Sense & Sensibility — Good Writership or Naiveté ?

I just finished  Jane Austen's first novel „Sense and Sensibility”. And I must say, I'm confused. It is a well written novel, no question. But the level of naivete, of narrowness of the characters' outlook of life — and what is more — of admiration of the gentry-mindedness and heroes idleness — keeps me away from writing a positive, or even any longer review. It also overshadows some passages of true irony and good comedy, that, perhaps give the true value to this book !

I'm not literary critic, so my opinion may not be taken too seriously. And I know, that many bright people (like Leo Strauss) admired Jane Austen's prose. Maybe, I could change my mind after reading some other of Austen's novel. But I still have in mind the another book of the genre and of Victorian age — Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. Only 30 years between them, while the difference is of enormous proportions in favour of Bronte....

„The French Lieutenant's Women” — A Story — The Theses

Who did not watch that movie? The top cast with Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons. The two stories on two planes: The Victorian — set in the XIX century England, apparently close to The Book, and The Modern, telling about the affair of actors who embody the heroes of The Book.

But, the close reading of The Book, uncovers dramatically different thoughts and conclusions and is worth reading  — even more if you already watched the movie.

In this review, I will not relate the plot of the book. If you must read about it, see the respective Wikipedia article. I want rather to direct your attention to some specific aspects of the story and the its deep conclusions.

On the surface, the book tells a story of the unorthodox love between two people living in the Victorian Era and tightly bound by convenances and rules of their age and their society. But under the surface it is a story of universal importance and human choice: Charles, who is already engaged to a woman (with wedding date already known) meets another mysterious and interesting women, and falls in love with her. Something that happens and repeats itself across the time and cultures.

However, Fowles shows, that, as usually is the case, there is no one good happy end. In fact, book shows three possible endings and we can imagine all possible conclusions out of these three different finale. To do so, author distances himself from the plot and tries to describe how the different flows of action depend on human freedom of choice. In showing this, Fowles uses his top literary mastery. These three endings come natural, and have nothing to do with artificial „novel like” implement.

By distancing themselves from the limits of time and space, the author, however discovers that characters of his story live their own lives, and even though all is his imagination — there are constrains, and they are true and unbreakable:

„I do not know. This story I am telling is all imagination. These characters I create never existed outside my own mind. If I have pretended until now to know my characters' minds and innermost thoughts, it is because I am writing in (...) a convention universally accepted at the time of my story: that the novelist stands next to God. He may not know all, yet he tries to pretend that he does.(...) My characters still exist, and in reality no less, or no more, real than the one have just broken. Fiction is woven into all, as a Greek observed some two and a half thousand years ago.  I find this new reality (or unreality) more valid; and I would have share my own sense that I do not fully control these creatures of my mind, any more than you control ...”

Paradoxically, by showing the three possible endings of the story, Fowles does not imply he is a god who creates the world for his stories. Reading it, while we contemplate all of the ends, we still have the notion of the frozen and unchangeable time of the past. On the philosophical or moral level, he shows how our choices create the reality that is permanently fixed — whatever we do....

I also need to relate, that, contrary to the movie, in two of the endings, one of the partners of the affair (in this case — She) does not play the fair card. We witness a women, for whom it is more important to observe her own needs (however lofty) than the true sacrifice of the man she was in love with. The last of the three endings is particularly hard to read after knowing about the vital and sincere choices made the man.
Don't take it as a hidden sexism of Fowles. In life it happens equally (or even) more often, that the man is the one who acts for his own sake. We have no sign the author of the book thinks opposite.

That was a great reading experience, and I particularly suggest it to all who watched the movie — it will elevate your experience.

Mirek
PS. After „The French Lieutenant's Women” I started to read Jane Austen's „Sense & Sensibility”. I already thought there must be some connection between the two authors and their novels. For example, the Lyme Regis pier: „The Cobb”, is the important object in both  „The French Lieutenant's Women” and Austen's „Persuasion” ... Should I find some SIGN in that coincidence ?

Picture by Ian Usher

The two (not quite) Victorian novels

It gives me true fun... Not long time ago I finished reading „The French Lieutenant's Woman” by John Fowles and was truly amazed by its depth (as compared to the movie of the same title), and now I'm in the mid of Jane Austen first novel „Sense and Sensibility”. I may seem naive to be a man of 50 and read such a literature as Austen's novels, but I do have true fun. I look from the different angles on the period in human culture called Victorianism (even though Austen formally lived in the preceding period).

Fowles delivers the contemporary account about Victorianism, and it analyses its dark sides at length, while Austen writes from the depths of the culture, believing in the values his heroes believed...

That's just a short note what I have been reading recently. Both reviews will come soon ...

Travel and science book author writes about ... Shakespeare

To me, as to many, this book came as a surprise. Bill Bryson, famous for his travel ("Neither here Nor There") and popular science ("A Short History of Nearly Everything") books, wrote a book that is completely different from his other books. "Shakespeare. The Illustrated Edition" is an untypical biography of William Shakespeare. Bryson tries to find, in Shakespeare life, the reason why "For somebody who has been dead for nearly four hundred years, he remains awfully active". The book starts with the modern, 2006 discovery of so called Cobbe portrait, which according to most of scholars IS the authentic Shakespeare portrait (notwithstanding numerous and notable oppositions to that claim).

Bryson, the biographer, divides Shakespeare's life into: early years (1564-1585), the so-called "lost years" (1585-1592) of which we do not have any records, his London's primary years (1592-1596), years of his fame under Queen Elizabeth I (1596-1603) and his royal patent during the reign of King James (1603-1616) - until his death on April, 23, 1616. Shakespeare life is portrait on the interesting patchwork of the history of England, the history of London and the hist of Globe - The Theatre. Reading it, we have a rare chance to imagine how strange and dirty, in all senses of this word, London was at that times.

Bryson biography dares to debunk a bit traditional Shakespeare picture. See this:

"Shakespeare may be the English language's presiding genius, but that isn't to say he was without flaws". A certain messy exuberance marked much of what he did. Sometimes it is just not possible to know quite what he meant"

Such claims are of course seriously substantiated by specific parts of his plays. He also compares young Shakespeare to prematurely passing Christophere Marlowe, showing that when Shakespeare was still writing trifles, Marlow already wrote ambitious and appreciable dramas.

When the biographer comes to years of the first decade of XVII century, i.e. to the times of publication of sonnets, he shocks the readers with:

"The extraordinary fact is that Shakespeare, creator of the tenderest and most moving scenes of heterosexual affection in play after play, become with the sonnets English literature history's sublimest gay poet"

Yet in the concluding parts of the book, Bryson rejects firmly all these "conspiracy theories" according to which, Shakespeare did not exist, and what we have under his name, is in fact from the quills of Francis Bacon, Edward de Vere or others.

"Only one man had the circumstances and gifts to give us such incomparable works, and William Shakespeare of Stratford was unquestionably that man - whoever he was"

Few words need to be said about the book physical form. "Illustrated Edition" is full of XVI/XVII century drawings and portraits and scripts facsimiles, that help in perception of Shakespeare lifework and the framework of history and culture he lived on.

Great book - something that is yet another proof of physical books superiority....