On Reading Jane Austen as an Adult

Senior Year of College

Anyone who knows me well probably knows what a Jane Austen fan I am.  :-)  It all started in eighth grade when Pride and Prejudice was one of my reading books.  While I thoroughly enjoyed it, it wasn't until a year or two later when I saw the 1996 BBC movie version (the really long one!) that I started becoming obsessed.   Mom wasn't into Austen herself; she'd chosen the book from a recommended list or something, so I thought I was basically alone in my reveries.  

Then I got to college, where Mr. Darcy was the most popular man on the hall during intervisitation.  It was thrilling to meet so many girls who shared my excitement, and through the discovery of the Republic of Pemberley website, I found hours of distraction from homework awaiting me.  At some point, I found a lot of Pride and Prejudice graphics, etc. on the internet and completely Austen-ized my laptop with P&P wallpapers, screensavers, icons, pointers, and sounds.  (I set "Other way Mr. Collins!" as my error beep, and it eventually drove me nutty when I was struggling with a Mathematica assignment!)  I read more of her novels over the summers and borrowed DVD adaptations from our campus library for Friday nights.  I tried to trim my straw hat to make it like a Regency-era bonnet, and started sewing a dress and apron in Regency style.  And, of course, I longed more than ever to be married to a dashing young man.

Through all of this, Mom helped me with my sewing projects and bought me some of the movies for Christmas.  But she also included some wise warnings.  "Life isn't really like that, you know."  While most of me bucked back, I know, I know!  Otherwise, I wouldn't be in college right now.  I'd be married!  And my future husband doesn't have to own a huge estate in England; he just has to be godly!, part of me saw deeper into what she was saying.  I looked back on my freshman year and realized that some of my "Darcy-mania" had been sinful idolatry.  Even at the time, I realized that I spent way too much time thinking about Jane Austen every day. 

As life changed, my fervor subsided.  Now, I believe, I understand Mom's concerns more than I did before.  How realistic is it for a young woman to get even one unanticipated marriage proposal?  Yet for Jane Austen's characters, it is something of a regular occurrence.  Of course, every single book is a romance which ends with a wedding, and in real life, the wedding is just the beginning!  Real young women today can't (and shouldn't!) spend all their time drawing, playing the piano, walking across the countryside and and going on journeys.  They have a lot to prepare for in their lives ahead!  

Mom was also one of the few people I know who openly didn't like Elizabeth Bennett.  She thought that Elizabeth was pert where she should have been respectful.  It's interesting to note how many of Austen's heroines have very weak, silly parents, where they have parents in the picture at all.  Elizabeth, Emma, Elinor Dashwood, and Anne Elliot, at least, are all portrayed as much more sensible than the parents they have and much more aware of what is good for themselves. 

Granted, none of the novels are truly bad.  In very general terms, every book's rogue comes to personal misery in time and marriage is exalted.  The heroines themselves often learn character-lessons by their own mistakes.  Compared with the popular literature being written today, Jane Austen is probably quite harmless.  Still, for an obsessed reader like me, there was the very real danger of being influenced by my heroine friends.  In a girls' group discussion about books at our church's recent youth retreat, the mom who was leading warned her listeners not to let themselves lie on their pillows at night and fantasize about heroes from any book, Austen included. 

And so, I remain a fan, but mostly a fan who still prefers the Regency style of dress and decorating above most others.  I have much bigger things to occupy my mind now.  :-) I know from experience that real romance is better than what one reads about.  And, in a way, it's a relief to be on the post-wedding side of the story--the side that Jane Austen herself never saw.