Jane Austen's Boldest Novel Is Also Her Least Understood | Hacker News Reader

Jane Austen's Boldest Novel Is Also Her Least Understood

nytimes.com

97 pointslermontov16 comments

A book that helped me understand what's going on in Austen the best was titled "Jane Austen and the Fiction of Her Time". Jane Austen loved novels, but was also dissatisfied with what she saw as the flaws of a lot of the novels around her -- both in the plots (unrealistic situations or unrealistic characters), and with the message they were trying to present. So many of the situations are direct allusions to other novels, and many of the main messages are subtle and subversive.

One of the things pointed out about Mansfield Park is that although all ends well for the main characters, it's basically by accident. If Henry Crawford had just gone back to check on his steward, as he knew he should have, he never would have been snubbed by Julia; would never have been tempted by wounded vanity to win her back; would never have run off with her, putting himself completely out of Fanny's reach; and would, in the author's estimation, have won her over eventually. And if Henry hadn't run off with Julia, Mary would never have exposed her lack of principles to Edmund, and they would have been married shortly too.

Jane Austen loved novels, but was also dissatisfied with what she saw as the flaws of a lot of the novels around her

I always got the sense that she disliked the length and pacing of other books of her time. She has absolutely no qualms about moving the story from step to step with very little exposition in between. She’s just really dope, treats the reader in a very accelerated way.

Romance is corny stuff to write but she does it in such a cut throat, sharp and fast way that you don’t really get a chance to not get invested. Before you even realize what you’re reading, she already has you at the ball with the two characters dancing.

To put it shortly, she tells entire love stories in pamphlet sized books. Masterclass in brevity.

In Northanger Abbey we get an explicit reference to one of those books, The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe, which started the entire Gothic novel craze. Comparing the two is quite informative: Where Radcliffe describes the basic character traits over a page or two, followed by another page how fortunately this added up with the specific situation in life, Austen gives us a one-sentence-or-less description of the social characteristics of a character, maybe followed by a short remark on how this character deviated from what was to be expected from this. And, where Radcliffe's characters break into tears to assert their humanity, over and over again (something that can be still observed in Bram Stoker's Dracula, but thankfully much rarer), Austen's characters just chase their follies, which are more often than not a class marker. (If you thought modern times were car-crazy, just look at those gigs!)

In this sense, where characters are established by just dropping social position and economic status as sort of a blueprint, Jane Austen is a surprisingly materialist author. To paraphrase a well known quote, she turned Radcliffe from the head to the feet. ;-)

I've recently gotten into T Kingfisher (who writes fantasy, usually with strong romance elements). She is really good at getting me super invested in the characters very early on, and I think it's for similar reasons that Austen does - not so much the pacing of the plot, but how quickly she establishes that (i) this character is very relatable and (ii) there is significant tension between their personality and their living situation, so something has to give, and fast. Then it's just a matter of waiting with bated breath to see what gives and how soon - in some sense the books are very predictable in that you know you're getting your happily-ever-after, but the journey is truly the point.

> She has absolutely no qualms about moving the story from step to step with very little exposition in between. She’s just really dope, treats the reader in a very accelerated way.

I dunno, the pacing I always think was really weird, even though it clearly works. Most of the time, you don't even know who the main characters are until chapter 2 at a minimum. Read the opening lines of Persuasion, all about some arrogant fool of a baronet, and you're like, "Why is this so interesting?"

And then, usually it seems loads of stuff happens in the beginning that sets up the basic tension of the story, then a long middle where almost nothing seems to happen (but for some reason you're not bored), and then suddenly everything resolves at the end.

the most complex of the Austen rakes, destined to be "the nearest-run thing you ever saw in your life", according to another regency quip, HC was

https://www.commonreader.co.uk/p/jane-austens-rake-problem

I don't see that quip in that link? It seems to think that Mr. Elliot is the most dangerous of rakes, and I'm inclined to agree.

But there's an unexamined assumption in that piece that good characters should be rewarded and bad characters punished by the author. That's exactly the sort of thing that Austen hated. She wanted things to be things like real life, where adultery and cheating and lying and defying the law can bring you hundreds of millions of loyal followers and a second presidency.

