海角大神

Jane's Fame

How did Jane Austen become a superstar?

Why is the world obsessed with Jane Austen? What is it about her life and novels that propelled her from a Regency writer of limited renown to a cottage industry? The answer, like Austen鈥檚 novels, is deceptively simple, masking a complex web of factors, from her marketing by her family to the lack of verifiable information that makes it so easy for us to project our fantasies onto her.

In Jane鈥檚 Fame: How Jane Austen Conquered the World, with its only partly tongue-in-cheek subtitle, Claire Harman traces the phenomenon that is 鈥淛ane.鈥� Neither literary criticism nor biography, 鈥淛ane鈥檚 Fame鈥� instead tracks Austen鈥檚 image from a novelist who had difficulty getting published and opened to mixed reviews to that rare combination of canonized and cult author, coupled with both Shakespeare and zombies. (Harman points us to an amusing YouTube montage of bodice-ripper scenes from Austen film adaptations set to 鈥淚t鈥檚 Raining Men,鈥� easily Googled as of this writing.)

The first take on Austen came from her nephew, James Edward Austen-Leigh, who cast his aunt in the role of the ideal Victorian woman 鈥� modest, unambitious, and certainly not inclined to let writing interfere with her 鈥渄omestic duties.鈥� It was from Austen-Leigh鈥檚 鈥淢emoir of Jane Austen鈥� that the image of Jane鈥檚 fiction as a 鈥渓ittle bit of Ivory鈥� began, creating an association of 鈥渟mallness鈥� with the novels that took on a life of its own, clinging to Austen herself, who, ironically, was probably tall.

The family鈥檚 initial reluctance to reveal Jane Austen鈥檚 true face to the public provided the perfect mystique for speculation in the ages to follow.

Though her focus is on the stories others have told of Austen, Harman has her own story to tell, too. Harman鈥檚 Austen is neither sweet nor retiring, but a fire poker 鈥� a metaphor evoked by her bearing and manner, according to a contemporary visiting her household. Think tall, strong. and 鈥渇ormidable,鈥� not small and sweet.

Austen-Leigh is a convenient straw man and Harman clearly enjoys quoting his inaccuracies only to knock them down. Austen, she argues, was more hardheaded businesswoman than the self-effacing maiden aunt Austen-Leigh would have us believe. Harman also emphasizes the literary nature of the household that fueled her ambition. Austen鈥檚 oldest brother, who published a short-lived literary journal, was an aspiring poet and considered the writer of the family by their mother. Her cousin was close to the celebrated novelist Fanny Burney d鈥橝rblay and this proximity may have influenced Austen both artistically and in her approach to selling her novels. Likewise, Austen鈥檚 art did not come effortlessly, but through extensive drafting and revision, involving pinning slips of paper with new text to an earlier draft, 鈥渁 nineteenth-century version of cut and paste.鈥� The absence of historical markers or political controversies in her novels, rather than being a deficiency, may have stemmed from an anxiety over becoming dated, so conscious was Austen of her reading public and so frustrated was she by the long delay in the publication of 鈥淣orthanger Abbey,鈥� the first and most topical of her works.

Such delays, though discouraging, may have helped Austen to hone her stylistic innovation. 鈥淭he longer Austen remained unpublished,鈥� Harman posits, 鈥渢he more experimental she became, and the more license she assumed with bold, brilliant moves.鈥� Without a readership other than her intimates, Austen remained free to develop her distinctive voice.

Major literary figures that followed tended to fall into camps that either disparaged or lauded Austen 鈥� Mark Twain among the former (but then, who did he like?), and her heirs apparent, James, Forster, and Woolf, among the latter. But the image of World War I soldiers reading Austen in the trenches, or Churchill turning to 鈥淧ride and Prejudice鈥� for comfort while bedridden with influenza in the darkest days of 1943, most vividly convey Austen鈥檚 position as a cornerstone of British culture.

Harman notes Austen鈥檚 universal appeal, too, as testified to by the Parisian anarchist F茅lix F茅n茅on, who read 鈥�Northanger Abbey鈥� while in prison and was so taken with its class critique that he translated it into French, thereby becoming Austen鈥檚 first Marxist critic.

Harman caps her book by analyzing our culture鈥檚 current Austen-mania generated by the proliferation of film adaptations. Since the most salient take-away conveyed by 鈥淛ane鈥檚 Fame鈥� is that these biopics, prequels, and sequels reflect more on us than they do on Austen herself, one can only wonder what future generations will deduce from 鈥�Pride and Prejudice and Zombies鈥� or 鈥淢r. Darcy, Vampire,鈥� about the mores of the early 21st century.

Elizabeth Toohey teaches Women鈥檚 Studies and Postwar American Literature at Principia College in Elsah, Ill.