Al jaren geniet ik van en herlees ik het werk van de 18e eeuwse Engelse schrijfster Jane Austen. Hieronder korte engelstalige introducties op haar (helaas kleine) oeuvre.

Als extra voeg ik daaraan een lijst van zogenaamde readalikes toe, boeken van schrijvers die geinspireerd werden door Austen's werk en op zeer verschillende manieren haar motieven, thema's en schrijfstijl verwerkt hebben in hun eigen navolgers. Geslaagd, of minder geslaagd, dat is aan ons, liefhebbers om dat uit te maken. Ik heb er in ieder geval veel aangename uren aan besteed!

Austen Readalikes: klik hier

Van Jane Austen's boeken zijn in de laatste jaren prachtige verfilmingen gemaakt, hiernaast afbeeldingen van een paar van de beste met o.a. Kate Beckinsale, Emma Thomson, Colin Firth en Kate Winslet. Op dvd inmiddels: een nieuwe Pride and Prejudice verfilming met Keira Knightley, die te zien was in Arthur en Pirates of the Caribbean, Donald Sutherland, Dame Judi Dench en Matthew Macfadyen, die Darcy gaat spelen. Of hij aan Colin Firth kan tippen is nog maar de vraag. ITV maakte in 2007 drie nieuwe verfilmingen van Austen romans; kijk voor korte informatie daarover op deze link: Austen Readalikes.

Emma
Of all Jane Austen's heroines, Emma Woodhouse is the most flawed, the most infuriating, and, in the end, the most endearing. Pride and Prejudice's Lizzie Bennet has more wit and sparkle; Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey more imagination; and Sense and Sensibility's Elinor Dashwood certainly more sense--but Emma is lovable precisely because she is so imperfect. Austen only completed six novels in her lifetime, of which five feature young women whose chances for making a good marriage depend greatly on financial issues, and whose prospects if they fail are rather grim. Emma is the exception: "Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her." One may be tempted to wonder what Austen could possibly find to say about so fortunate a character. The answer is, quite a lot. For Emma, raised to think well of herself, has such a high opinion of her own worth that it blinds her to the opinions of others. The story revolves around a comedy of errors: Emma befriends Harriet Smith, a young woman of unknown parentage, and attempts to remake her in her own image. Ignoring the gaping difference in their respective fortunes and stations in life, Emma convinces herself and her friend that Harriet should look as high as Emma herself might for a husband--and she zeroes in on an ambitious vicar as the perfect match. At the same time, she reads too much into a flirtation with Frank Churchill, the newly arrived son of family friends, and thoughtlessly starts a rumor about poor but beautiful Jane Fairfax, the beloved niece of two genteelly impoverished elderly ladies in the village. As Emma's fantastically misguided schemes threaten to surge out of control, the voice of reason is provided by Mr. Knightly, the Woodhouse's longtime friend and neighbor. Though Austen herself described Emma as "a heroine whom no one but myself will much like," she endowed her creation with enough charm to see her through her most egregious behavior, and the saving grace of being able to learn from her mistakes. By the end of the novel Harriet, Frank, and Jane are all properly accounted for, Emma is wiser (though certainly not sadder), and the reader has had the satisfaction of enjoying Jane Austen at the height of her powers. (tekst:Alix Wilber)

Mansfield Park
The Mansfield Park of the title, a magnificent, idyllic estate which is home to the wealthy Bertram family, stands as a bastion of English tradition and stability. The novel's heroine, Fanny Price, is a "poor relation" living with the Bertrams, acutely conscious of her inferior status and yet daring to love their son Edmund--but from afar. However, with five marriageable young people on the premises, the peace at Mansfield cannot last. Courtships, entertainments and intrigues throw the place into turmoil, and Fanny finds herself unwillingly competing with a dazzlingly witty and lovely rival. As critic Margaret Drabble has pointed out, the house becomes "full of the energies of discord--sibling rivalry, greed, ambition, illicit sexual passion, and vanity," and the novel becomes ever more engrossing as it builds to Mansfield's final scandal and, finally, a satisfying conclusion. Unique in its moral design and brilliant interplay of the forces of tradition and change, Mansfield Park was the first novel of Jane Austen's maturity, and the first in which the author turned her unerring eye on the concerns of English society at a time of great upheaval. (tekst; amazon.com)
 
Northanger Abbey
Portraying social life in fashionable Bath and centred around Catherine Morland, this novel ridicules the popular tales of romance and terror and contrasts with these the normal realities of life. This book confronts the 18th century reader with the impact of ghotic horror, made popular by Mrs. Radcliffe, likeThe mysteries of Udolpho.
 
