One man's strange view of Jane Austen [Archive]

Ecurb

11-20-2013, 01:43 PM

The most popular English novelist ever (as measured by the percentage of novels sold) was Jane Austen’s contemporary, Sir Walter Scott. Here’s what he wrote about Jane Austen:

"Read again, for the third time at least, Miss Austen's finely written novel of 'Pride And Prejudice'. That young Lady had a talent for describing the involvements and feelings and characters of ordinary life, which is to me the most wonderful I ever met with. The big Bow-Wow strain I can do myself like any now going; but the exquisite touch which renders ordinary common-place things and characters interesting from the truth of the description and the sentiment is denied to me. What a pity such a gifted creature died so early!"

Your father seems to admire the “big Bow-Wow” strain, filled with heroic deeds and inspiring speeches. I admire it too – and although Scott has lost canonical cachet, I like his novels. Nonetheless, the novel as an art form did not develop in his direction; it developed in Austen’s.

Also, Austen’s subtlety has several levels. In “Emma”, Miss Bates is portrayed as a silly old lady, and the reader, like Emma herself, is led to dismiss her as a silly blabber-mouth. If you actually read her silly monologues, though, you can see that she is the only character in Emma who sees things clearly, freed from prejudices and delusions. As with Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, Emma’s quickness of wit and intelligence leads her (and other characters) into delusion. It is because they admire their own perspicacity that they cannot see the truth.

kev67

11-20-2013, 01:46 PM

Does he think a still life can be great art? Perhaps he is limiting his definition of great art to literature. What are his views on movies? I would say Midnight Cowboy was great art (if movies can be art) but its characters never achieve much in their lives. In fact both the main characters are losers.

Lykren

11-20-2013, 02:05 PM

Ecurb, I had forgotten about that excellent quote of Scott's endorsing Austen. I'll be certain to bring that up in our discussions. It seems to me that Austen in fact very often writes about such 'deep' topics as the nature of truth, our ability to deceive ourselves, and also the pursuit of meaning in one's life. She just does it in very subtle, unexpected ways, and all through the lens of that brilliant style, of course.

Kev67: great point about still-lifes! And of course movies can be art. We both enjoyed Fanny and Alexander very much.

Still, I need to find a way to address his belief that the characters' lives are somehow trivial. I can't get him to see that their concerns are simply the most basic and fundamental concerns any human can have; the desire to conquer loneliness, and to find meaning here on earth while we can. What could be less trivial?

EDIT: just thought of something. I read a review of Blue is the Warmest Color which criticized the movie for having characters who were flawed people. Now, I haven't seen the movie yet, but on the face of it, that's a ridiculous criticism. It reminded me of what my dad said about Austen, though. People usually ARE flawed and trivial; it's Austen's compassionate yet devastating insight that makes those qualities touching and sad and funny and relatable, no?

Ecurb

11-20-2013, 02:17 PM

Frank O'Connor (the Irish short story writer) picks out a couple of masterpieces of Austen technique in his book "Mirror in the Roadway". Here’s one from Emma:

" 'Insufferable woman!' was her immediate exclamation. 'Worse than I had supposed. Absolutely insufferable! Knightley! - I could not have believed it. Knightley! - never seen him in her life before, and call him Knightley! - and discover that he is a gentleman! A little upstart, vulgar being, with her Mr. E., and her caro sposo, and her resources, and all her airs of pert pretension and underbred finery. Actually to discover that Mr. Knightley is a gentleman! I doubt whether he will return the compliment, and discover her to be a lady. I could not have believed it! And to propose that she and I should unite to form a musical club! One would fancy we were bosom friends! And Mrs. Weston! - Astonished that the person who had brought me up should be a gentlewoman! Worse and worse. I never met with her equal. Much beyond my hopes. Harriet is disgraced by any comparison. Oh! what would Frank Churchill say to her, if he were here? How angry and how diverted he would be! Ah! there I am! - thinking of him directly. Always the first person to be thought of! How I catch myself out! Frank Churchill comes as regularly into my mind!' * "

Here’s O’Connor’s analysis: "The effect of this extraordinary technique is to make a passage like this almost identical with similar passages in James Joyce, where the fact that the author is trying to express something that has not yet reached the conscious mind compells him to express it symbolically. The principle passions of Emma’s life are set out as they present themselves to the author’s mind: they are Mr. Knightley, Mrs. Weston, and the fancied attachment to Frank Churchill. The last and least important Emma exaggerates into a principal one. She may imagine that she really catches herself out, but her self-knowledge is of much the same kind as Stendahl’s."

This may not answer your father's questions exactly, but I looked it up before I read your last post.

Lykren

11-20-2013, 02:23 PM

That's a great quote, as well as a great piece of analysis, Ecurb. Makes me want to read all of Austen over again, too! I also think the comparison to Joyce is apt and well-put.

kiki1982

11-20-2013, 05:12 PM

Also, Austen’s subtlety has several levels. In “Emma”, Miss Bates is portrayed as a silly old lady, and the reader, like Emma herself, is led to dismiss her as a silly blabber-mouth. If you actually read her silly monologues, though, you can see that she is the only character in Emma who sees things clearly, freed from prejudices and delusions. As with Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, Emma’s quickness of wit and intelligence leads her (and other characters) into delusion. It is because they admire their own perspicacity that they cannot see the truth.

Indeed, Miss Bates is much older and has had all those delusions. The fact that she's continuously wittering against a deaf old bat (sorry, that just came to mind in a kind Emma Woodhouse way ;)) is also maybe symbolic: no-one listens to her and they just nod... She fades into the background like the deaf woman probably hears her from afar, but is not really listening to what she says. The quick wit and intelligence of everyone in the village also totally assumes that Frank Churchill will naturally fall in love with Emma Woodhouse. Not that has fiancé is already in town and the obvious signs of that. Particularly when they are almost caught at some point. Going to London for a haircut, indeed... They don't see it because they don't want to see it, and Emma is distraught about that later.

