Monday, June 30, 2008

Jane Austen Confession...

This confession is slightly less serious than the last time I made a confession. I am 37 years old, love romantic literature (as in the genre of romantic literature, not books covered in Fabio...blech!), and I've never...I've never...gulp....I've never read any of Jane Austen's novels.

(Collective gasp goes up from the throngs...or not)

Seriously, I LOVE me some Jane Austen movies. Sense and Sensibility, with Emma Thompson, Hugh Grant, Kate Winslet, and Alan Rickman is one of my favorites. When Elinor discovers that Edward is, in fact, not married, and collapses into a chair from happiness, I feel her utter joy.

However, having said that, for some reason in all my years of reading hundreds of books, I have neglected to actually read any of her novels. That was taken care of over the past few days. I decided that I needed to read her novels in the order in which she wrote them...not, however, in which they were published. So, since that was the criteria, I started with Northanger Abbey. I absolutely adored it. I think maybe I found myself in the character of Catherine because she was so ordinary. The situations and misunderstandings she found herself in, I could see myself getting into.

Now, since I am officially a part of the Jane Austen fan club (okay, maybe not officially, but whatever), I figured I should change my style of writing to match hers. Let me give an example of a before-reading-Austen sentence and an after-reading-Austen sentence:

Before: She was upset.

After: Her emotional fortitude, having been met with such incomprehensible dissatisfaction, unknown to her before this moment of her being, was severely struck with such unhappiness as to make her countenance unable to give any other indication of her feelings but complete and utter sadness.

On second thought, just trying to come up with that many words for one sentence has made me very tired. I gotta go lay down...

Sense and Sensibility is next on my list...I can't wait!

6 comments:

I am Mom said...

That was really cute....I am too a forever friend but never read - fan. Im reading my first Jane Austen - Emma...I will try Northhanger Abbey next!

Kat said...

Hey, what's wrong with Fabio books? Naaaaaaawwwwww, just kiddin' :) Ya know, I just don't know if I could get through all the "language" of a Jane Austen novel. Although I did make it through Liz Curtis Higgs' Scottish dialect in her Thorn In My Heart trilogy. Hmmmmmm. Maybe I should read some Jane?

Debbie said...

I want to like Jane Austen because that seems to be the thing to do, but I haven't seen any of the movies or read any of the books either. YOur post is inspiring and that last paragraph is huh-sterical!

Anonymous said...

Oh how I wish I had time to read... Susie H~

Sarah Mae said...

I admire you. I tried to read a couple of her books and I just couldn't get through them - the language made me tired and I had to work way to hard. Perhaps I'll try again some other time, but for now I'll just stick to absolutely adoring the movies! (Sense and Sensibility is my favorite, with the A & E Pride and Prejudice in second).

Kitty Scraps said...

Major Janeite here. She was simply brilliant, a keen observer of human nature and family relationships. I adore her. I've found her books to be the only books aside for the Bible that I can read over and over again. I get lost in the beauty of words no longer in our daily vocabularly as well as the manners we rarely see displayed today. I've so far read and re-read atleast twice, Pride & Prejudice, Sense & Sensibility, and Persuasion, talk about the greatest letter ever written declaring one man's love for a woman and that would be Captain Frederick Wentworth's writing to Miss Anne Elliot, "...You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own, than when you almost broke it eight years and a half ago..." I swear my heart stops each time I read that part! Yes, I'm a serious Jane Austen geek! Love your post!