The Jane Austen Book Club

Why do we still read Jane Austen? I asked myself that question when I started reading Northanger Abbey recently. Within the first chapter I came across these memorable passages: 

"No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy, would have supposed her born to be an heroine. Her situation in life, the character of her father and mother; her own person and disposition, were all equally against her."

"'Catherine grows quite a good-looking girl, -- she is almost pretty today,' were words which caught her ears now and then; and how welcome were the sounds! To look 'almost' pretty, is an acquisition of higher delight to a girl who has been looking plain for the first fifteen years of her life, than a beauty from her cradle can ever receive."

"She had reached the age of seventeen, without seeing one amiable youth who could call forth her sensibility...This was strange indeed! But strange things may be generally accounted for if their cause be fairly searched out. There was not one lord in the neighborhood; no -- not even a baronet. There was not one family among their acquaintance who had reared and supported a boy accidentally found at their door -- not one young man whose origin was unknown. Her father had no ward, and the squire of the parish no children.

But when a young lady is to be a heroine, the perverseness of the forty surrounding families cannot prevent her. Something must and will happen to throw a hero her way."

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Despite the fact that she was writing two hundred years ago and never ventured more than a county or two away from her home, Jane Austen's writing is timeless. She understood human nature and her ironic take on society can be applied to the world we live in today. True, we first need to immerse ourselves in her 19th-century world and get used to period details such as barouches, the Entailment property law, Regency War officers, and the healing waters of Bath. But once we get comfortable, we realize we are in the company of a wise and funny writer who never seems dated. A master storyteller, Austen writes about heroines who hold out for love, despite the economic realities of their lives and, after a series of obstacles thrown their way, always find it. We forget how smart, funny and ironic she is until we pick up one of her books after not having read her for a while. This is what happened to me last week when I spent some time getting reacquainted with Jane Austen at the Hotel Bel-Air.

Anne Hathaway as Jane Austen in the 2007 film Becoming Jane

When I heard that Professor Charles (Lynn) Batten of UCLA would be speaking about Jane Austen, I immediately signed up. Professor Batten is one of the wittiest and most knowledgeable experts on Jane Austen in Los Angeles and is a well-known and well-loved lecturer on the topic. I have heard him speak many times. And so last week I found myself at the beautiful Hotel Bel-Air listening to him talk about Northanger Abbey. This was part of the lecture series The Jane Austen Book Club put on by Literary Affairs.

We learned that Jane Austen was a fan of the 18th-century writer Samuel Johnson and, in the same tradition as Johnson, wanted to give the reader truthful representations of nature. The characters in Northanger Abbey are obsessed with Gothic romances which, unlike Jane Austen's novels, are unrealistic. The Mysteries of Uldopho by Anne Radcliffe is one of those romances that Catherine Morland is reading. Northanger Abbey is about the education and the maturing of Catherine Morland who will learn that the life she is living is not the life from a Gothic romance. It turns out that once she accepts that, she becomes the heroine of her own life. Not surprisingly, Catherine Morland is one of those Austen characters we fall in love with. I am now reading Northanger Abbey with the fascinating insights provided by Lynn Batten.

Next month -- Sense & Sensibility!

I am having such a good time immersing myself in the world of barouches, the Entailment and Regency War officers!

Photos two and three via Pinterst