Here’s O’Connor’s analysis: "The effect of this extraordinary technique is to make a passage like this almost identical with similar passages in James Joyce, where the fact that the author is trying to express something that has not yet reached the conscious mind compells him to express it symbolically. The principle passions of Emma’s life are set out as they present themselves to the author’s mind: they are Mr. Knightley, Mrs. Weston, and the fancied attachment to Frank Churchill. The last and least important Emma exaggerates into a principal one. She may imagine that she really catches herself out, but her self-knowledge is of much the same kind as Stendahl’s."

The fact that Emma's so upset about Knightley and Mrs Elton's comments betrays that she secretly likes him. The same as when Knightley is so angry and famously says her comments were 'badly done'. Although it confounds him and he goes to London to think why he is so angry and disappointed. Emma just goes on merrily deceiving herself. However, I think that's inherent to human beings and we haven't changed at all (even Austen knew that we inadvertently think about the people we care about), it's nothing new.

Scott was right when he said Austen could make the least interesting and commonplace things interesting, because, really, nothing happens in the novels. It's the same old boring story: two people fall in love, don't know it from each other and then marry after a few setbacks. And the setbacks are minor. But she was such a good observer that really, it's quite amazing how we can recognise these characters anywhere we are today.

It's not because what characters do is not relevant today that we have to dismiss it. Paintings have scenes on them that are not relevant (men on horseback, men pulling boats), but it doesn't mean it doesn't convey feeling, emotion (or beauty). If he doesn't like it, that's fine, but not because of that, surely.

This may not answer your father's questions exactly, but I looked it up before I read your last post.[/QUOTE]

Lykren

11-20-2013, 05:24 PM

If he doesn't like it, that's fine, but not because of that, surely.

He actually does like it, he just thinks it's not truly great because of the supposed triviality of the characters' concerns.

mona amon

11-21-2013, 05:50 AM

I've convinced my father to read Emma, and he's enjoying it. However, he believes it is not great art, because (and I quote) 'it doesn't imitate reality'. He thinks that because the characters are small-minded and don't do do anything 'useful' with their lives, that the book is not of the highest quality. In other words, he feels the book is weakened because it does not include an expansive worldview, one that involves great affairs of state.

Now, I think that represents a fairly superficial understanding of both art and life; it seems what he's saying is not far off from saying that art should always serve to inspire us by portraying heroic deeds and great valor. But as absurd as I think his point is, I'm not sure exactly how to refute it. Do you guys have any ideas? Thanks in advance.

Lykren, did your dad appreciate the comedy, because that's a large part of Emma, and those who don't think of it as a comedy usually don't like it (EDIT - I see in the above post that he did like the book, so he must have liked the comedy?). Anyway, he is not the first one to find something lacking. Lots of people don't get Jane Austen. Scott was perceptive enough to realize that the nuanced, subtle psychological novel could be just as interesting as 'the big Bow-Wow strain', but Charlotte Bronte deplored the absence of passion -

I have likewise read one of Miss Austen's works Emma...[cut]...She does her business of delineating the surface of the lives of genteel English people curiously well. There is a Chinese fidelity, a miniature delicacy, in the painting. She ruffles her reader by nothing vehement, disturbs him with nothing profound. The passions are perfectly unknown to her: she rejects even a speaking acquaintance with that stormy sisterhood ... What sees keenly, speaks aptly, moves flexibly, it suits her to study: but what throbs fast and full, though hidden, what the blood rushes through, what is the unseen seat of life and the sentient target of death--this Miss Austen ignores....(Charlotte Bronte in a letter to W.S. Williams , April 12, 1850)

Another Walter Scott quote to show your dad, from a review of Emma -

The author's knowledge of the world, and the peculiar tact with which she presents characters that the reader cannot fail to recognize, reminds us something of the merits of the Flemish school of painting. The subjects are not often elegant, and certainly never grand; but they are finished to nature, and with a precision which delights the reader....

Her merits consist much in the force of a narrative conducted with much neatness and point, and a quiet yet comic dialogue, in which the characters of the speakers evolve themselves with dramatic effect. The faults arise from the minute detail which the author's plan comprehends. Characters of folly or simplicity, such as those of old Woodhouse and Miss Bates, are ridiculous when first presented, but if too often brought forward or too long dwelt upon, their prosing is apt to become as tiresome in fiction as in real society.

mal4mac

11-21-2013, 07:33 AM

Although I would call Austen's novels "great art", I think your father's main point is a good one, perhaps they are not the "greatest art". If you read Harold Bloom, & other defenders of the canon, the works that usually gain top honours go wider & deeper. The greatest works surely have to consider "great affairs of state", heroic actions, and deep philosophy. I think your father's second point, 'it doesn't imitate reality', is totally wrong. Austen is usually praised for capturing that small-minded, middle class, provincial, very English world better than anyone else. That is, she imitates reality better than almost anyone else, it's just a small reality, reflecting the severe limitations placed on her life. Dickens had London, and as a parliamentary reporter, given access to the centres of power, and as a child encountered the worst aspects of factory life & prison. Shakespeare had similar freedom and privilege. Tolstoy was a Count, a landowner, and a military adventurer, who had access and ability to encounter all aspects of Russian society, high and low. The greatest novelists that England has produced, according to most canonical commentators, are George Eliot and Charles Dickens. Their greatest novels certainly have features that would place them in a higher category than Austen's novels, according to your father. For instance:

Middlemarch by George Eliot - this vast novel show similar qualities to Austen's novels in analysing the lives of middle class provincial characters, but goes much deeper & wider by also analysing the worlds of scholarship, science, romantic poetry, "the aristocracy", national politics, journalism, ...

Bleak House by Charles Dickens - as usual, Dickens explores the life, and supports the cause, of the poverty stricken in the world's greatest metropolis. But, in this novel, he also goes deep into legal, business, and political issues.

Tolstoy, Shakespeare, and Homer also explore far grander themes than Austen. Walter Scott, although also a great artist, doesn't usually get placed in the top bracket. For me, he does "valour" very well, and is very exciting to read. But he doesn't dig as deep as the other authors I've mentioned.

