The NYTimes Caryn James celebrates the Jane Austen
Chic-lit Industrial Complex:
A few quotes:
"How did this early-19th-century novelist become the chick-lit,
chick-flick queen for today?"
(snip)
"Her ironic take on society is delivered in a reassuring, sisterly voice,
as if she were part Jon Stewart, part Oprah Winfrey. " (???)
(snip)
"And while Austen’s era, with its rigid code of social
rules, must have been repressive if you lived in it, when prettily depicted
on screen it can seem positively peaceful and stable, a respite from
today’s fraught, slippery world of quick hook-ups, divorce and family
counseling."
Um. Yeah. Repression sucks. Good thing it goes away "when prettily
depicted". And how did "family counseling" make its way here??
And the piece de repulsion:
"Marsha Huff, the president of the Jane Austen Society
of North America (like so many Janeites, she’s not an
academic; she’s a tax lawyer) points to the scene in
“Pride and Prejudice” in which Lady Catherine (Judi
Dench in the ’05 film), tries to bully Elizabeth into
giving Darcy up because she is his social inferior.
“Elizabeth reacts exactly the way we would react: she
is insulted, she’s indignant at the way this dinosaur
from another era would try to tell this intelligent,
beautiful young woman what to do,” Ms. Huff said in an
interview.
And however much society has changed, Austen’s heroines —
unlike the Brontës’ — deal with the believable, timeless
obstacles of class, money and
misunderstanding, which make her works
adaptable to any era. As Ms. Huff said:
“Everyone thinks she’s Elizabeth Bennet;
not everyone thinks she’s Jane Eyre.
Everyone knows a young woman trying to
decide if the guy she’s attracted to is
Mr. Right. Not everyonemeets a Mr. Right
who has a mad wife in the attic.”
*******************************************
..."dinasaur from another era"??? The tax lawyer must be drunk. And the
Brontes characters are just so...irrelevant, so not "believable." whatever
that means.
such a load of crap! As if Austen's novels are a girl's "how to" on
dealing with man-trouble. An Austen scholar of my acquaintance
(Hi A.B. M., PhD!) notes that as a woman author,
Austen’s place as a member of English
Literature’s canon is precarious, easily ghettoized and
trivialized. Chick-lit might taste nice, but it's not art. .
It's pathetic to see a female journo like
C James so gleefully piling onto the ignorance bandwagon.
Next thing ya know they'll be selling a Jane Austen Action Figure…
The ‘Big Three’ monotheisms of Christianity, Judaism and Islam are the subject of “Among the Disbelievers,” Daniel Lazare’s fascinating piece in this weeks’ Nation. Lazare provides a terrific overview of four recent atheist manifestos: The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins; God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens; Atheist Manifesto: The Case Against Christianity, Judaism; Islam by Michel Onfray and The Meaning of Life by Terry Eagleton.
Lazare takes a probing look at what he calls “the problem, more or less, confronting today’s reinvigorated atheist movement.”
As someone who is alarmed and angered at the rise of religious fundamentalism in the US and around the globe, I was nonetheless impressed with Lazare’s critique.
Filed under: academia
Historian Drew Gilpin Faust is Harvard’s first female president.
Harvard may be an elitist, absurdly over-worshipped compost heap for perpetuating privilege, still – I cant help celebrating.
I wish her well.
