Have you actually read Jane Austen’s novels? When I read what you wrote it made me think that you might be ignorant of her literature. In many places they are very humorous because she emphsizes the ridiculous in many of her characters. The characters are very true to life.

Thanks for your opinion — I wrote that over two years ago and would write it much different today (actually, I wouldn’t write it at all today). At the time, I would have meant “good” by “objective” artistic standards. My definition now might be a little different, but I still think there are standards to measure things.

You said, “I am of the persuasion that each person must decide what he or she feels is “good.’” I think believing that is dangerous. Hitler obviously felt what he did was good. Murderers and rapists do too. Does that make them right? No. Goodness must be based more on simply feeling. There must be some kind of standard that transcend our feelings. But possibly you were meaning “good” only in aesthetics instead of morality, although I think there must be some kind of aesthetic standards as well.

Anyway, that so many readers enjoy Austen makes me say that she must be good in some way. My main point with that rant was to say I didn’t think she was as good as some touted. I may be wrong.

I would also like to say that I was not meaning that she is “simply propped up by ‘feminist monsters’,” but rather that *some* do so. And also only some feminists are monsters — I should have been more careful with my language there. In fact, I’ll just take monsters out, since that seems inappropriate to me now.

Sincerely,

Josh Sowin

To me, a book has more clout when it can sell without an author’s name. Unfortunately, many readers chose books based upon the author (evidenced by the fact that on most books now, the author’s name is printed larger than the title). Austen’s books sold because they were and still are worth the read.

No, they don’t satisfy the A.D.D. reader who can only be grabbed by a fast plot and graphic description (not that there is anything wrong with those). Austen’s writing is more subtle. Her plots are rather generic in there ultimate form, but so were Shakespeare’s(he stole some of his from other playwrights). What set Shakespeare above others was the words he used and the ways in which he put them together. The same is so for Austen. She used deliberate description to shape her characters and pervasive wit to hold the reader’s attention. The reader waits to read what the next one-liner is going to be. I have never read another author who was able to write socially acceptable insults that don’t give offense until further reflection. To those who understand the humor, Austen’s novels are full of laughs.

What most prompted me to make this response was the assertion that Austen is “not as good as people thinks she is.” I would like to know who decides what is “good.” I am of the persuasion that each person must decide what he or she feels is “good.” Saying that Austen is simply propped up by “feminist monsters” insults an entire fan base. Apparently I and other Austen fans like me are not intelligent to see past what some HE-WOMAN is feeding us about what to read. This may not have been the original intent of your assessment, but that is how I read it, and it insulted me.

A bigger, less pejorative question, is what makes anything a classic book, or any writer a classic writer? What makes us assign some texts as compulsory reading on English Literature courses? Who decides?

A follow-on from this is to ask, as you read any book, not just whether you like it or identify with it, but whether it does anything that other books do not do. In Austen’s case, you answer this question in your write-up, but wrap it in negative statements: men could read Austen if they wanted to read about women. She wrote women well, believably, and realistically (and her men were pretty inoffensive). For the first time in English Literature, middle class women could read about themselves. Who needs to make anything political of that? If, to coin a phrase, “We read to know we are not alone” then Austen welcomed in a group of people who had been excluded before her books. If we read to explore new worlds, she provided a window onto a world that men could not know before – that of women. Whether you like her writing or not, isn’t it an achievement that she did that?

By “modern novel” literary historians mean that it was the first to treat of modern themes and to be structured in the way that novels would be structured. This would usually be credited to Daniel Defoe, most famous for Robinson Crusoe. Cervantes is credited with writing the first novel (though not in English), and Bunyan is usually credited as a major development en route to the modern novel.

Aphra Benn is normally credited as being the first successful female novelist in England, although she was more famous for her plays. From the feminist literary theory point of view, credit is always given to women who published under their own (female) names. Writing was not seen as a respectable profession, and certainly not for the daughter of a clergyman, as Austen was. The next female novelist in the feminist literary theory canon was George Eliot, who, clearly, published under a male pseudonym. Austen was also one of the first female novelists to be “a bestseller”, and her work was read by men and women.

It is debatable whether Austen would define herself or her writing as “feminist”. The concept as we understand it today did not exist. However, she is generally regarded as having written fairly accurately about the world she inhabited – that of the English rural middle classes. She is also noteworthy for only writing scenes to which a woman of her class would be privy – male to female and female to female scenes, but no male to male scenes, which she could not possibly know about. Contrast Austen’s men with Dickens’ women to get a fair comparison of her ability to write believable characters. The ability to write men well was a stumbing block for female writers, which is often credited with preventing them from selling as well as Austen.

The definition of any classic, at its simplest, is that it withstands the test of time. Some classics are read merely because they appear on standard reading lists, but most survive because the authors have created something timeless, with which people from later generations can identify. This is true of Austen. If you don’t like her work, then that is fair enough, but it is narrow-minded and pejorative to dismiss a classic author’s popularity as being politically motivated – especially without having read a wider range of opinion. It is factually inaccurate to say that only political feminists, or feminist literary theorists, or even women, like or appreciate Austen – in the same way that it would be factually inaccurate to say that only men like action films. It is obviously a false argument, since before the twentieth century in the UK women were legally restricted from owning property – technically, and with the exception of wealthy widows, a woman’s “property” was either her father’s or her husband’s. This was how Austen was forced to sell or give away most of her library when her father decided to move – it was simply not an option for her to set up house on her own with her earnings from her writing.