A still life can be a great work of art, but it's not the Sistine Chapel.

cacian

11-21-2013, 09:57 AM

Lykren

11-21-2013, 11:33 AM

The greatest works surely have to consider "great affairs of state", heroic actions, and deep philosophy.

Here's exactly what I disagree with. To me, subject matter does not define the thematic scope of a work. Rather, the ability of an author's style to probe eternal truths about the human condition does. I think there is as much dignity and grandeur, folly and wisdom, and beauty and sadness in the life of a farmer or ordinary member of the middle class than in the decisions of a great general, or the ruminations of a renowned philosopher.

Think of van Gogh's portraits: they depict ordinary people in extraordinary ways. Yes, as I see it, they are of greater depth than the Sistine Chapel. (Gets ready to be called out for that!)

Anyway I just told my dad about it and he says that what he finds lacking in the novel, that Anna Karenina (which he just read) has, is the description of meaningful work in the lives of its characters. What do you make of that?

I personally am still not convinced, because I still believe in the universality of the feelings and ideas Austen expresses, as well as (and this is what he takes issue with) the essential meaningfulness of the characters' lives. Your take?

mal4mac

11-21-2013, 01:09 PM

... I think there is as much dignity and grandeur, folly and wisdom, and beauty and sadness in the life of a farmer or ordinary member of the middle class than in the decisions of a great general, or the ruminations of a renowned philosopher.

I think that's wrong. Take a current example, from the the UK. Paul Flowers, the CEO of the leading "ethical" bank in the country, the co-operative bank, who happens also to be a Methodist minister, has been caught buying cocaine and downloading gay porn from the internet. This is far more damaging than the teenager next door doing something similar. The former is national front page news, the latter is unlikely to make the local paper. The former has put the survival of a major bank in doubt and inconvenienced millions of people, as well as adding to the general doubt about bankers (and church leaders!) in general. Why? Because the CEO is a far grander figure than the teenager, he has tried to cut a dignified figure that the teenager would never aspire to, so his fall from dignity is infinitely greater than any fall the teenager could suffer. His folly is by far the greater, we expect Flowers to be wise, and when he is unwise expect the full approbation of society to fall upon him; we expect folly from a teenager, and expect the teenager to be treated with a slap on the wrist. We expect that Flowers, and those close to him, will be plunged into the depths of despair, but the teenager to get over it soon, without feeling too sad.

Anyway I just told my dad about it and he says that what he finds lacking in the novel, that Anna Karenina (which he just read) has, is the description of meaningful work in the lives of its characters. What do you make of that?

I agree with that, the attempts by Levin to find meaningful work, by working alongside the serfs on his massive estate, and thereby trying to generate a fully meaningful life, are intensely moving, and beyond the imagination & experience of Austen. To match Tolstoy in this she would have to send her heroine on board ship to a slave plantation, where she would pick cotton with the slaves that provide the money to keep her upper middle class life on track, and she would have to try and free the slaves, while maintaining them and herself in useful work, all the while keeping meaningful relations going on with the highest in society.

Tolstoy also gives a portrait of the useless bureaucrats that do meaningless work, something else that Austen never attempts. The world of the work of middle class men is also nothing she knows anything about. The social world she is left with is interesting, and is enough to generate great humour and great art, but Tolstoy does this is as well - it's just that he does so much more.

I personally am still not convinced, because I still believe in the universality of the feelings and ideas Austen expresses, as well as (and this is what he takes issue with) the essential meaningfulness of the characters' lives. Your take?

I agree, but it's meaningful within a very narrow context, a very small world. Tolstoy, Dickens, and George Eliot inhabit a much larger world, indeed get close to occupying the whole world.

I think you can compare Van Gogh's works, in totality, with the Sistine Chapel, but he's not a simple, still life painter. His works are incredibly varied, and even his still life paintings are revolutionary. Austen isn't a revolutionary, and her "still lives" are all the same kind of middle-class goings on. (She did die young, of course, who knows what she might have done if she had lived longer.)

Lykren

11-21-2013, 01:26 PM

Mal4mac: Ironically, my father is a bureaucrat, and so disliked the picture of 'meaningless work in a bureaucracy' in Anna K. That was the only part he had a problem with.

About that banker, though: funny, I expect none of the things you said we expect of bankers. I even think your anecdote proves my point, that there are no 'great' people, that underneath we are struggling the same struggle.

That is why I disagree with your statement that her works are 'meaningful within a small context'. The point I am trying to make is that her themes and ideas are applicable to all people, all over the world, regardless of station. I think art has the power to do this.

I even think that Tolstoy's focus on inherently hyper-dramatic subject matter was a weakness, in that his grasp of the fundamentals of human psychology was weaker, less profound than Austen's: despite his attempts to overthrow Napoleon's status as a 'great man', his depiction of Kitty, for example, though certainly thoroughly pleasing to read about, is very idealized. We learn more about ourselves through Austen's depictions of imperfection.

As for her not being a revolutionary in terms of style... See the above comparison to James Joyce (though I seem to recall you're not fond of him). For me, it's revolutionary enough to be able to make critical new observations, or to deepen old investigations, into human nature.

MorpheusSandman

11-21-2013, 01:30 PM

There are some artists that need a grand, worldly, if not cosmic, landscape in order to portray themes that deal with grand, worldly, if not cosmic things... then there are those, like William Blake, who can: "...see a World in a Grain of Sand / And a Heaven in a Wild Flower / Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand / And Eternity in an hour." The greatness of Austen was for her to find all of the grand, worldly, and cosmic within the condensed space of her extremely limited and limiting social milieu and her characters' perceptions of it. While Austen is praised for her "realism," to me, her greatest triumph is in depicting, with tremendous irony, humor, subtlety, and artistry, how the human mind and its biases distort reality, imposing meaning and structure on perception, and how those structures and meanings are formed by society (Pride & Prejudice), parental/class background (Mansfield Park), fanciful wit, intelligence, and imagination (Emma), art (Northanger Abbey), or by human desire (Persuasion).

