (resulting in things like The Lizzie Bennet Diaries).

One assumes Austen is now in the company of authors who will never go out of print. To borrow from what was said after the death of Lincoln3, she belongs to the ages. There are too many physical copies of her works, too many future high school students who will be forced to read her, too many Austen adaptations still to be made. And yet tastes change and after the embarrassment of Austen riches in the past two decades, I sometimes wonder if the passion among muggles has cooled. Austen adaptations will always have a ready market, but obviously the more of them there are, the further they are removed from the source and the more they dilute the source.

A desperate hope of immortality

Like any author, I hope that through my words I achieve some kind of immortality. I hope that someone will read Jane, Actually long after I am dead and temporarily resurrect me. In some ways, the Internet fosters this hope. We think that with enough dissemination, our words become digitally immortalized.

I well remember the first time I stumbled upon my own words online. I can’t quite remember the circumstances; perhaps I was googling myself during that unfortunate period when another Jennifer Petkus had sullied our good name.

A Feeling of Electricity in the Air was a short story I wrote for Softalk magazine back in 1984, six or seven years before the birth of the world wide web. When I found it had been archived at The Cult of the Dead Cow (without my permission, but I am unruffled) way back in 1989 I felt a twinge of that immortality. It might only have been a span of twenty years or so, but I still felt as if the digital world had preserved me in some way.

It is, of course, a false impression that digital archives can preserve anything. Film archivists are now bemoaning the decision of film studios to switch entirely to electronic distribution. Properly stored 35mm film can last a very long time and even old celluloid film and wax audio recordings can still give up their analog secrets. Digital files, however, often become inaccessible just a few years after their creation, either because file formats change or become the technology to retrieve them is no longer common. I have boxes of old floppy disks and Syquest and Iomega Zip cartridges that I can’t read because I don’t have a computer that can read those formats or those physical devices. Archivists face a future where every few years they must remember to save as documents in new file formats and on new recording mediums. This is made even harder as computer manufactures decide to eliminate external storage devices and force users to depend upon cloud services for storage.

The very phrase “out of print” has increasingly little meaning. Many Jane Austen adaptations have far more electronic sales than physical. That is certainly true for my novels. I could take heart in the sheer numbers of people who have downloaded free copies of my books, if it weren’t for the fact that none of those people actually own my book; they merely have acquired a license to read them, a license that Amazon or Google or Apple can revoke if you violate the terms of the licensing agreement (and when you die, your heirs don’t inherit your vast library).

So ubiquity, not even for Austen, might not mean permanence.

Jane Austen and deep time

Of course none of this relates to deep or geologic time, which was the tease that I hoped would entice you to read this story. The two hundred years that separate us from Jane Austen or the four hundred that separate us from Shakespeare are as nothing compared to the age of the earth and even less compared to the age of the universe. It is as hard for us today to think in those terms as it was for the poor maligned Bishop of Usher.

There are efforts to familiarize people with the implications of longer periods of time. The Long Now Foundation is building a 10,000-year clock inside a West Texas mountain.

But as ambitious as it is, the 10,000-year clock is still meaningless compared to deep time. Few human achievements can set pace with a geological clock; even the pyramids will be ground down to dust by erosion or even just the exhalations of the tourists.

Will the genius of Pride and Prejudice outlast the collapse of civilization, once zombies rule the earth or when a gamma-ray burst destroys all life on the planet or the Yellowstone super volcano explodes? I would like to think so. I hope someday someone reads Pride and Prejudice on Mars. I hope some distant civilization visits the blackened cinder that is Earth and finds a Dover Thrift Edition of Emma.

Perhaps one of the reason I wrote Jane, Actually, is that I liked the idea that Jane Austen—and P.G. Wodehouse and Arthur Conan Doyle and Arthur C. Clarke and Robertson Davies—could belong to the ages and that in some infinitesimal way, I could ride their literary coattails. Sorry to ramble, but it’s been a long winter.

1 A cannon blast during the performance (an Elizabethan-ish special effect) set fire to the roof of the theatre, which then burned down.

2 Statue of Anne

3 Edwin Stanton, Lincoln’s Secretary of War, either said, “Now he belongs to the ages” or “Now he belongs to the angels.” The room in which the president died was very crowded and noisy.

Jane, Actually named a top Jane Austen-inspired Book of 2013

Actually, Jane, Actually was named one of the Top 5 Austenesque Paranormal/Fantasy Novels at AustenProse.com last year, but I was (and still am) exhibiting a withdrawal from the world of publishing. I’ve been so absorbed in model making and my resolve to learn electronics, that I didn’t thank Laurel Ann Natress at AustenProse or reviewer Jeffrey Ward enough.

So even though it’s very late, thanks to everyone who’s read Jane, Actually, thanks to the many reviews and the blogs that written about my book and thanks to Jane Austen, both the real one and the one I created.

PS I promise I’ll start writing again and enduring the harsh world of publishing (especially finding an agent) once I get this P-51 finished.

Run, Lizzie, run!

I am continually amazed how my works have been adapted for the digital age. I found Mary playing this on her phone and she directed me to a review at Macworld. Or you could simply purchase this app at iTunes.

This would not be a wise way to read a book, but I suppose that had you already read a book, you would be forewarned of any potential pitfalls. I imagine there should be a rather substantial chasm before the words “Reader, I married him.”

 

 

Some nice reviews for Jane, Actually

Meredith Esparza at Austenesque Reviews has posted an interview with me and will run a review of Jane, Actually tomorrow (Friday, Oct. 11). She warned me she had a reputation for asking tough questions, but they proved tougher than expected because I wanted to avoid sounding like I begrudged Austen her greatness. The thing is, I lived with Jane for more than a year and know I don’t want to get on her bad side.

There are also new five-star reviews at amazon. From Louise Currie:

This was a fun read – I loved the whole concept of the disembodied and the Afternet, and the author has done a thorough job in thinking through all aspects of it and making it believable and consistent.

And from Jaylia3:

This is a longish book with lots of characters, points of view, and plot lines, but the characters, including Austen, are complex, interesting and mostly endearing, the story is riveting, especially in its latter chapters, and easy to follow, and the imagined world is fascinating and a joy to inhabit.

And from Jane Greensmith, author of Intimations of Austen, who’d earlier reviewed the book on her own blog:

The plot was fun and the characters engaging, but I think I most enjoyed just seeing the whole Austen industry from inside the fishbowl. I always say that Trekkies have nothing on Janeites and this book just goes to prove it.