A Truth Universally Acknowledged: 33 Great Writers on Why We Read Jane… (2009)

If you hate Jane Austen, this book will do little to change your mind. If you are indifferent to her, you may not be tempted further by these essays. If you love and admire her, this book will possibly bore you or irritate you after different writers either repeat what you already know or dislike what you like and like what you dislike.

However, if you are unsure about Austen or if you are curious to know what the fuss is all about, this book isn't a bad place to start.

This collection of essays that explain, praise, examine, accuse and otherwise give some kind of answer to the question implied in the title covers her 6 novels, her fragments, and her juvenilia do cover a range of opinion. Yes, most of it is positive and some of it feels a bit silly. Many of the essays were written long before the idea of the book came into being. Some are very scholarly and some are quite chatty. Some few are downright picky. Still, it does dig up quite a lot of thought about those 6 books as various authors talk about their favorite characters or novels, defend what they love most and excoriate what they despise. The novels are considered as single topics, as a group, and occasionally in comparison with more modern works.

My reaction to it was occasional surprise as someone pointed out an idea new to me, or bristly irritation as yet another author could not resist the lure to stick "It is a truth universally acknowledged" into the piece he or she wrote. On a few, I wondered why they bothered to write at all. Of course, I am an admirer of Jane Austen, so this book would do that.

But if you have read only a few of the novels, or perhaps only seen some movies based on the novels, this book could prove much more interesting and educational. It might well draw you deeper into the oddity. It might introduce you to the cult and offer you the Kool-aid. It will certainly open your eyes to, not only the novels and the woman we barely know who wrote them, but to the audience of Jane Austen and how she is regarded and has influenced our world. It could push you away or pull you in.

I already know I want to purchase a copy so I can go through with a highlighter and pen, to argue, to underline, and to explore, so that when I reread the books I can look for what these assorted authors claim is there.

I seriously doubt it will change my mind about Mansfield Park, however, but I'm going to give it a try. ( )

In a piece called “Emma and the Legend of Jane Austen,” Lionel Trilling addresses the two kinds of admiration for Jane Austen. He quotes none other Henry James, who admired Miss Austen, and who indeed had a moral and artistic affinity with her. Mr. James proclaimed that her reputation had exceeded her intrinsic interest and was unwarranted. He blames: “the body of publishers, editors, illustrators, producers of magazines, which have found their ‘dear,’ our dear, everybody’s dear Jane so infinitely to their material purpose.” In the more recent past, Dr. Leavis expresses his impatience with Miss Austen’s admirers while he honors her work. The same essential notion emerges in the work of Dr. Mudrick and D.W. Harding. Mudrick describes “a mere mass of cozy family adulation, self-glorif [ication] … and nostalgic latterday enshrinements of the gentle-hearted chronicler of Regency order.”
For some part of A Truth Universally Acknowledged: 33 Great Writers on Why We Read Jane Austen, an admirable collection edited by Susannah Carson, the issue of the “ownership” of Jane Austen – who has the right to admire her the most – rears its rather ridiculous head. The fact that there exist in parallel two main thrusts of Jane Austen love, the one where the charm of setting and sweetness of outcome rule, which I call the visceral, and the other dominated by academic research, and which deals with the more recondite, esoteric matters of exegesis and comparative aesthetics, which I will term the cerebral. For those of us who look for patterns, tricks, and subtle effects in our fiction, Jane Austen is a magnificent delight, over and over. And yet, how much less magnificent can Austen be to the devoted “lay” reader, who returns to her favorite novel, knowing that once again, the delights can be depended on? This is ridiculous, as I said. I can quote from a critic: “Long life, good health, and much prosperity to the reader who simply enjoys the narrative.” And I myself, have no qualms whatever to acknowledging a deep, visceral love for the Austen oeuvre, and it coexists quite nicely, thank you, with my delight in her subtler shadings, those lovely and beautifully-expressed barbs that skewer, and those ineffable expositions of psychology and human nature. I like “dear Jane” too.

So I guess, there you have it. True devotion to Jane Austen should be reserved (according to some) to those with the background, taste, credentials, and temperament to understand the literary merits, and shunned by the rest. Fat chance, and rightly so. I must admit to liking her work first and foremost for the ruthless candor of her observations of Regency hypocrisy and cant. At least they look and sound like hypocrisy and cant to us now. She strikes as far ahead of her times when portraying human motivation and real longing. The quality of her individuals never flags, never fails to ring exactly true, no matter the character’s state in life. Others enjoy Jane Austen – perhaps revere is a better word – for her portrayal of manners, her tight, quiet plots, her felicitous heroines, and her fulsome heroines. Why not? I like all those things, too, and admit to a good measure of reverence myself. Apparently I’m in decent company.