Sense & Sensibility, while probably Austen's weakest novel, is also the most overt in laying out the themes that would concern her through all her novels. There, you have two characters, Marianne and her mother, who make terrible decisions based on their romantic distortions of reality, and Elinor, the "sensible" daughter, who has to clean up the messes they make. One of the faults of S&S, though, is that Austen too clearly delineates THE truth, THE reality, that Elinor sees with the falsities and fantasies that Marianne and her mother create through their romanticism. The evolution of Austen as an author and artist can be seen in the way that she progressively makes the perspectives of her other "Mariannes" our own as readers; where, instead of us being "outside" the subjective delusions and observing how characters make bad decisions based on their fantasies, we are placed inside the heads of characters whom are themselves distorting reality through whatever means.

In P&P it's our slow realization, along with Elizabeth, that perhaps Darcy isn't really what she's continually seen him as, that it's actually her (and us, as readers seeing from her perspective) suffering from "pride & prejudice." Mansfield Park returns to the greater objectivity of S&S, but unlike S&S it leaves subtle and hidden the reasons for the very different perceptions of reality and its "rules" of Fanny VS the Bertram children. I tend to think that Mansfield Park is Austen's underrated masterpiece of overtly contrasting the perspective of those whom are on the outside, the minorities, those made insecure by their being made to define themselves via their difference from those in power, the "norm."

If Emma is Austen's supreme masterpiece it is so because we, as readers, are almost completely lost within Emma's mind and perspective. In all her previous novels, Austen had provided overt "clues" as to what the "truth" was, and in how her characters' subjectivities were distorting that truth. While P&P was much more subtle in this depiction than S&S, even in P&P there is that "aha!" moment of "here's what the truth/reality is that Elizabeth has been missing." In Emma, we're never given such a moment. Rather, it's a slow accumulation of details that leads us to recognize that Emma is not the most accurately perceptive person in the world. Yet, even when we come to realize that, it's often unclear as to exactly what the truth is, what reality is. While we can make some clear distinctions between what Emma sees and between what's really going on, were are usually limited to some extent. Reality is nowhere more subtly elusive in any Austen novel. In that respect, Emma is quite similar to a cinematic masterpiece of manipulative perspective in Mulholland Drive by David Lynch. That film also puts the audience squarely in the mind of its very disturbed protagonist; inside her wish-fulfillment dreams, her waking memories, and while we're able to put together some parts of the reality puzzle, we're ultimately left never being entirely sure what is reality and what is merely a fantasy or distorted memory of the protagonist.

So, for anyone who thinks that the subject of reality/truth VS perception/imagination is a subject worthy of the greatest art, then Austen is indubitably a great artist, as would be Wallace Stevens and David Lynch.

Lykren

11-21-2013, 01:45 PM

Excellently put, MorpheusSandman. Maybe I just have a hard time understanding how anybody could believe that the subject of reality vs. perception is not of great importance.

I'll mention your points to my father, I'm curious about what he will say to them.

qimissung

11-22-2013, 02:37 AM

Excellent argument, Morpheus. I've noticed that some people seem to like things with the purported grander themes, like "Moby Dick," for instance, but in my opinion it's all a matter of taste and even bothering to rate them, while fun, is a flawed activity and despite any arguments we put forth, completely subjective.

I personally find her insights into human nature completely fascinating and completely worthwhile. Are not the cave paintings of Lascaux as worthy of our attention as the works of J.M.W. Turner or Rembrandt or any of the other artists we hold up as great?

mal4mac

11-22-2013, 05:16 AM

Mal4mac: Ironically, my father is a bureaucrat, and so disliked the picture of 'meaningless work in a bureaucracy' in Anna K. That was the only part he had a problem with.

Did it hit too close to home? :)

About that banker, though: funny, I expect none of the things you said we expect of bankers. I even think your anecdote proves my point, that there are no 'great' people, that underneath we are struggling the same struggle.

This idea that we're just all the same little people bashing about in our little social worlds is just what I'd expect from an Austen fan. Get out of that rut! Look around. There are great people, you can find them everyday, if you look carefully. For instance, what about Sanger, the double Nobel prize winner who died this week?

Tolstoy at least attempts to portray great people in action, like Levin. I suppose Darcy has the potential for greatness, but Austen makes no attempt to portray him being great. She doesn't show him out in the fields working with his "serfs", or trying to push for reform in parliament. Tolstoy and George Eliot do portray these kind of things.

I don't think that bankers, today, on average, will be better than anyone else, but I think they should be better than anyone else. They have hold of my money!

mal4mac

11-22-2013, 05:31 AM

Excellently put, MorpheusSandman. Maybe I just have a hard time understanding how anybody could believe that the subject of reality vs. perception is not of great importance.

I agree, and you might be right that Austen handles the social minutiae of the dating habits of unremarkable, upper-middle class, 19th century, young lovers better than Tolstoy, bringing out more detail and more humour in this area. This makes her well worth reading *as well as* Tolstoy, especially as most of us are probably leading little middle class 21st century lives. But there is more to life than superior chick-lit. We desperately need Tolstoy and Cormac McCarthy, we need wider, cosmic visions.

Lykren

11-22-2013, 11:56 AM

But if you think Austen is 'superior chick lit' you've misunderstood me (and Morpheus) completely. Austen's works describe gossip and marriage; they conceal profound meditations on the nature of reality: a more cosmic topic you could not hope to find.

mona amon

11-22-2013, 12:47 PM

If Emma is Austen's supreme masterpiece it is so because we, as readers, are almost completely lost within Emma's mind and perspective. In all her previous novels, Austen had provided overt "clues" as to what the "truth" was, and in how her characters' subjectivities were distorting that truth. While P&P was much more subtle in this depiction than S&S, even in P&P there is that "aha!" moment of "here's what the truth/reality is that Elizabeth has been missing." In Emma, we're never given such a moment. Rather, it's a slow accumulation of details that leads us to recognize that Emma is not the most accurately perceptive person in the world. Yet, even when we come to realize that, it's often unclear as to exactly what the truth is, what reality is. While we can make some clear distinctions between what Emma sees and between what's really going on, were are usually limited to some extent. Reality is nowhere more subtly elusive in any Austen novel. In that respect, Emma is quite similar to a cinematic masterpiece of manipulative perspective in Mulholland Drive by David Lynch. That film also puts the audience squarely in the mind of its very disturbed protagonist; inside her wish-fulfillment dreams, her waking memories, and while we're able to put together some parts of the reality puzzle, we're ultimately left never being entirely sure what is reality and what is merely a fantasy or distorted memory of the protagonist.

