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‘Longbourn’ and Pig Shit Realism

~ Flynn ~ 1 Comment

 

Longbourn

All the time I was reading Jo Baker’s “Longbourn” I had the sensation of not being able to decide if I liked it.  This is unusual;  feckless and tentative as I am in most realms of human activity, I am generally confident in my literary judgments.

The story, in case anyone  missed the large splash it made upon publication in 2014, is “Pride and Prejudice” from the viewpoint of the Bennets’ servants. A brilliant, can’t-miss idea. I like to imagine Ms. Baker, tormented by insomnia and casting around for her next idea for a novel, sitting up in bed.

HOLY SHIT! I’LL CALL IT ‘LONGBOURN!’ Continue reading →

‘Mrs. Engels’ and the Triumph of Voice

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It’s been a couple of weeks since I read “Mrs. Engels” by Gavin McCrea, but it’s stayed with me. The memory, not the actual book, which I immediately mailed to my brother-in-law upon completing, because it’s also the sort of work one feels compelled to share. In short, it was amazing. Continue reading →

Forget ’50 Shades of Grey.’ Go Read ‘Clarissa.’

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With the much-heralded release of the film version of the much-heralded book, it’s hard to avoid thinking about Fifty Shades of Grey, the work that has given fresh hope to a million unknown optimists writing self-published fanfiction, that made pornography respectable and brought bondage into the mainstream, and has become a touchstone for terrible prose. But this weekend I found myself instead thinking of something else; I found myself thinking of Clarissa. A book I read almost seven years ago and am unable to get past.

You want a story of dominance and submission? You want a rich, creepy, brilliant, controlling male lead? Robert Lovelace leaves Christian Grey eating his dust. And Clarissa Harlowe, handsome, clever and rich, but born in the wrong century and created by the wrong author, makes Anastasia Steele look more loser-ly and pathetic than she already is. There is drama, heartbreak, betrayal, drug use, Stockholm syndrome, cliffhangers and gender battles. As God is my witness, there’s everything.

This book is amazing. Why is it not better known? Continue reading →

On Rereading Anna Karenina

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I fulfilled my goal of finishing my revision of The Jane Austen Project — a crucial reason for my silence here. That was back in September, or maybe October, depending on how one defines “finish” and “revision,” but now it is, it is, it is. No longer mine entirely, I am in the process of letting go of it. Nobody explains, in books that tell you how to write a novel, what a problem that really is.

And I can’t help wondering, as I reread Anna Karenina once again, did Tolstoy have this problem? Continue reading →

Why I Love ‘The Way We Live Now’

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A mortifying admission, but I had never read anything by Anthony Trollope until last week.  My youthful hatred of Dickens cast a shadow over the entire Victorian era. Nor did it help that Trollope had written so many books, none universally acknowledged as drastically better than the others, so one could feel confident starting with that. It’s the Joyce Carol Oates problem, made worse (it must be acknowledged) by his being a 19th-century male. I expected — what? Sermons, sentimentality, one-dimensional female characters. What can I say? I was a fool. Continue reading →

Fanny Burney’s ‘Cecilia’: Blame It on Pride (and Prejudice)

~ Flynn ~ 4 Comments

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I’ve just finished this, Fanny Burney’s second novel, published 1782. It hurt like a toothache the whole time I was reading, yet I feel strangely bereft now that I am done.

People who complain that “Pride & Prejudice” lacks passion, a large group that includes not only Charlotte Bronte but also, apparently, the authors of “Pride & Promiscuity,” “Pride and Prejudice: The Wanton Edition” and “Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife,” should try reading “Cecilia.” Compared to it, “Pride & Prejudice,” with Darcy’s “fine, tall person, handsome features and noble mien” as well as Elizabeth’s “light and pleasing” figure and “fine eyes,” is like “Lady Chatterly’s Lover.”

But, really, anyone who likes “Pride & Prejudice,” a far larger group, should consider reading this work.  There are weird echoes of “Cecilia” all over “P&P,” not least the very title, an allusion to a comment late in “Cecilia” that everything that went wrong between the lovers could be attributed to the twin woes of PRIDE and PREJUDICE. (As is well known, P&P’s original title, “First Impressions,” had already been used by the time Jane Austen got around to finding a publisher in 1813.) “P&P,” like “Cecilia,” owes a debt to Samuel Johnson in its magnificent sentence structures, and explores how misunderstandings and status differences can thwart mutual attraction.

Unusually for a woman of the 18th century, Cecilia is wealthy in her own right, with (as we learn early on) £10,000 free and clear  from her parents and an estate from an uncle that assures her an additional yearly income of £3,000. She is also beautiful, kind and intelligent. And  an orphan! Continue reading →