I did not intend to become a Janeite.
I had read all of Austen’s books over and over, with the exception of Northanger Abbey, which was too light for me. But when we moved to a dark, gray-skied city where the sun shone only wanly and it snowed in May, I reread Northanger Abbey.
And then I attended a Jane Austen Society meeting.
It was a tiny meeting, unlike the huge Jane Austen Society conferences of today, which, as I understand it, are fueled by films based on her books. There were only eight or nine charming old-fashioned women at the society meeting, all of whom knew Jane by heart.
These kind old women served scones and tea, and then passed out xeroxed copies of a play of Pride and Prejudice. I don’t remember what scene we read, but I was assigned multiple tiny parts. In retrospect, I would have liked to read the role of Lydia or Mrs. Bennet, because both are flighty and ridiculous, and I like a good laugh.
Reading aloud the play was fun, even soothing. And after the meeting, the youngest Janeite (perhaps in her thirties or forties) chatted with me about how much she’d learned from these older women, who, as she said, “knew everything about Jane Austen.”
And that’s how I became a Janeite, though I didn’t hear the term Janeite till much later.
. FACTS ABOUT MY RELATIONSHIP WITH JANE
My three favorites of Jane’s books are, in no particular order, Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion, and Emma.
My favorite hero is Captain Wentworth of Persuasion. He is the sexiest man in Austen’s books, and I love it that Anne got him back. Good for her and him!
How Jane Austen’s views on persuasion are not dissimilar to Lady Russell’s. Jane Austen and Lady Russell both advised young women on the subject of marriage. In Persuasion, Lady Russell persuades Anne Elliot to turn down her suitor’s proposal, because he is poor and has no rank.
And Jane Austen, in real life, wrote a tactful letter to her niece Fanny to dissuade her from accepting the proposal of a young man, whom Jane liked very much but did not think was right for Fanny.
Jane writes tactfully: “Your own feelings & none but your own, should determine such an important point. – So far however as answering your question, I have no scruple. – I am perfectly convinced that supposing you were to marry now, would be sufficient for his happiness; – but when I think how very, very far it is from a Now, & take everything that may be, into consideration, I dare not say, ‘Determine to accept him.’ The risk is too great for you, unless your own Sentiments prompt it -“
My favorite Austen heroine is Anne Elliot in Persuasion. She is sensible, tactful, pretty, and capable, but doomed to be an unloved daughter and spinster after she is monstrously persuaded by her mentor, Lady Russell, to reject her suitor Captain Wentworth because of his poverty and rank then.
Not all people think Lady Russell was monstrous: in fact, they feel that she was looking out for motherless Anne. But Anne’s concession to Lady Russell led to eight unhappy years, until by chance she met Captain Wentworth again – and now, ironically, he is rich and a captain.
As a 21st-century reader I prefer the delicate style of Persuasion to the broader comedy of Pride and Prejudice, but I return to P&P because Lizzie Bennet is a modern woman, and, in a way, I struggle to understand Anne.