Interesting, Morpheus, I never thought of it that way. Perhaps this is why so many readers do not really get it on their first reading. I certainly didn't. Add to that the extreme annoyance with Emma most readers feel about the Harriet business, and the only readers who like it at first are those who happen to fall in love with Mr. Knightly. But I don't know if we are that wrapped up in Emma's perspective as you suggest. We are quite aware that she's bungling badly about Harriet's affairs, for one thing. It is only the twist ending that comes as a surprise, and what a wonderful twist it is. Now I wonder if any reader ever saw that coming!

Ecurb

11-22-2013, 01:48 PM

To expand upon Morpheus’ themes, four of Austen’s novels deal fairly explicitly with how prejudices and predispositions influence perception: Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice and Emma. In the other two, the reader continues to see the action through the eyes of the heroine – but is invited to see the heroine as an objective, dispassionate observer. Unlike passionate Marianne, prejudiced Elizabeth, deluded Catherine, and conceited and meddlesome Emma, Fanny and Anne seem quiet and objective. In both Persuasion and Mansfield Park, many of the scenes involve the heroine observing others: Anne hears Wentworth and Louisa discussing firm-mindedness from behind a hedge; Fanny sits by the garden gate while Crawford, Maria and Rushworth come by in their turn.

Although the reader is invited to see Fanny and Anne as objective observers , Austen gives us subtle hints to make us doubt their objectivity. Mansfield Park is a mature, subtle version of Northanger Abbey – it’s a satire on standard novel themes. In the standard Quest Novel (as in Northanger Abbey), the hero leaves home to seek her fortune; in Mansfield Park (note the title) the heroine seeks her fortune by striving mightily to stay at home. Fanny’s psychological profile is that of an abandoned child – which leads her to see Mansfield Park as a sort of Eden (although we readers know it is home to a cruel aunt, an indolent aunt, and autocratic uncle, and various other wicked relations, whose luxury is supported by slave labour in Antigua). Returning to her theme of the role of imagination in influencing (perception of) reality, Austen makes amateur theatricals a centerpiece of the novel. It is dangerous (Fanny thinks) to play roles. But Fanny doesn’t quite realize she is playing a role all along, and it influences how she sees the world.

Austen explores the theme further in Persuasion. Anne lives in a world haunted by memory; the past is more important than the present or the future. She councils Captain Benwick to beware of poetry (although, clearly, it is she who must be careful). Along with the reader, Anne deplores the snobbery of her father and sister – but she can’t resist objecting to a possible marriage between Sir Walter and Mrs. Clay. Is Austen poking fun at her readers? Do we object to Mrs. Clay, just like Anne does, despite the explicit lampooning of social snobbery? HOw are Anne's perceptions and prejudices influenced, and how are the readers'?

Austen’s interest in the delusions of her characters is recapitulated in her skill in deluding her readers.

(By the way Morpheus, as a big Austen fan, I think her three later novels are definitely better than the three earlier. Persuasion is not as polished, perhaps, because it was published posthumously, but it is the most emotionally resonant of the novels. Emma and Mansfield Park are fabulous. So are the earlier novels, but they are also more flawed than the later three.)

Lykren

11-22-2013, 04:09 PM

Actually mona, I think I started to realize the true nature of Emma's feelings towards Knightley about halfway through. Really! I must be psychic, I guess.

MorpheusSandman

11-22-2013, 04:20 PM

Excellently put, MorpheusSandman.
Excellent argument, Morpheus.Thanks, guys; and, Lykren, I'd love to hear your father's response whenever you get a chance. Perhaps invite him to join us here? :)

Perhaps this is why so many readers do not really get (Emma) on their first reading. I certainly didn't... But I don't know if we are that wrapped up in Emma's perspective as you suggest. We are quite aware that she's bungling badly about Harriet's affairs, for one thing.We are made aware of her meddling, but I don't think it's instantly. I think to start we're inclined to think that Emma is genuinely doing good, and it's rather slowly along the way that we come to understand that, indeed, Emma doesn't understand anything she thinks she does. Yet, even after we come to realize this, I don't think we ever know exactly what "the truth" is. For me, the "twist" ending is really a result of us being bound up in that perspective, of recognizing just how much we have, as readers, missed out on by seeing things from Emma's perspective.

To expand upon Morpheus’ themes, four of Austen’s novels deal fairly explicitly with how prejudices and predispositions influence perception: Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice and Emma. In the other two, the reader continues to see the action through the eyes of the heroine – but is invited to see the heroine as an objective, dispassionate observer...

Although the reader is invited to see Fanny and Anne as objective observers , Austen gives us subtle hints to make us doubt their objectivity. Mansfield Park is a mature, subtle version of Northanger Abbey – it’s a satire on standard novel themes... Fanny’s psychological profile is that of an abandoned child – which leads her to see Mansfield Park as a sort of Eden... Returning to her theme of the role of imagination in influencing (perception of) reality, Austen makes amateur theatricals a centerpiece of the novel. It is dangerous (Fanny thinks) to play roles. But Fanny doesn’t quite realize she is playing a role all along, and it influences how she sees the world.

... Is Austen poking fun at her readers (in Persuasion)? Do we object to Mrs. Clay, just like Anne does, despite the explicit lampooning of social snobbery? HOw are Anne's perceptions and prejudices influenced, and how are the readers'?

