Merry Wanderer of the Night:
jane austen

Some argue that Fanny Price is the least likable of Austen's heroines. I can see how people might think this. She is a little preachy and annoying at times, but I still felt I found a connection with Fanny. Mansfield Park is about a girl who is separated from her family to grow up with her wealthy aunt and uncle. She is never treated like family. It is constantly acknowledged that she is separate from her cousins. One of her four cousins, Edmund, does treat her kindly. This of course makes Fanny like him which later grows into a romantic interest. Another man takes in interest in Fanny however, and much to Fanny's dislike. His name is Henry Crawford and he goes from trying to win Fanny's interest to becoming a bit desperate for her love. Fanny stays away from him because she has seen his actions toward other women, even though it upsets everyone around her that she is not interested.

Throughout the book I felt like Fanny was really struggling with what everyone wanted her to do and what she herself wanted to do. She is about eighteen in this book and I felt like her experience was really similar to most eighteen-year-old girls in today's world. Everyone is telling her what to do but she always sticks with what she wants. I really liked that about Fanny, and I feel like she is heroine for today's world. It's easy to give in, but you don't have to.

This novel also offers from very interesting views of the clergy at the time since that is Edmund's chosen profession. He is constantly arguing for the merit of the profession and I found this quote particularly interesting:

It is impossible that your own observation can have given you much knowledge of the clergy. You can have been personally acquainted with very few of a set of men you condemn so conclusively. You are speaking what you have been told at your uncle's table.

Okay so this quote isn't that interesting about the actual clergy, but I do think it's interesting in relationship to Fanny's moral questions (as well as another good lesson for all of us). This quote alone really make me like Edmund even though he is kind of saying it for his own favor. It is true that we make a great deal of our "observations" based on what other people say about them. If someone says a sandwich isn't good I'm not compelled to go try it myself, I choose to stay away from it. So, I liked this book. But my suggestion would be that if you haven't read most of Austen's other works to wait on this one. I haven't read Emma or Persuasion yet and I wish I would have tackled one of them before this one.

This novel earns a C.

Pub. Date: April 2003 (1814)
Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)
Format: Paperback, 480 pp

This is my first book for the Jane Austen Challenge.

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I was planning on reading a lot of Jane Austen this year anyway, so it only makes sense for me to sign up for Haley of A Life (And Lies) Jane Austen Challenge. There are three levels and I will be signed up for the middle one, or the the Lover level. This challenge runs from January 1, 2010 to December 31, 2010. So since I'm at the lover level that means I have to read four books by Jane Austen and four spoofs, sequels, prequels, re-writes, etc.

Here is my list:

1. (J.A.) Mansfield Park
2. (J.A.) Emma
3. (J.A.) Persuasion
4. (J.A.) Pride and Prejudice
5. The Jane Austen Book Club
6. Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict
7. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
8. Mr. Darcy, Vampyre

Stephanie Barron's Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor

is the first novel of the Jane Austen Mystery series. Jane attends the wedding of her friend, Isobel Payne at the beginning of the novel. The wedding is by no means normal though, as the groom dies directly after it. He is an older, wealthy gentleman and it turns out that Isobel did not actually love him. Instead she was interested in his nephew, Fitzroy Payne. After her husband's death Isobel receives a letter that accuses Fitzroy and herself of adultery and murder, someone has noticed their feelings. Isobel is terrified of these accusations and asks her friend, Jane Austen, to help her. Jane becomes quite the sleuth, sneakily asking people questions and taking items off dead people to answer questions. She runs into several problems with this though, as it seems that everyone who can say anything about the supposed murder is also murdered.

I was little skeptical about this one, the idea of Jane Austen as a detective was interesting to me but I could help but wondering how it could be done. Barron does it, pretty much. I felt satisfied by this book, although there were times that I couldn't help but chuckle a bit. When Jane reaches up the murdered maid's dress to pull out a cryptic letter I couldn't help but imagine blood getting all over her gown. I'm not sure I really felt like the main character was so much Jane Austen as I felt she was a Victorian woman. The language worked well though, it was a great combination of Austen language and detective novel.

If you are a Jane Austen fan I think you will enjoy the novel, which is really the main question we ask when we read these things, right? If you are not a Jane Austen fan, well then I don't really know why you would want to read this and I also want to know what is wrong with you? (Just kidding, I actually wasn't a Jane Austen fan until this year. I actually kind of hated her, shhh).