E.M. Forster famously opens an essay on Jane Austen, “I am a Jane Austenite, and therefore slightly imbecile about Jane Austen … She is my favorite author! I read and reread, the mouth open and the mind closed … The Jane Austenite possesses little of the brightness he so freely ascribes to his idol. Like all regular churchgoers, he scarcely notices what is being said.”

E.M. Forster was no neophyte when it comes to judging a fiction’s quality, bit I read his words impressed by his visceral, rather than his cerebral, enjoyment. Isn’t this what Henry James, and professors Mudrick and Harding object to? These issues present perhaps the high water mark to the flood tide of her reputation. Implicit within the arguments is the acknowledged truth, a “truth universally acknowledged,” that Jane Austen, that peerless portraitist and storyteller, that purveyor of gentle manners cloaking a barbed, prickly sarcasm, ranks at the very top of artists writing English narrative. Yes, right there with Shakespeare. We find we can hardly blame critics and scholars for their apparent proprietary feelings toward her. We all feel that way.

I stared out wanting to review this collection. Ms. Carson, the editor, leads the festivities off with a fine, thought-provoking essay of her own. The work carries the subtitle “33 Great Writers on Why We Read Jane Austen.” The collection does not lack for star power. Besides Forster’s need-I-say-hardly “imbecile” views, we get perception, insight, circumspection, and appreciation from Eudora Welty, Martin Amis, Kingsley Amis, Lionel Trilling (twice), W. Somerset Maugham, Anna Quindlen, Louis Auchincloss, Janet Todd, Amy Heckerling, Margot Livesey, Jay McInerney, and Virginia Woolf. Contributions from lesser-known scribes add light and weight, as well.

We do have a mix here, between the cerebral and the visceral, and perhaps nowhere is the visceral more in evidence than Martin Amis’s wish for a twenty-page extension to Pride and Prejudice to get a detailed description of the Darcys’ wedding night, “with Mr. Darcy, furthermore, acquitting himself uncommonly well.” The cerebral, however, is everywhere. And I reserve the highest rank for Harold Bloom.

Mr. Bloom treasures "Persuasion" above all, as do I. He compares Anne Elliot to Rosalind of Shakespeare’s "As You Like It," saying they are the two heroines who carry almost omniscient understanding of their stories. He says of Anne and Rosalind, “Their poise cannot transcend perspectivizing completely, but Rosalind’s wit and Anne’s sensbiliy, both balanced and free of either excessive aggressivity or defensiveness, enable them to share more of their creators’ poise than we ever come to do.” Mr. Bloom goes on to cite others’ elegant points, and to make his own, about the deep understanding and unceasing and unspoken communication between Anne and Captain Wentworth. These points, and the truth that Anne outshines Emma Woodhouse and Elizabeth Bennet in understanding, sympathy, and virtue, helped clarify for me the lovely features of this masterwork, to which Mr. Bloom ascribes “extraordinary aesthetic distinction.” He avers to feeling sad after each rereading, but I must say I never felt so tinged. The joy is, I admit, more alloyed than that accompanying "Sense and Sensibility" and "Pride and Prejudice," but not at all because we value the heroine less. Appropriately enough, Mr. Bloom describes the novel as having a “canonical persuasiveness.”

We all read Jane Austen for different reasons. Whether you value her satisfying plots, her persuasive characters, or her sparkling wit, you will find 33 new perspectives, all from artists themselves, for reading and appreciating her work all over again. ( )

I happily admit to being a very keen reader of Austen’s works, so when I saw this book of Austen focused essays in a local charity shop I knew I wasn’t leaving without it. Pretending to my husband that this was a vital teaching resource, I happily handed over a sum of money that was much less than the R.R.P for this sturdy hardback.

Interestingly, my copy hails from America and the subtitle and cover image are different from the UK edition. The American version seems determined to stress the academic nature of the book so the subtitle states that the book contains “33 great writers on why we read Jane Austen” and the cover features a hint of a smiling reader holding a copy of what purports to be this book. The overall impression is elegant and tasteful. When I contrast this to the British version I am rather pleased to have my ‘special edition’. I find the subtitle more sensational and less accurate (“33 reasons why we can’t stop reading Jane Austen”) and the scattered pictures of various colourfully depicted readers reminded me of the front cover of a child’s book of nursery tales.