Austen’s interest in the delusions of her characters is recapitulated in her skill in deluding her readers.Excellent and insightful points, Ecurb. I remember once saying that Mansfield Park observes the dichotomies of freedom, fantasy, and anarchy embraced because of a history of security, inclusion, and privilege (Bertram children) VS freedom, fantasy, and anarchy rejected because of a history of insecurity, exclusion, and rupture (Fanny). Your comment about Fanny seeing MP as an Eden is telling since one of the classic mythologies is of gods bringing "order" to chaos via rules and laws, be they social or religious (this is the primary theme in the works of William Blake and Richard Wagner). So Fanny's personal memory of being ripped away from her own Eden, her mother (paradises are often paralleled with a womb-like state) is precisely what leads her to obediently observe the rules and try to quell the anarchy of the Bertram children, whom have no similar compunction because, to them, it's just a game that they can play against the secured knowledge that they are inherently parts of their lifelong Eden.

What you say about Austen's ability to "delude" her readers is reminiscent of what Alfred Hitchcock once said about enjoying playing his audiences like a piano, and much of what we say about Austen depicting deluded characters and then inducing audiences to identify with those delusions is not unlike Hitchock's own manipulation of his audience's sympathies and perspectives. A classic example happened at one of the Psycho premiered, when Hitchcock overheard a woman saying, after Norman Bates has cleaned up after his "mothers" murder: "Oh, what a good son to help his mother like that!" How is it audiences never found it disturbing that they came to sympathize with a literal psychopath?

Lykren

11-22-2013, 04:49 PM

My father: (paraphrase) She should explore the universals she locates in provincial England within other contexts: the way Tolstoy did. His application of themes within such broader areas allowed him to probe more deeply the human condition.

He doesn't want to become a member though, says he's too busy.

MorpheusSandman

11-22-2013, 05:35 PM

(Tolstoy's) application of themes within such broader areas allowed him to probe more deeply the human condition.I'm not going to argue that Austen is a better novelist than Tolstoy, because, one, I don't believe it's true and, two, my reason for preferring Tolstoy is not entirely different to what your father is saying. I recognize that Tolstoy and others dealt with Austen's themes while using a much larger canvass that allowed them to explore even more significant themes by observing more facets of life. However, I do disagree that Tolstoy "probed more deeply" into that specific theme. For me, while perception VS reality is a theme of War & Peace (eg), it is not a primary or even major theme. It's mostly present in the sections with Natasha, especially when she elopes with Anatol. Anna Karenina contains more of that element, but, even there, it is only one of the themes, and arguably not a primary one. To me, Tolstoy's very breadth is what disallows him to go as deeply into that subject as, say, Austen or Stevens, authors who spent their entire writing careers obsessed with that theme. It's usually a tradeoff between breadth and depth, and while Tolstoy has great breadth, I think he rarely achieves the kind of depth, nuance, and subtlety of Austen when it comes to the perception VS reality theme.

Ultimately, I think whether one prefers a panoramic breadth or a nuanced depth is a personal preference, but I think it's wrong to assume that the former is automatically better. I tend to think of it more in terms of volume, ie, a combination of both. I think, ultimately, there's more volume in Tolstoy than in Austen, even though I do think Austen goes much deeper with her chosen themes than Tolstoy does with those same things. However, I think given that Austen goes as deep as is possible with the utmost artistry, subtlety, nuance, etc. then she deserves to be considered a great artist. It's also usually true that artists of depth tend to connect more deeply to those that care about them, as opposed to artists of breadth that rarely achieve that level of intimate connection.

Lykren

11-22-2013, 06:16 PM

Yes, I knew my 'Austen is better than Tolstoy' idea wasn't going to become majority opinion :). But as you say, they do very different things and ultimately it is probably a matter of preference.

I very much like your point about depth-based authors being able to form a more intimate bond with their readers. I'm reminded of the great songwriter Elliott Smith, who was at his strongest when dealing with a limited range of themes - despair, loneliness, and other types of psychological pain. His songs do indeed produce an effect of intimacy. Their lack of pretension, of 'hype', renders their thematic content more easily visible, relatable.

EDIT: Not that I am calling Tolstoy pretentious. I suppose my word choice is displaying my bias.

Ecurb

11-22-2013, 06:55 PM

Although Tolstoy and Austen seem like opposites (in some ways), they're probably my two favorite canonical novelists. Tolstoy definitely seems like he has more of an impact when you first read him; after I read War and Peace or Anna I felt like it was a life-changing experience. Of course it wasn't (or, at least, not as much of one as it at first seemed). Austen doesn't blow you away like that -- I remember first reading her novels as a youth, and thinking they were hilarious, and fun, but not much more. But they grow on you.

mona amon

11-23-2013, 10:51 AM

Actually mona, I think I started to realize the true nature of Emma's feelings towards Knightley about halfway through. Really! I must be psychic, I guess.

Lykren, that's not the twist I'm talking about. I made a mistake in calling it a twist ending when it isn't really the ending at all - I don't want to be explicit and spoil it for anyone who may be reading this without having read the book, so let's call it Frank Churchill's secret. :) I wonder how many people guessed that? Definitely not me!

We are made aware of her meddling, but I don't think it's instantly. I think to start we're inclined to think that Emma is genuinely doing good, and it's rather slowly along the way that we come to understand that, indeed, Emma doesn't understand anything she thinks she does. Yet, even after we come to realize this, I don't think we ever know exactly what "the truth" is. For me, the "twist" ending is really a result of us being bound up in that perspective, of recognizing just how much we have, as readers, missed out on by seeing things from Emma's perspective.

I don't know - we are pretty much aware of everything, long before Emma is. Emma lacks self awareness, but the reader is given extra knowledge, so that they can laugh at Emma as she blunders along.