Pub. Date: May 2008

Publisher: Random House Publishing Group

Format: Paperback, 304pp

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Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey

is all about my favorite kind of novel: the gothic romance. What makes this novel special though is that it pokes fun at the gothic romance but is still enjoyable for a gothic lover like myself. Our heroine is 17 year-old Catherine Morland, lover of great gothic thrillers. She is visiting Bath with friends Mr. and Mrs. Allen, which is where she makes friends with Isabella Thorpe and finds the two love interests of the novel, Henry Tilney and John Thorpe. The Tilney family invites Catherine to stay with them at their home, Northanger Abbey. Catherine expects Northanger Abbey to be like the great ancient and dark abbeys in the books she reads. She is easily persuaded by Henry Tilney that the home actually does inhabit all the creepiness she expects. She convinces herself that General Tilney had a hand in his wife's death and searches her room and the rest of the abbey for any clue that will tell her the truth. She spends sleepless nights wondering and letting her fears get the best of her. Of course there is a wild storm outside to accompany all of this. Henry makes Catherine realize that she is ridiculous, and that life and art do not always inspire each other. Gothic novels are meant to be thrilling because they are a diversion from life.

This novel is definitely a coming of age story, which I enjoyed a great deal. It's very different from the other novels I have read by Austen because it mainly about Catherine and not the other characters, although they do move along her story. Catherine is so naive and I felt myself cringing at some of her thoughts. She is completely oblivious to the fact that John Thorpe is courting her and to Isabella Thorpe's bitchy motives. The novel is written in such a way that you can see all the stupid things Catherine thinks but it is obvious that she doesn't know they are stupid. It's not all her fault though, obviously she is young and John Thorpe does not help matters. He plays with the Tilney's minds and leads them to think very different things about Catherine than are actually true.

I liked this one. I felt like it dealt a great deal with perception, which is a common theme in many of Austen's novels. My favorite part was the way the ride home from Northanger Abbey looks so different from the ride there because she realizes that everything she saw on the way there was a working of her imagination. I sympathized with Catherine when she began to realize that everything she thought about the world is... wrong. Don't you hate that? The novel ended a little too tidy for me, but that is a common complaint with Austen.

Pub. Date: February 2008 (Reissue)
Publisher: Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
Format: Mass Market Paperback, 256pp

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Quirk Classics, the publisher of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance - Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem!

and Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters

is coming out with a new book March 23, 2010 called Dawn of the Dreadfuls. It is a prequel to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and will tell how Elizabeth Bennett achieves the character in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

I have not read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies so I am not exactly sure what to expect in the prequel but I am excited for it nonetheless. I am reading Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters though, so I know the kind of attitude to expect. These books are playful and fun, although they do move away from some of the main concepts in the originals.

There has been a lot of discussion about the Quirk Classics books. Many people feel that they are cheap because they are ripping off books that are already famous to secure their own success. Some people have said that they feel the books are thrown together and the insertions of zombies or sea monsters doesn't feel complete. I see the merit in these arguments, but I do like Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters so far, I feel like it's a nice break in my pretty serious and dense reading schedule. I'll say more about that in my review of the book next week, so check back soon!

Has anyone else read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies or have strong thoughts on Quirk Classics?

I've really been enjoying Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters

by Ben H. Winters and Jane Austen. Since I haven't finished it yet but am in an Austeny mood this morning I thought I'd share the book trailer. Hopefully I'll get a book review up next week but for now happy parody!

On a whim I went to one of my favorite used bookstores with a few friends today and found two books that I think will make my Victorian-Lit obsessed self very happy.

The first is Selected Letters by Jane Austen. I used to hate Jane Austen, even the Pride and Prejudice movie with Kiera Knightley (oh the horror!), but after reading Sense and Sensibility for class I'm starting to come around to her. Even though the basis of this blog is reading NOT for class and for enjoyment, it is really amazing how differently you see a book when you read it in a group.

The second is Disorderly Conduct by Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, subtitle: Visions of Gender in Victorian America. I just about peed my pants when I saw this book because you can't believe how incredibly difficult it is to find books about the Victorian period in America. I also see that the book goes for over thirty dollars on Amazon and I got it for under five, so that alone makes it worthwhile.

You can look forward to reviews of these books in the coming weeks!