As I mentioned before, as part of the commemoration of Jane Austen's 250th birthday, the Classics Club has started a #Reading Austen project. We are reading a book by her every other month, and I want to do read something Austen-related by her in between.
In April, I read a German book by Catherine Bell, "Jane Austen und die Kunst der Worte" [Jane Austen and the Art of Words]. I was not impressed, I probably read too much about Jane Austen before and this one could have been written by any Jane Austen fan without doing any more research. Such a pity.
Mind you, "Miss Austen" wasn't all that much better, only a little. The Miss Austen mentioned in the title is not Jane but her sister Cassandra. We hear about her last self-given task, the intention to destroy the letters her sister had written that contained something Cassandra didn't want anyone to know, that would look bad on her sister's legacy. But, since those letters were destroyed, we don't know what it contained and the author just invented them.
I don't like people writing a sequel to a book where the original author died. I never did and I doubt I ever will. So, I guess my next book about Jane Austen (in August) will be a non-fiction again.
From the back cover:
"1840 : Cassandra Austen returns to the village of Kintbury.
She knows that, in some corner of the vicarage where she is staying, there is a cache of letters written by her sister Jane.
As Cassandra recalls her youth, she pieces together buried truths about Jane's history - and her own ; secrets which should not be revealed.
And she faces a stark choice : should she act to protect Jane's reputation?
Or leave the letters unguarded to shape her legacy..."
As you know I'm an Austen fan, so I've read a few good/very good books about her (and her work) over the years. The 3 I can recommend are:
ReplyDeleteJane’s Fame – How Jane Austen Conquered the World by Claire Harman
What Matters in Jane Austen? – Twenty Crucial Puzzles Solved by John Mullan
A Jane Austen Education – How Six Novels taught me about Love, Friendship, and the Things that Really Matter by William Deresiewicz
I *think* I have a few more (I know I have at least one) that I'll try to get around to at some point...
They sound great, thanks, Kitten. I will have a look for them. I still have a few that will last me until the rest of the year but I might replace one or two of them with yours.
DeleteI tried reading this a year or so ago and didn't finish--in fact, I stopped very early on. However, I really enjoyed the recent TV production of the book--thought it was well-acted and I didn't have a problem with the stuff that was obviously invented. Must have been the different medium.
ReplyDeleteI don't blame you for stopping, Jane, I probably should have. But it was a quick read.
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