I see Emma as one of Austen's Quixotic heroines (the other two are Catherine Moorland and Marianne Dashwood). Emma's perspective is Don Quixote's perspective. They both see what they want to see, and what they want to see is a reality that fulfills the romantic notions they've picked up from books. But the readers are supposed to see more clearly, or they'll miss the point. We cannot laugh at Emma's blunders unless we know they are blunders, and from her perspective of course they are not blunders at all. We know she's not doing the right thing by Harriet. We know she's going to fall for Mr Knightley. We know she's not in love with Frank Churchill, and what is more important, we know that he's not in love with her. Even if we do not guess his secret, we know he's up to something. So after thinking about it, I have to disagree that we readers are led by Emma's perspective.

Austen and Tolstoy - Tolstoy's War and Peace and Anna Karenina are more of an achievement in the 'mine's bigger than yours' sense, but I feel he is also great in the intimate style department, so in my eyes he achieves the volume that Morpheus speaks of. I'll give the Nicholas Rostov/Princess Mary relationship as an example, as it is practically the only thing I remember from War and Peace :blush: What could be more nuanced and subtle and carefully built up than that? However I do like Austen better than Tolstoy, and unlike Tolstoy's works have read them several times. It's a matter of personal preference I guess and also it's easier to become better acquainted with a novel the size of Jane Austen's rather than the ginormous volumes of Tolstoy.

kiki1982

11-23-2013, 11:42 AM

Those were excellent points from Morpheus and Ecurb (if I may join again).

@Lykren: my use of the verb 'like' wasn't exactly meant to mean like. It was late and I didn't have a lot of time, so I meant to say 'find great', I guess...

Lykren, that's not the twist I'm talking about. I made a mistake in calling it a twist ending when it isn't really the ending at all - I don't want to be explicit and spoil it for anyone who may be reading this without having read the book, so let's call it Frank Churchill's secret. :) I wonder how many people guessed that? Definitely not me!

I think to perceptive Regency readers things would have dawned slowly but surely. When they are almost caught at the piano (which you can see it in the 1970s adaptation), it's pretty evident there is more than meets the eye. But of course you're view is hazed by Emma who is not aware of anything she doesn't want to see. Including Miss Fairfax's charm. I think it's pretty much as evident as Mr Darcy's imminent second proposal just when Lizzie gets the letter SPOILER!! about Lydia having eloped with Wickham SPOILER OVER!!. The fact he is alone, his passion and agitation when he learns what has happened and his sudden leaving suggest he was there for more than a friendly morning call, but his plan is thwarted (again). But I agree, maybe if you read it for the very first time, you don't think about it anymore. It's thinking about it that makes it dawn on you, just the same as all the clues about Churchill's secret dawn on you. Clever writing it definitely is ;).

Readers are indeed not really led by the main characters, because it's always quite evident that Austen is poking fun, but you have to keep your wits about you. Actually I hadn't seen Manfsield Park in the way Ecurb explained it. That makes it much more interesting than I thought it was (I'm ashamed to admit).

Without having read any Tolstoy whatsoever, I do think that comparing a female author and a male author from the same timeframe is not a good thing up until the 20th century. Not because women are women (I spit on the feminists), but because women were educated in a different way and were kept out of the world of business, politics and things. If they understood the concept it was a great thing. Of course, there were exceptions, but probably there were far more of the sort that didn't care about anything (the Mrs Bertrams) than there were of the opposite kind. Austen never got out of her house, unless maybe to go to London and Bath for the season in her earlier years before her father died and the family got into financial difficulty, and she may have read more than what her counterparts read in her age (she was lucky that her father allowed her to read anything in his library), but she would not have met many people to talk about it. Even if she knew, she would have observed that the subject of muslin frocks is ever so much more important than the topic of slavery (the quality of muslin she so lovingly elaborates on in Northanger Abbey). I doubt whether she could have listened in on the topics of conversation male guests addressed after dinner with the brandy, so what did she have to write about? Every author writes about what he/she knows or hears. As it is, she may have read a lot, but she can't have heard much beyond what ladies talked about or what gentlemen thought ladies wanted to talk about. Tolstoy, in that respect, was in a much more fortunate position.

MorpheusSandman

11-23-2013, 01:55 PM

I don't know - we are pretty much aware of everything, long before Emma is. Emma lacks self awareness, but the reader is given extra knowledge, so that they can laugh at Emma as she blunders along... So after thinking about it, I have to disagree that we readers are led by Emma's perspective.I guess we'll just agree to disagree here, though perhaps we're really just disagreeing on how extreme our subjectivity is given the perspective. I do agree that the reader is supposed to be aware of Emma's muddling, but I disagree that we're supposed to be aware of EVERYTHING. Yes, as a reader we're given extra knowledge (just as we are in Mulholland Drive), but I still think there's a gulf between knowing that Emma is wrong and knowing what the full, objective truth is. I compared to this to P&P where there is that moment that Elizabeth becomes VERY aware of her own "pride & prejudice," which we lack in Emma.

Lykren

11-23-2013, 02:18 PM

Quick question: does the subjectivity of Austen's narration, the way our understanding of events is colored by and even conflated with the characters' understanding of events make it free indirect speech?

MorpheusSandman

11-23-2013, 04:04 PM

What I would say is that free indirect speech is a good technique to use when an author wants to blur the line between what the author as narrator is saying/thinking and what the character is saying/thinking. So it's not that subjectivity makes something free indirect speech by itself (one can certainly depict subjectivity via direct speech or indirect speech), but rather that free indirect speech muddles the distinction between what the "objective" narrator is saying and what the character is/would be saying.

ennison

12-03-2013, 07:39 PM

Strange view? Lawrence called her a "narrow-gutted virgin" (He would wouldn't he.) I used to read Austen aloud to my late mother who considered her an amusing bint. Personally I find it a bit odd that writing at the time of the Napoleonic Wars when British soldiers and seamen were dying by the thousand she had so little to say about that. Is that a weakness? Well, that depends on what you are looking for I suppose.

kiki1982

12-04-2013, 04:48 PM

Well, that's what I thought when I read Something New/Fresh by Wodehouse. the novel was published in 1915. Unless he wrote it really many years earlier, it's slightly odd too that there is not even a hint of this tension you get for example in Brideshead Revisited. He also wrote through the 30s and through WWII without much reference to any of the horror. But then he wasn't interested in politics whatsoever and even told his family, when they told him to flee across the Channel from Le Touquet in France where he lived, to shut up because 'things couldn't be that bad, surely.' And they did, he was interned in a camp (being of the enemy) and even then he cheered his fellow inmates with funny stories. Cue why they thought he was a collaborator in the end. He narrowly avoided being shot for treason.
People like this crop up in history, rarely, but they do.

prendrelemick

12-06-2013, 03:57 AM

If he doesn't like it, that's fine, but not because of that, surely.

