"The person...who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid."

[readingredhead]

There is something about reading Austen that I can't describe. I hate it sometimes that I'm doing my senior thesis on Austen and that I can't increase my English geek cred by writing about some obscure someone-or-other that no one but me has ever heard of and therefore no one but me will ever even think themselves capable of understanding -- but then I sit down with nothing but me and Northanger Abbey and stop feeling like I need to write on something obscure. I will still get a little annoyed occasionally when people who know nothing of English as an academic discipline think they understand what I'm writing simply because they've seen a few BBC miniseries, or when professors or fellow students indulge in momentary condescension because I couldn't think of anything more creative to write about, but when this happens, I will take a few deep breaths and remind myself of two important facts.

1. I am having so much fun with this. I honestly love Austen, and not just because of that one guy Colin Firth plays in some movie. I fell in love with her way with words the first time I met them and this summer I get to immerse myself in them. AND GET PAID FOR IT.

2. What I'm thinking and writing about Austen will be creative and different and new. It'll make people see her in a whole new way (she says modestly). At the very least, it'll make me see her in a whole new way, and that way will be mine.

And did I mention I'm having fun with this? I don't even know what it is about Austen that makes me feel like this, and it's difficult to describe, because it's not terribly showy. Compared to many of my other favorite authors her prose and subject matter seem very quiet. But then someone will make a snarky comment and I'll burst out laughing and realize that maybe she's not so quiet after all. She's wily without being disingenuous, always ready for a good laugh, and behind that reserved facade there's both an observing wisewoman and a giggling teenager, working in tandem to write some of the most fantastic and understated prose I keep coming back to.

Comments

[hodgetopodge.livejournal.com]

People who are obscure for the sake of obscurity often have little to offer. You're working on something because you think it matters. If that had turned out to be something obscure, that's okay too. English in the academy needs a healthy dose of the kind of clarity you're proposing.

[araine.livejournal.com]

(I should be an English major so that I can read books I love and get paid for it.)

I think it's probably better in the long run to research something you love and find your take on it than researching something obscure just for the sake of obscurity. Much as it is awesome to know obscure things, and especially bring awesome but obscure things to other people's attention, researching something obscure for the sake of obscurity seems like the height of pretentiousness. Far better to work on something you really love, even if it is more in vogue nowadays.

And I love seeing modern takes on Austen, even if her work is so romanticized. (As evidenced by my buying a modern P&P sequel. OH SELF WHEN WILL YOU EVER LEARN?* The answer is never, bytheway.) Her style is lovely and unique, and even if it seems simple, I've rarely seen it matched, and the pale imitations (like the above-mentioned P&P sequel, which is entertaining, but passable fanfiction compared to Austen's style) kind of highlight how elegant it actually is. So I would love to hear more about your thesis, is what I am saying.

*Please ignore me.

[readingredhead.livejournal.com]

Oh, do not despair, there will be MUCH more about the thesis appearing on this LJ over the next few months. Reading Northanger Abbey is where it really starts, and I don't even know where it'll go from there! (Well, to P&P and then to Persuasion, but after that, the adventure really begins.)

Also, I do really want to be doing this, and I am really happy I chose to write about Austen. I just wish people who don't know me would stop giving me grief about it or looking at me like I can't possibly be as intellectual as they thought I was since I'm writing about someone who's become so mainstream. *grumbles*

Um, and if we're confessing to terrible Austen sequels, I should direct you towards Jane Bites Back, in which Jane Austen is, I shit you not, a vampire. Or Jane Austen Ruined My Life, which is about an English professor who goes through England searching for Jane Austen's lost letters after her husband (and fellow professor) is found cheating on her with a grad student. You know, in case you were looking for that sort of thing at all.