Persuasion
Anne Elliot, heroine of Austen's last novel, did something we can all relate to: Long ago, she let the love of her life get away. In this case, she had allowed herself to be persuaded by a trusted family friend that the young man she loved wasn't an adequate match, social stationwise, and that Anne could do better. The novel opens some seven years after Anne sent her beau packing, and she's still alone. But then the guy she never stopped loving comes back from the sea. As always, Austen's storytelling is so confident, you can't help but allow yourself to be taken on the enjoyable journey. A masterpiece of high comedy and an enchanting romance, Persuasion (1818) chronicles Anne Elliot's struggle for authenticity as she attempts to reclaim her discarded love. When she first met Captain Wentworth, he had "nothing but himself to recommend him, and no hopes of attaining influence." The captain returns, eight years later, a strikingly successful naval officer; now, Anne must search for a means to overthrow both her father, a snobbish and petty baronet, and the ideals of decorum which forbid expression of female desire.
 
Pride and Prejudice
In a remote Hertfordshire village, far off the good coach roads of George III's England, Mr. and Mrs. Bennet -- a country squire of no great means and his scatterbrained wife -- must marry off their five vivacious daughters. At the heart of this all-consuming enterprise are the headstrong second daughter Elizabeth and her aristocratic suitor Fitzwilliam Darcy, two lovers in whom pride and prejudice must be overcome before love can bring the novel to its magnificent conclusion.
 
Sanditon: Continued and Completed by Another Lady
Jane Austen wrote 11 chapters of Sanditon   before her death in 1817. The portrayal of a small seaside society and its inhabitants is concluded here. In finishing it, completes a tale of comedy and romance, of social aspirations and secret engagements.
 
Sense and Sensibility
Though not the first novel she wrote, Sense and Sensibility was the first Jane Austen published. Though she initially called it Elinor and Marianne, Austen jettisoned both the title and the epistolary mode in which it was originally written, but kept the essential theme: the necessity of finding a workable middle ground between passion and reason. The story revolves around the Dashwood sisters, Elinor and Marianne. Whereas the former is a sensible, rational creature, her younger sister is wildly romantic--a characteristic that offers Austen plenty of scope for both satire and compassion. Commenting on Edward Ferrars, a potential suitor for Elinor's hand, Marianne admits that while she "loves him tenderly", she finds him disappointing as a possible lover for her sister:Oh! Mama, how spiritless, how tame was Edward's manner in reading to us last night! I felt for my sister most severely. Yet she bore it with so much composure, she seemed scarcely to notice it. I could hardly keep my seat. To hear those beautiful lines which have frequently almost driven me wild, pronounced with such impenetrable calmness, such dreadful indifference! Soon, however, Marianne meets a man who measures up to her ideal: Mr Willoughby, a new neighbour. So swept away by passion is Marianne that her behaviour begins to border on the scandalous. Then Willoughby abandons her; meanwhile, Elinor's growing affection for Edward suffers a check when he admits he is secretly engaged to a childhood sweetheart. misfortunes and the lessons they draw before coming finally to the requisite happy ending forms the heart of the novel. Though Marianne's disregard for social conventions and willingness to consider the world well-lost for love may appeal to modern readers, it is Elinor whom Austen herself most evidently admired; a truly happy marriage, she shows us, exists only where sense and sensibility meet and mix in proper measure. (tekst: Alix Wilber, amazon.com).

The Watsons (not completed)

This fragment of a novel was written by Jane Austen about 1803-1805, but was not published until 1871, as part of James Edward Austen-Leigh's Memoir (Jane Austen had left it untitled; the title "The Watsons" was provided by Austen-Leigh). It describes Emma Watson's return, after a long absence, to her family, who are on the lower financial fringes of the "genteel". It is not clear why Jane Austen did not continue this fragment -- perhaps because of her father's death; or because she was discouraged by the fact that after she succeded in selling her first novel (Susan, an earlier version of Northanger Abbey, for a nominal sum in 1803), the publisher decided not to publish after all, and sat on the manuscript; or because she did not want to sustain the tone of almost "painful realism" (according to Jenkins) with which she had begun. (tekst; the republic of pemberly).

Austen readalikes: klik hier.

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