I picked up More Talk of Jane Austen by Sheila Kaye-Smith and G.B. Stern last night, inspired (momentarily) to finally review the essays I’d enjoyed reading so much last year. A thorough review might one day get written but this is not it as I got sidetracked rereading my favourite essays and delighting in both Kaye-Smith’s and Stern’s arguments.
Kaye-Smith and Stern’s first book on Jane Austen, Speaking of Jane Austen, was easily the most delightful thing I read in 2013. The follow-up volume is not quite as faultless but that is only natural: how can you follow up a book that is both perfect and comprehensive? The essays here are always entertaining but perhaps lack the marvellous focus and energy contained in the first book.
Last night, it was G.B. Stern who set me pondering, with her discussion of Austen’s use of the Cinderella legend:
Emma and Harriet are the only two of Jane Austen’s heroines who pair off with their equals: Emma with Mr. Knightley, Harriet with Mr. Martin. Pondering on this, I began to suspect a preoccupation with the Cinderella legend. All the rest of these young women (not merely heroines in its traditional meaning) illustrate and restate the theme, though without sentimentality: they marry above their station, and achieve it on beauty and virtue in equal parts.
I, as I think I have touched on before, enjoy the escapism of the Cinderella story – who doesn’t? – but am troubled by its practical implications, especially in Austen. For all her romantic moments, Austen was a writer very much concerned with practical details and with the creations of, to use G.B. Stern’s phrase, “life-size” characters who have, two hundred years later, remained remarkably familiar and relatable:
She’s neither bitter nor boisterous about her people; instead, she has irony, tenderness, clear vision, and most of all a gorgeous sense of their absurdity which is never really exaggerated into more than life-size. You’re absurd, I’m absurd, and so in some way or other are most of the people we meet. She does not have to distort or magnify what they’re like; she just recognises them, delights in them herself, and then re-created them for our benefit without illusion or grandiloquence…
So how can such life-like people survive the too perfect fairy-tale endings their author imposes on them? Any marriage has its stresses but unequal marriages, the kind Austen specialised in arranging, face even more burdens. Perhaps that is part of why Emma has always been my favourite: there is a worrying, unequal marriage made but not by our heroine (poor Jane Fairfax deserves so much better).
The young Tilneys I am not overly worried about since, though young at her marriage, I have every faith that Catherine, having grown up in a happy home with sensible parents, will be able to create the same sort of environment with the intelligent and good-humoured Henry. But everyone else I worry about.
And there is much to worry about, I think. How often do Anne and Captain Wentworth speak before they become re-engaged? What do they really know of each other? How can Elizabeth’s winsome impudence serve her as the chatelaine of Pemberley? Has she any idea of the responsibilities and conformity her new life will require? Will passionate Marianne grow old before her time? It is not too difficult to imagine her ten years hence having her head turned by a dashing new arrival in the neighbourhood while her husband sits by the fire wearing one of his flannel vests. And why must Fanny Price’s life be spent adoring the undeserving Edmund? It is such a waste of a fascinating young woman, though we must admit that it is the culmination of her life’s ambition.
The match between Elinor and Edward is more equal than many of Austen’s marriages, but it is one of the least satisfying. Who, aside from Simon T., really likes Edward? And, more importantly, who doesn’t like Elinor and want the best for her?
No, it is much more restful for me to think about the Knightleys and the Martins, contented with the familiar and sure of happy, easy lives with partners who share the same backgrounds and values, than to ponder the fates of Austen’s other pairings.
Interesting thoughts on the Cinderella legend. I hadn’t thought of it before in reference to Austen. I’ll have to look into Kaye-Smith and Stern’s books. Thanks for the recommendation!
Who really likes Edward other than Simon? I do. He is a rather passive character but in spite of that, or perhaps because of it, I have long identified with him.
If you are concerned by the lack of knowledge of each other that Anne and Wentworth have then you ought perhaps to be concerned for a large proportion of relationships, both on and off the page. I never cease to be amazed how many are based on a kind of instinctive attraction. Nor is this just a case of physical attraction, I am sure sociologists have done tests which prove how, thrust into a room with a group of strangers, we all have a natural tendency to gravitate towards people with which we have something in common, even though initially we only have appearance to go on. This does lead us back to your original fear: with so little in common just how well would those marriages turn out?
