The Jane Austen Book Club (2005) - Plot & Excerpts
I do love Fowler's work. But I have to say I found this book a disappointment.The story concerns the members of a Jane Austen book club--five women and one man--who meet to discuss the books. The structure is thus roughly divided into six months, and each month one of the people leads the discussion while Fowler interweaves that person's life story into the discussion, often punctuated by quotes from Austen's books. The prose is good, with a few eye-blinks (My favorite line, from the Jocelyn section: "We are not the saints dogs are, but mothers are expected to come a close second." One of the eye-blinks, during Prudie's section: "Lisa was a sweet girl who wanted to be liked by everyone. With luck she would survive until college, when being likable became a plausible path to that." To what?)--but the tone, overall, stays the same.Kelly Link is acknowledged as a beta-reader; when I read the third section, and found yet again the tone was still the same, I realized the tone, the structural weaving, all made me feel like this story was somehow channeling Kelly Link. There are times when Link, at least to my eye, seems to impose a monotone voice on her wonderful structural experiments.The real problem, I realized, was arrived at during that same Prudie section, when we had quotes from Mansfield Park interspersed through the text. Sometimes the quote seemed to echo back from the text, most of the time it didn't, but either way, every single quote, all of them known so very well I could peg them immediately, forced my mind back into the far more vivid imagery, characters, varying tone, of Austen's work. These constant plunges back into MP finally unmoored me from this story and I kept struggling against the urge to put this book down and reread MP; I realized, after yet again consciously disengaging myself from MP and resolutely finding my place on the page that the club people had yet to come to life for me, subsumed as they were by Austen's novels constantly reinvoked.Was it that sameness of tone? Was it the fact that we get glimpses, and only glimpses, into the subsidiary women far more than the men? Was it that I was unable to perceive a meta-structure, a direction? I don't know, but finally it felt as if this book was cleverly following the patterns of fireflies while a glorious fire snapped and fooshed and radiated heat right behind them, constantly engaging not just my eye but all my senses while I tried to keep my eye on the fireflies.I did enjoy the book discussions, but always found them far too brief, and that suggests to me that maybe I would have liked this book a lot more if I hadn't been so familiar with Austen. If, say, this had been The Virginia Woolf Book Club as it's been years since I read Woolf's fiction, preferring as I do her essays. The book discussions gradually became more interesting to me than the backstories, and I found myself wanting to argue with the characters instead of read their backgrounds. I could see that Fowler was trying to show us how their backgrounds informed their opinions of Austen. She gives us a heads-up on her theme right with the very first line: Each of us has a private Austen, echoing Martin Amis's wonderful quote: Jane Austen is weirdly capable of keeping everybody busy. The moralists, the Eros-and-Agape people, the Marxists, the Freudians, the Jungians, the semioticians, the deconstructors--all find an adventure playground in six samey novels about middle-class provincials. And for every generation of critics, and readers, her fiction effortlessly renews itself . . .Ah, the quotes. Finally, these were the best part of the book for me.At the end, Fowler gives a precis of the novels (leaving out Lady Susan which I found odd, as Northanger and Persuasion were also unpublished by Austen during her lifetime, so that can't be her criteria) and those, frankly, drove me nuts. In that playful tone she reduces complexities to bald statements. Henry then falls in love with shy Fanny. She refuses the advantageous match and, as punishment, is sent back to her parents. "As punishment." No, that's not right. Not even remotely right, it skews the story and reduces Fanny to a mere victim and the Mansfield family into mere villains. Blech.Fowler includes some of the responses to the novels recorded by Jane in her own time, which are all given at the back of one of the Chapman edition books. But then she provides those quotes from prominent people through the years since the books were published--all of them interesting, even if I have no idea who David Andrew Graves or Susan M. Korba are. Doesn't matter. Their opinions don't make me want to know anything more about them, but are interesting in the sense of showing how different people react differently to the books. Like Mark Twain's brutal dismissal (Every time I read "Pride and Prejudice" I want to dig her up and hit her over the skull with her own shin-bone.) The last quote is a lovely one by J.K. Rowling.The best of a lot of good quotes, for me, was that by Rebecca West, published in 1928 according to Fowler. And it kind of sums up the problem I've blundered about in this literary China shop in my attempts to formulate above. I will type it all out here:Really, it is time this comic patronage of Jane Austen ceased. To believe her limited in range because she was harmonious in method is as sensible as to imagine that when the Atlantic Ocean is as smooth as a mill-pond it shrinks to the size of a mill-pond. There are those who are deluded by the decorousness of her manner, by the fact that her virgins are so virginal that they are unaware of their virginity, into thinking that she is ignorant of passion. But look through the lattice-work of her neat sentences, joined together with the bright nails of craftsmanship, painted with the gay varnish of wit, and you will see women haggard with desire or triumphant with love, whose delicate reactions to men make the heroines of all our later novelists seem merely to turn signs, "Stop" or "Go" toward the advancing male.