The idea

Carson has gathered together 33 short pieces of writing on Austen and her works, purportedly in order to explore why so many people still read and enjoy Austen today. Some of these are critical essays, most are taken from introductions to editions of the stories but there is a great diversity of forms, including letters and even one recorded conversation. There are a range of voices, from modern writers to Austen’s contemporary critics, and a range of approaches, ranging from the biographical to the purely exclamatory.

The approach

I liked the idea of a range of writers and approaches but I was soon struck by the lack of clarity. The contents pages list the articles included, but there is no attempt to place them in any kind of context. I have generally found that, when reading non-fiction, it is helpful to be aware of the context of a piece of writing. Carson offers no help here at all. I had to search through the permissions acknowledgements page at the back of the book to confirm that some of the essays had originally been prefaces. The pieces are evidently not organised chronologically (though again, this is only clear from my knowledge of the contributors and reading the sketchy contributor biographies at the back of the book). I thought this was a shame as a chronological approach could potentially have shown some historical development in approaches to Austen.

However, the sheer eclecticism of the collection means that it is difficult to create a central strand. Carson’s approach, in so far as it exists, appears to be text based – essays which primarily focus on ‘Pride and Prejudice’, for example, are grouped together. This is not necessarily helpful as readers are unlikely to read these essays in the same linear way they might approach a story. I thought that a clearly signalled chronological or thematic approach might have been more helpful to readers.

The supporting materials

There is a brief foreword by Harold Bloom followed by a longer introduction by Carson. I felt the praise in both to be rather excessive, claiming that Austen's novels "inform our understanding of what it is to be human" among other magical qualities she apparently possessed. I admire Austen as a writer but I dislike the elevation of any writer to a mythical status and Bloom’s sweeping claim that “those who now read Austen ‘politically’ are not reading her at all” annoyed me with its implication that there are right and wrong positions to take regarding any writer. I have never been impressed by the notion that not everyone can ‘truly understand’ a writer’s particular genius. Instead, I am a strong believer in allowing everyone to reach their own (well reasoned and logically supported) positions in relation to texts and their authors. This is, however, a minor complaint in relation to these materials.

After establishing her own perspective, Carson briefly sketches each essayist's central position. I didn't find the order of this to be helpful. The links the editor makes are relevant, but I would have much preferred a chronological approach – if indeed such a summary is necessary at all. It is really a rather dull approach and a shame the editor didn't focus in on one or two key articles and her own response, but I believe that this is simply the way in which introductions to collections of essays generally work. I would not bother reading either the introduction or the foreword again but they do succeed in suggesting the multiplicity of approaches to Austen.

As I already noted previously, I thought it was disappointing that the essays were not helpfully contextualised. It would have been simple enough to write a brief paragraph above each essay noting who the author was and why the piece was written. The rather brief author biographies in the back of the book are alphabetical rather than following the structure of the essays in the book, which I found mildly irritating, and there was generally on clue regarding the context. E M Forster appears to be writing a
foreword for a collected works – specifically the 1923 Oxford edition edited by R W Chapman. Surely this would be worth mentioning? One essay is in the form of a dialogue but no account is made of its genesis. I found this lack of information increasingly frustrating and felt that this did reduce my enjoyment of the book.

The 33 pieces

As suits a book with such diverse contributors and approaches, my response to the essays was mixed. I did read them in order, simply because there seemed to be no good reason not to, but there is certainly no requirement to do so and it would be quite fun to dip in and out of these like a box of chocolates. (Again, having more details in the contents page would support this.) I will not discuss all the essays but will instead comment on a selection to give an idea of the quality and variety.

I was very pleased by first essay ‘Why We Read Jane Austen: Young Persons in Interesting Situations’. Interesting points were made about marriage in the nineteenth century, Austen's focus on moral character and use of landscape. The second essay, ‘The Radiance of Jane Austen’, by contrast, says nothing useful. It is simply a paean to Austen and I found it a little annoying. I suppose it is useful to give a flavour of the depth of feeling some people will develop for a writer, but my feeling is that if you’ve selected a book of essays on Austen, you’re probably either already quite keen on the writer or a diligent student. In neither case would reading gushing prose be helpful or, I would imagine, interesting.

