Alex's Reviews > Sense and Sensibility

"Why should I read Jane Austen?" asked my wife. I've read all of Jane Austen now - this was my final one - so I was ready to answer.

The 1800s were all about a shift from Romantic to Realist literature, I said. Romantic novels are full of telepathy and crazy ladies in attics, and bizarre plot contrivances, and orphans who turn out to be the long-lost sons of the noblemen who happened to be acquainted with pretty ladies. Only toward the end of the century did it occur to authors like George Eliot and Gustave Flaubert to write plots that were plausible in the real world. Jane Austen alone, I said, writing way back in the 18teens - before the great Romantic masterpieces by the Brontes, Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas - seemed to predict realism. Her plots were (largely) realistic; her characters recognizable humans. It's astonishing to read her in context; she seems to be writing in the movement past the movement that hasn't even flowered yet.

"But I don't care about context," said my wife: "Context is for nerds. I'm only interested in reading books that are entertaining now, to me."

That kindof threw me for a loop.

Because Austen does feel old-fashioned. The other shift in the 1800s had to do with morals. Novels, generally aimed at young well-to-do ladies, were marketed as prescriptive: they served both as entertainment and as guides for how to behave, and that meant that they were often snobby and prudish. It was, again, not 'til later that writers like Thomas Hardy and Edith Wharton started to challenge the status quo instead of enforcing it. And Austen wasn't ahead of her time here: she was a merciless status quo enforcer.

In Sense & Sensibility, sense wins. Of the two sisters - steady, diligent Elinor Dashwood (sense) and sensitive, spazzy Marianne (sensibility, which in those times meant sensitivity) - Marianne holds your interest, but Elinor drives the plot. And in the end, (view spoiler)[Marianne (in a bummer common to many Victorian novels) marries Colonel Mustard Brandon, a man she's been completely indifferent to until the last five pages. The primary relationship in the novel, honestly, is the steadily growing respect and trust between Brandon and Elinor, who would be well suited to each other, both being sensible and boring. You'd be forgiven for feeling like they got their pairings wrong. But, then, here's Austen the realist: Brandon, with his fortune, can afford to pick the prettier one, and men have been known to do so. (hide spoiler)]

Along the way Austen is merciless to women of slightly lower class than her protagonists - notably Lucy Steele, who's (view spoiler)[secretly engaged to Edward Ferrars. (hide spoiler)] To be fair, she's merciless to everyone else too, like snobbish, insipid Lady Middleton. But still: this kind of social moralizing hasn't aged well, and Austen comes off as kindof a dick. That quote that opens Pride & Prejudice,

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

She's kinda kidding / not kidding about that; she says it tongue in cheek but it is in fact the plot of most of her books, and taken as a given. Her novels are often about the dangers of falling in love with someone slightly above or below one's station. They warn of the dangers of charming young men. They suggest that perhaps the boring, older, stolid gentleman in possession of a good fortune might be a better choice.

She can be a little boring. There's not a ton of plot to her books. A few people fall in love; there are complications; most of the complications are resolved.

So, "Why read Jane Austen?" I don't really have an answer. I like her characters. They're human and relatable, flawed, "almost pretty." (Her female characters, that is. Her male characters are generally defined by their manners, incomes and illegitimate children.) They remind me that the basic concerns of humans - whom to spend time with, where to get one's money - are always the same. Now we call our Colonel Brandons "settling," but it's the same choice.

Austen is funny and perceptive. But if her novels feel familiar, you could choose to read a more recent, familiar novel - one of the millions that owe a debt to Austen - one that doesn't force you to sit through endless card games you don't know how to play, or know the difference between a barouche and a post chaise.

So my wife quit Emma after 50 pages and read The Marriage Plot instead. I was unable to convince her or myself that there's a screaming need to read Jane Austen. Can you think of one? I'd be happy to hear about it.