He actually does like it, he just thinks it's not truly great because of the supposed triviality of the characters' concerns.

My father: (paraphrase) She should explore the universals she locates in provincial England within other contexts: the way Tolstoy did. His application of themes within such broader areas allowed him to probe more deeply the human condition.

He doesn't want to become a member though, says he's too busy.

Strange view? Lawrence called her a "narrow-gutted virgin" (He would wouldn't he.) I used to read Austen aloud to my late mother who considered her an amusing bint. Personally I find it a bit odd that writing at the time of the Napoleonic Wars when British soldiers and seamen were dying by the thousand she had so little to say about that. Is that a weakness? Well, that depends on what you are looking for I suppose.

"Write what you know," which is exactly what she did, is the first rule of creative writing. Had she tried to do more she would've become like those characters of her's who form opinions about things they know nothing, the kind that she lampoons and ridicules so effectively. I wonder how Tolstoy would've emerged through her writing had she met him.

Two of her brothers were embroiled in the Napoleonic wars, which makes me wonder why they don't feature. The "man of action" side of her heros exists, but is never witnessed first hand. It makes me think that the subject was not thought fit for young ladies in her social circle

mona amon

12-06-2013, 10:02 AM

There are a few mentions, I think, though I agree with Prendrelemick that she does not elaborate on them. Fanny Price's brother William is in the Royal Navy, Wentworth returns rich and successful from the Napoleonic wars, and Jane Fairfax's father was killed in the war - "Jane Fairfax was an orphan, the only child of Mrs. Bates' youngest daughter.

The marriage of Lieut. Fairfax, of the _____ regiment of infantry, and Miss Jane Bates, had had its day of fame and pleasure, hope and interest; but nothing now remained of it save the melancholy remembrance of him dying in action abroad, of his widow sinking under consumption and grief soon afterwards, and this girl. - Emma, chapter 20.

kiki1982

12-06-2013, 02:30 PM

Two of her brothers were embroiled in the Napoleonic wars, which makes me wonder why they don't feature. The "man of action" side of her heros exists, but is never witnessed first hand. It makes me think that the subject was not thought fit for young ladies in her social circle

I tend to think that's true. Thackeray elaborates on the Napoleonic wars and the 'court' of the British troops in Brussels. They seem to think it's a party, even having a ball the night before they march at dawn. The women who saw their men off, even Mrs O'Dowd who was married to her major Michael and hailed by Thackeray because she was so encouraging to the men, didn't really seem to 'get' the horror those men were going to. Admittedly, she knew some of them came back totally bedraggled, but the younger ones hadn't even thought about it.
I don't think the young ladies back in England would at all have learnt much about the gruesome side of the action and the segregation of the sexes would have meant that there wasn't much of that gruesome talk either, unless it was tales of heroism like Wentworth tells them, which were rather superficial.

Indeed, 'write what you know'. Men would have talked more details at the dinner table 'after the cloth was taken away' as Trollope puts it.

[edit] Although, come to think of it, how do statements compare across her novels? Because Emma's statement and shallowness about Lieutenant Fairfax's life may have to do with the fact that Emma Woodhouse isn't really interested in Jane Fairfax's life... Why should she, such a nobody?

ennison

12-06-2013, 08:31 PM

prendrelemick

12-07-2013, 05:44 AM

Also, I think to examine Jane Austin's work for its content is perhaps missing the point. The storylines of all her books are frankly simplistic and narrow. It is the style and intellegence she brings to the page - the actual nuts and bolts of her writing that I enjoy and that makes her so extraordinary. To borrow a phrase of another poster, If she wrote the Telephone Directory I would read it.

Perhaps Lykren's Dad is more interested in themes than style.

kiki1982

12-07-2013, 07:57 AM

The reason then as now is simple. 'twas only the lower classes really and a few score of their own. So why should she write about these disabled smelly sailors, soldiers and oddities. After all LIFE must go on.

Not only the low classes. To become an officer (which was largely whom Austen would have spoken to and about), you most often needed a few thousand pounds to buy a commission (depending on how much in demand your regiment was). Those who were not heirs to a fortune had two choices: go into the army or become clergymen. The rest was a bit beneath them. You were only promoted in the army if you had been there the longest and your superior had died or had decided to move (in which case you could come to an agreement as to how much you would pay; events like the Napoleonic wars typically created a carousel). Otherwise, you could decide to move to another regiment, but that was going to cost you money for the same reason.
In the navy things were a bit different after one great disaster due to plainly unskilled commission commanders (I forget when and how, but way before Lord Nelson), they decided to promote largely on merit. Thus creating a force that was highly experienced and skilled, like Captain Wentworth and Admiral Croft.

These rich and gallant men could be killed in actions too, but they probably stayed in slightly more comfortable circumstances (if they took their wives with them on campaign at all) than the average foot soldier. I mean, this doctor who writes about the Crimean war in the 1830s (?) and a quite difficult birth in a tent i the middle of winter wouldn't have happened to a Mrs Croft, in all likelihood I can't imagine. So the average relative a commissioned officer wouldn't have known about the horrors.

Also, I think to examine Jane Austin's work for its content is perhaps missing the point. The storylines of all her books are frankly simplistic and narrow. It is the style and intellegence she brings to the page - the actual nuts and bolts of her writing that I enjoy and that makes her so extraordinary. To borrow a phrase of another poster, If she wrote the Telephone Directory I would read it.

Perhaps Lykren's Dad is more interested in themes than style.

Exactly my thoughts.