Agreed, agreed. I especially wonder how Elizabeth and Darcy will get on as the years go by. Unlike Jane Eyre and Mr. Rochester, who I think could get on very well making each other laugh for years and years, Elizabeth and Darcy seem like they could get tired of each other pretty easily.
I was never so surprised by an Austen book as the ending of Sense and Sensibility, when Elinor ended up with that unworthy and unreliable Edward, instead of the man she deserved, and who deserved her, Col. Brandon (who would of course wake up a realise that flighty and youthful Marianne was no wife for him).
I knew the pattern; our intelligent young heroine is first attracted, a little starry-eyed, to a charming but ultimately deceitful man, such as George Wickham or Frank Churchill, until she discovers his true colours and turns from him to eventually discover the solid value of the True Lover.
So of course, Edward certainly fit THAT pattern, trifling with Elinor’s affections while engaged to Lucy Steele.
Every time I read it or watch the movie I keep expecting the ending will change.
Haha! I was coming to defend Edward, and I see you have pre-empted me 😉
I think you put forward a good point, particularly about Marianne and Brandon (although I think Austen intended this to be a bit of a let down). Lizzie and Darcy is the one which I wonder most about…
Very interesting thoughts, both yours & the authors’. But I have to disagree that Anne in Persuasion married above her station – maybe above her economic but not her social position. And I’ve always wondered if the Martin mama & sisters in Emma were quite as happy with Robert’s choice, even with the dowry Harriet’s newly-discovered father could give her.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about Sense & Sensibility as my book club just finished reading The Three Weissmanns of Westport, a modern take on Austen’s classic. The author, Cathleen Schine, really changes the outcome of the relationships in her version and they seemed so right – maybe more right than in the original! I think it does make more sense for Elinor to end up with Colonel Brandon and I’ve never liked some of the drippier men Austen has her ladies marry – Edward, Edmund. But how many of our friends and relations end up with people we don’t think are quite right for them? I’ve got a few….
I have higher hopes for Elizabeth and Darcy than many of you seem to. It’s a pet hate that every adaptation I’ve seen of P&P uses Chatsworth which I feel brings with it more than Austen perhaps intended. I know she compares Pemberly to Chatsworth but there were a lot more ‘Chatsworths’ before so many country houses were demolished in the 1950’s so it might not have seemed so remarkable then as it does now. Also I wonder where the Darcy money comes from and just how aristocratic they actually are? I like to think they would be happy and good for each other.
Reader, I ordered it (for my daughters birthday) Thank you.
I have this mental list of literary couples that will have problems after the happy-ending and Catherine and Tilney are at the top (follow by Laurie and Amy). More than their disparity in station/money, it’s the difference in their personalities that would cause problems. I’m afraid Tilney wouldn’t be able to turn Catherine into a wit and would soon get bored…
I bought this last year after it was highly recommended by the leader of our local JASNA chapter, though I still haven’t cracked it open. I keep buying books about Jane Austen and never reading them!
And I have to believe that Anne and Captain Wentworth will make it. I think they see in each other the things that made them fall in love the first time.
Fascinating! Shall try and get hold of this book.
But, FWIW, I think Anne and Capt. Wentworth won’t have too many problems: both are mature and intelligent – certainly enough of both to not only admit to but also learn from earlier mistakes, which is more than half the battle.
Agree re Catherine and Henry (I think she’s intelligent enough to raise her game to – or near – his level; it is her youth, naïveté and inexperience that are at issue during ‘NA’ rather than her intellect and level of imagination – which latter Henry appreciates).
But Marianne and Col. Brandon? Ha! She’ll be hugely indulged, hugely! Will end up one of those twittering, childish old ladies, I bet you (;-))!
Personally, I think Lizzie will drive Darcy round the bend within 7 years (too much competition in the brains dept., and wit can be very wearing over time).