the Wednesday reading post, now actually on Wednesday

[kindkit]

Currently reading: In a sudden leap of genre and period, I'm now re-reading Jane Austen. I'm currently most of the way through Emma, which I used to love. I'm finding myself impatient this time around both with the length--about 50 pages of Miss Bates's and Mrs. Elton's dialogue longer than it needs to be--and with Emma herself. She's such a snob! And the narrative completely affirms her snobbery and only criticizes her for not being snobbish enough in certain instances. In her very strong sense of her own high position, she reminds me of Lady Catherine de Bourgh.


Just finished: Pride and Prejudice, hence my comparison of Emma to Lady Catherine. My favorite Austen, in part because Elizabeth is rewarded for her wit and intelligence. Unlike Emma, she's not shown to be in need of a man's moral tutelage, and unlike Eleanor in Sense and Sensibility, she's not an exemplar of more traditionally female virtues like patience and self-sacrifice.


What I'm reading next: Sense and Sensibility, probably. Maybe Northanger Abbey after that, although I'm not hugely keen on it. The one time I read Mansfield Park I loathed it, so that'll probably be the end of my Austen re-read.

I don't know the literature of Austen'a era very well--does anyone have recommendations for roughly contemporary (to Austen) novels? I'm especially interested in those that, like Austen's, show the culture of the time. And is there such a thing as a Jane Austen of men's lives? That is, a writer who explores men's social and domestic world, focusing on private concerns and emotions rather than on fantastic adventures? I should note that I'm only interested in literature from the period, not later reimaginings such as Wuthering Heights, and certainly not modern historical novels. (No offense to historical novels, they're just not what I want to read right now.)

Comments

[likeadeuce]

Let me know if you get any good recs for Georgian/Regency writers... Troloppe is maybe the closest to 'male Austen' but he's much later.

I know Fanny Burney is supposed to be the closest forerunner to Austen (I haven't read her, though I have Evelina on my Kindle. . .), and Mrs. Gaskell came after her (though I've only read North & South and thought it suffered by comparison, some of her other novels are more domestic, I think. But I'm not sure who Austen's more precise contemporaries would have been, and how much of their work has survived (though free ebooks for public domain books may make tracking them down easier than it used to be. . .)

[likeadeuce]

And a comment here reminded me of Maria Edgeworth as an Austen contemporary, and I went and found this Amazon review of Belinda, which makes it sound AMAZING (if ultimately frustrating in some ways):

'Besides this being as readable as Jane Austen, this book is witty and intelligent. It raises thought provoking questions about gender roles and transgression that suggest that Edgeworth was not an ordinary woman. Unfortunately, like many other 18th C. novels, the book ends with all the usual conventions intact. The women who cross dress (and the man who cross-dresses!) are returned to their spheres and/or married. Don't get me wrong though, this book is quite innovative. I don't know of many literary women having duels and stepping in iron traps that cut up their legs. Also particularly interesting is Edgeworth's treatment of colonialism: there is a cross-racial marriage that is entirely sanctioned. And yet the thought of the heroine marrying a creole is not approved. It is much better for her to marry an Englishman in the parliament. This is a delightful book that would entertain romantics and scholars. I would like to think that I am both, though.'

[kindkit]

Okay, that sounds entirely awesome. Must check Project Gutenberg.

[likeadeuce]

I don't know of many literary women having duels and stepping in iron traps that cut up their legs.

How could that NOT pique someone's curiosity!?