Just Jane

Do you know what I think is the most lucrative fan fiction going today? Jane Austen fan fiction. Every time I turn around there is some new book either about Jane’s rather open-to-speculation life (mysteries, for example, with her as the detective) or “fill ins” for her novels. Seriously, how many versions of Mr. Darcy before he met Elizabeth Bennet do we need? Yet they continue to sell and sell. I guess all this is to make up for that long period from mid-nineteenth to early twentieth centuries when her work was not much appreciated. To be fair, I’ve not read any of this, but it annoys me to no end that I slave away on fan fiction and all these women, writing essentially the same thing over and over, can reap the monetary benefits. (Admittedly, there was a period in my life when I read a bunch of those fluffy Regency romances, much of the naughtier intrigue going over my head, but I still retain one guilty pleasure from that period: The Devil’s Protection, which I own and occasionally re-read.)

I finally gave in and read some of this stuff, basically because the book was free. (And the marketing/cover people did an excellent job of making the book look appealing. Very beautifully-made book.) The author, Nancy Moser, has clearly marketed her book to the Christian book club crowd, which makes me a bit queasy honestly. But I gave the book a chance. She says in her author’s note at the end: I did not attempt to match the unique “voice” of Jane’s writing, only to hint at it. Indeed, as soon as I began reading the book I heard Anne Hathaway’s voice, not my conception of Jane Austen’s. That, I guess, is the book’s sin.

Speaking of Anne Hathaway, Moser’s book focuses much less on Jane’s early heartbreak with Tom Lefroy than Becoming Jane. Though Moser’s Jane waits for her unofficial fiancé for three years, she gets over him rather quickly. Yet it’s hard (for me, at least) not to feel sympathetic: Were those feelings misguided? Am I completely ignorant of what is real and what is false? No. I cannot be so naïve. I write about love every day. I recognize what it is and how it comes about. I cannot be mistaken about this. One desperately wants Jane’s liaisons to succeed, though the book seems to take the stance that if Austen married one of her suitors, she would never have produced her oeuvres. Who knows if this is true, though it certainly is a possibility. Putting the greater good above one’s personal happiness? Or just following a pre-ordained Divine path?

If I were Jane, would I have had the moral courage to reject a proposal at a crucial point in my life, even though I knew it would guarantee material security for my family? I sometimes wonder about the Regency manner of getting married, that is, assuming there’s a bit of choice in it: the only time for young women and men to really interact was at balls and other social events of the sort. Engagements were formed so quickly, yet it is claimed that many “fell in love” after marriage. I’ve read articles—and films, such as Mira Nair’s Monsoon Wedding—that seem to affirm that arranged marriages do work. But for every success, I wonder if there was a Bertha Mason Rochester in the attic.

The book is certainly grounded in historical fact, more, perhaps, than was Becoming Jane. It is told in first-person, present-tense in diary fashion, which is sometimes disconcerting when events jump from one year to the next. Also disconcerting is the generally modern tone but the author’s insistence on using spelling like “chuse” and other weird anachronisms. Though I enjoy the detail to which Moser goes into about the everyday Austen routine, there are perplexing sections that go on and on about such minutiae as gardening and embroidery. Perhaps the most heartening part of the book is once Jane finally gets writing again (I understand writers’ block, but for sixteen years?!) and her books get published, mostly to widespread acclaim. However, this is the shortest section of the book! I’d like to know more about the process, her editing First Impressions into Pride and Prejudice. Though Austen was quite prolific in those last few years of her life, looking at Persuasion makes me wonder, if she’d been as long-lived as her mother, what kinds of work she’d produce in her maturity.

Occasionally hints of the real Jane Austen (IMHO) will flit through. In general I feel she was probably more snappish than Moser portrays her. What writer can’t give her the shout-out at this: If only people realized that everything they do, everything they say, is fodder for my stories. And for every slight, every double entendre, every bit of keen wit (or lack of it), my pen extends its thanks. Of course this is “bio-fiction,” where the author tries to fill in emotions and thought-processes for certain actions (fan fiction, basically). For example, I can feel Moser straining to explain the fact Austen sold the copyright of Pride and Prejudice to her publisher, earning just her return and then him gaining all the rest of the profits. Also, her insistence on being credited as “A Lady” until her identity was leaked.

Yet, as much as I gripe about the book, I admit parts of it are very pleasant. Any aspiring writer, especially a female one, is going to feel the way Moser’s Austen does: I slip Father’s letter under the bow of First Impressions. The word Declined peeks back at me, teasing me. (Though this rather empathetic moment is ruined by Moser adding the melodramatic, I close the lid of the trunk. The lid of my dreams. This happens all too often.) Though Jane’s life is generally spared many of the upheavals of other writers (comparing her life with the Brontës, while not apples and oranges, is still sufficiently disparate to elicit comment) she did lose her beloved father, a man she was going to marry, and several good friends. She lived in Bath though she hated it (the Jane Austen Centre in Bath does a good job of smoothing over that fact). It can’t have been easy for her and Cassandra to remain unmarried in the climate of the day; it’s difficult enough today.

The pull quote on the back of the book claims that Unable to find her own Mr. Darcy, she created him. Well, yes—that’s sometimes what we writers do. I saw a program on TV in the UK last year about the modern woman’s hang up with the romantic men of literature, the principal being Mr. Darcy and particularly Colin Firth’s portrayal. Now, sure, who wouldn’t prefer Mr. Darcy to Mr. Collins or Mr. Wickham or Mr. Elliot or Mr. Elton? (Personally I like Captain Wentworth from Persuasion best, and Willoughby from Sense and Sensibility charms though I think he would make a crap husband.) But what is the obsession with Mr. Darcy? It reflects rather negatively on the modern woman if she wants a cold, arrogant man she can mould into a mate (who’s conveniently rich) rather than the always-amiable Mr. Bingley. (To be fair, I’m attracted to Heathcliff so what does that say about my messed-up psyche?) Maybe we’ll give the modern woman the benefit of the doubt and say Darcy’s the more interesting character, with the most room for growth, and leave it at that.