I have a new article on Crosswalk.com about our obsession with all things Jane. (Actually it went up a little while ago and I've been meaning to post about it...)
Austen truly is everywhere, which has fans giddy, and everyone asking: Why? . . .
I think there’s something much more substantive here, something that has given Austen great staying power—something easy to overlook and difficult to reproduce. In a word, I think it’s character.
Austen’s stories play on a solid foundation—that of her little-discussed faith. As a devoted Christian, Austen cared about good and evil in all the small ways they work themselves out in our lives, and captured those in her books. She prayed that she herself would not be deceived “by pride and vanity,” and clearly wanted the same for her characters.
More here.
Lori,
I just read your article and I thought it was right on. I was asking myself just recently why I read so many books by dead British folks - and besides the scone eating and tea drinking, which is so pleasant -I think it is because I find a like mind. I mean in that, that I do find the character, the clearer sense of what's "done" and "not done" than I can really fine in modern fiction. This makes me sound like a little old tea drinking lady; I really am not. I am only 33, had a shaved head in college and played the bass (badly) in a punk girl band. Despite all this, I find myself drawn to Austen's writing because of the decorum, characters saying, "please" and "thank you" even if they don't really mean it. A world where the only thing more satisfying than landing a happy marriage is making decisions in such a way that you have nothing to reproach yourself with. (Edward and Elinor here.) I will run out of reading material someday. If you have any modern authors you love can you put me in the know? Meanwhile, I will just anticipate your book.
Oh, and Colin Firth as Mr Darcy is definitely the hottest man in this, or any century.
Posted by: erin whitener | September 14, 2007 at 05:19 PM