The Jane Austen Book Club is an international best seller which ultimately became a successful film in 2007. I brought my edition late in 2004 and shamefully only just got around to reading it this week.I picked this up thinking it would be great but like any best seller there were quite a few negative reviews floating around at the time, dispelling all the good press it had received. I stupidly got put off and left it to languish on my bookcase.I thought about reading it when I saw that a film was being released but at the time I was living far away from my family home where I'd left most of my books in storage so once again it was pushed out of my mind.Recently I've searched the majority of my books out of storage and placed them back in their rightful position on my shelf. Doing so, I stumbled back across The Jane Austen Book Club and knew that I couldn't delay things any longer.I am pleased to say, the wait? Totally worth it. I thoroughly enjoyed the reading experience that the talented, Karen Joy Fowler pieced together. I was engaged and entertained from beginning to end and I honestly believe that books come into peoples lives for a reason. If I had of read this when I orginally brought it back when I was 18 I don't think it would have been anywhere near as appealing to me as it was now, reading it when I'm 25.The story revolves around six main characters and a solely Jane Austen dedicated book club that they've created. The novel is sectioned off into six parts as well. One for each character and the corresponding Jane Austen novel discussion that is to be hosted at their house.While the book club itself is the main premise of the story and the link that brings all our characters together it is not, in my opinion, the main focus of the novel.The Jane Austen Book Club is about relationships and people at their core. Who they are, how they relate and how who they are affects how they relate.I don't want to give too much away for anyone who has yet to read this and now might be inspired to do so, so I'll leave you with one final thought and the reason that made this book so appealing to me -We as readers shape our own reading experiences. We all have themes and styles we prefer. It's possible for two different people to infer utterly opposing few points from the exact same novel, as I'm sure it is of most things. The thing that The Jane Austen Book Club does; however, is show how a common love can unify. It deals with the way we live with books, how they become a part of our subconscious and shape who we are and what we expect from life. The Jane Austen Book Club reaffirms the power of the novel and if there's one thing I believe in with all of my might, that is it. Long live the written word and the deep and abiding affect it has on all who hold it dear.
What do You think about The Jane Austen Book Club (2005)?
So disappointed. I wanted to like this but could never get into any of the characters or the stories they told. They are a mismatched bunch who all come together to read Jane Austin. Perhaps there should of been more Austin and less of these characters. Each book was suppose to relate or have particular meaning to one of the present day characters....or at least I think maybe that was the point? I really don't know as I never felt any type of flow. We learned odd stories of each characters past, that I didn't really see made them any more interesting, nor related to who they were in the present. I didn't really get the sense that very many of them connected to each other, nor I to them. Glad it was a quick read, but not one I would recommend. Rather slow, disjointed and blah! Only went up to a 2 star as some of the Austin comments made me want to read her!
—Connie
Read as part of my challenge to read my way around the world. http://highlanddrive.blogspot.com/201...I'd seen the movie a while back so I thought this book would more of the same. Was I surprised! The movie seemed to only have a passing familiarity with this book. There was so much more in this book. I especially liked the flashbacks of all the lives in the book. The mystery author and the description of the riot at the girls reform school that has to be put down by the National Guard were especially delightful.This is only the second Karen Joy Fowler I've read. It makes me want to dig up her entire works and read them all!
—Kirsten *Dogs Welcome - People Tolerated"
BLURBThe Extraordinary New York Times BestsellerIn California's central valley, five women and one man join to discuss Jane Austen's novels. Over the six months they get together, marriages are tested, affairs begin, unsuitable arrangements become suitable, and love happens. With her eye for the frailties of human behavior and her ear for the absurdities of social intercourse, Karen Joy Fowler has never been wittier nor her characters more appealing. The result is a delicious dissection of modern relationships.Dedicated Austenites will delight in unearthing the echoes of Austen that run through the novel, but most readers will simply enjoy the vision and voice that, despite two centuries of separation, unite two great writers of brilliant social comedy.COMMENTSThis was a good read. The author brought Jane Austen into the lives of five women and one man. The lives of Jane Austen's characters and plots are woven into the lives of these 6 members of the Jane Austen Book Club. It brings a new perception of Jane Austen to the reader, but also cause a renaissance of love and commitment into the 6 members' lives. I found the overall plot a bit messy, terribly confusing at times. Yet I enjoyed the author's excellent wordsmithery. She is a true artist in her craft and I will certainly make time to read more of her books. The detail is amazing. It's a good as well as bad thing, since it enhances the reading experience, while causing an avalanche of word-dumping here and there. It was, however, a wonderful, enriching experience. My next read is her book We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves.PS. The author added comprehensive notes on the life and work of Jane Austen at the end if the book. Reading them, particularly first timers, will make dedicated Austenites out of anyone. It certainly inspired me to reread all her books for the umpteenth time! :-)
—Margitte