Why was Henry not punished like Julia was? Because he owned land and she didn't. That's the beginning and end of it. It's unfair because society is unfair.

And it's not just men who get away with things. Lucy Steele lies and schemes and manipulates her way all the way through Sense and Sensibility, and is rewarded by being not only an heiress of a great fortune, but a favored daughter-in-law. The difference between Lucy and Julia aren't their morals -- Lucy is far less moral than Julia. She's just a lot smarter and more disciplined.

Ah.. realism you say? Elliott was not nearly as attractive (=less of a danger, even in the mind of the author, I venture-- its not a coincidence he is related to Anne! )

Otoh HC was (apparently) as reformable as a boy can get without actually being good = seductive

(Should have made clear that it's from Wellington, an admirer of Napoleon https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-meaning-of-Wellingtons-quo...)

Update: Austen could have gone with cool vs bad[0] but that wouldn't be drama would it (& she's been there: that business with Mr Darcy, quite cringe to modern readers no?)

[0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44423529

Aha! Mansfield Park has been my favourite, since the 1980s. Most Austen fans seem to dislike it, and see the central character as weak and insipid. But, I see it as about code switching and timidity, she's clearly an introvert being bullied by the family.

The intrusion of Caribbean wealth is slavery. Edmond should be more overtly concerned about his families wealth, although to be fair it was mainly dissenters who did this, not the recipients of a family living.

She's on the money for naval preferment. Without help, commoner middies didn't make the crucial step up towards post captain. And for preferment, sexual favours by a sister would be common.

It may be important to note that all of Austen's novels are set up and kept going by an essential flaw in the hero characters. And Fanny Price is the ultimate anti-hero: indeed, she is hardly a heroine, she doesn't act, at all, she has no arc, she just clings to the first thing she encounters. While the world is moving and swirling around her, she doesn't move at all, not for lack of opportunity, but as a character trait (and, at times, by sheer luck, as in the theatre episode, thus earning her uncle's regard). And, in the end, it's all for nothing: while she got everything, she may have wanted to embrace, and even more, she is untouched by it and (quite literally) still where she started. It's quite literally about first attachments, not just in the domain of romance (like in Sense and Sensibility), but to about everything. Or, rather, first possessions, as in the first room, she may call her own, the first person, she talks to, etc.

How Austen constructs a plausible environment for such a character and what she does with this world and its characters is quite astounding – and hilarious. And, as you said, there are actually serious topics discussed.

Even more astounding is maybe how modern adaptations try to render this as "how our quick and cunning girl stirs up that lame family and wins everything."

PS: As a literary stunt and challenge, the question, how can we do an entertaining and involving novel with an entirely inert heroine and protagonist?, isn't that dissimilar from Umberto Eco's chosen challenge, how can we do a who-done-it where the book is the murderer? (as seen in the Name of the Rose.) And Jane Austen masters the seemingly impossible quite impressively.

It's quite remarkable how postmodern Jane Austen's novels already are. See also Northanger Abbey, where she regularly breaks the 4th wall for a meta-discourse on literature and genres, just to involve the reader again and again, as if she had never ripped the veil – which isn't necessarily black, BTW.

(In this context, it may be also notable how Fanny Price’s apparently keen social observations are really a mirror of the rigorous views and forms conveyed in moral books as characterized by Austen and put up as a foil and antipode to the genre of novels in this meta-discourse, and laughed at in other novels, like in the characters of Mr. Collins and Mary Bennet in Pride and Prejudice. If not for other reasons, Fanny Price is an anti-heroine, just for her anti-novel-ness.)

Mrs Norris is also superbly well personified. She knows the worth of a roll of green baize. Her life and livelihood depends on it.

It's probably the best thing after the well-meaning social execution of Jane Fairfax, Emma's foil, by Emma's father for the exceptionally dangerous luck of having wet socks.

One of the minor subplot points in Whit Stillman's movie "Metropolitan" was a couple of the characters' debate over the merits of "Mansfield Park".

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