‘Six Reasons to Read Jane Austen’ is, unsurprisingly, rather listlike and, again, little more than a homage. Later on, ‘Reading Northanger Abbey’ is an interesting examination of this slightly less typical novel by Susannah Carson. It is more academic in style than the preceding pieces – unsurprisingly as she is a PHD student. The link she made to Mr and Mrs Bennett confirmed my own thoughts, which is of course always gratifying, and identified a genuine problem at the heart of the novel. The essay gathers pace as Carson inverts her argument – could Austen have deliberately crafted this flaw in order to make a point? It is a worthwhile argument. I enjoyed Ian Watts’ piece ‘On Sense and Sensibility’ for similar reasons. It is true that I have more of an academic interest than a general reader might, but these are short and accessible pieces which I think a range of readers could find interesting and worthwhile reading.

There is a genuine variety of approaches. For instance, Lionel Trilling discusses student response to Austen as a way into establishing a humanist perspective. There was a very interesting point made by John Wiltshire considering why the films of Austen's novels are problematic. One writer briefly considers how Austen is presented and how this alienates some potential readers and even some critics. I did enjoy the diversity of approaches and thought it was a strength of the book that the contributors came from a range of backgrounds as they could offer different perspectives. One essay that surprised me was Martin Amis’: it seems out of place as it is forcefully critical of Austen's 'Mansfield Park', and this led me to wonder with renewed force what the organising force behind this collection was. It certainly didn’t seem like Amis was writing about ‘reasons to read Austen’ though I suppose he covers ‘why we read Austen’.

Inevitably, there is some overlap in terms of quotations used and comments made, but this is a minor feature of the text and did not bother me in the slightest. Occasionally, the writers referred to each others' essays, which I also found interesting as it helped to develop a sense of overall criticism and response to the novels. There were a few writers who conveyed an irksome sense of ‘knowing best’ (Eva Brann states that Austen's work does not have themes and is resistant to interpretation, which makes me wonder how on earth I manage to teach it!) but generally there was a feeling of discussion and a pleasant sense of sharing ideas.

Overall thoughts

While this collection is certainly not perfect, I did enjoy it and it is something I will definitely reread. (I even found a few ideas to share with my students so it turned out I wasn’t fibbing to my husband after all!) I liked the diversity of approaches and thought it would make a great gift for someone who is genuinely interested in Austen.

One significant omission is that there are no noticeable references to Austen’s juvenilia or to her unfinished novel ‘Sandition’. I do not find this omission surprising as Austen is widely known as the author of six competed novels and I did not know anything about her other works until I studied her at university. However, I did think it was a missed opportunity to bring these works more widely to the public’s attention.

All the essays are relatively short and they are all easy to follow and understand (with the exception of Harold Bloom’s essay on Persuasion, which I found rather dense and unrewarding). There is no glossary included as none is required. This is clearly a book aimed to a general reading audience rather than an academic reader.

Despite its flaws, I am very glad I found this and know I will eventually reread many of the essays. I would recommend it to anyone who has a basic familiarity with at least some of Austen’s books and a genuine interest in literature. In particular, I would recommend it to students studying Austen as a gentle introduction to literary criticism. ( )

Like Susannah Carson states in the introduction to this collection of brilliant essays on why we read Jane Austen, I also spend my early reading of Jane Austen and my feelings of her to myself. For a long time I wanted to read her works without the opinions and feelings of other people clouding the pleasure I get every time I pick up one of her books. Recently I decided that I wanted to venture out and read other people’s feelings criticism and praise on Jane and I have devoured all the books I can on the subject. I was delighted when I came across this book in a bookstore and I am so glad I decided to read it. These wonderful essays are so enlightening and they really made me look at the books differently. I feel as if my appreciation for Jane Austen’s genius has increased tenfold and I cannot wait to being reading the books over again. I also never wanted to read Sanditon or The Watsons because they are unfinished but I have been inspired to give them a chance especially since there are not TV serial versions of these books, it will give me a chance to appreciate the writing. If you are a Jane Austen fan you will love this book because it provides such wonderful insight into our favorite books. ( )

As the title implies, this book is a collection of essays about Jane Austen's work, written by notable writers from Virginia Woolf to Lionel Trilling to Amy Bloom. Their tone ranges from academic to casual. Each essay conveys a deep and abiding respect, even love, for Jane Austen. The essays were not written specifically for this book; rather, they were written for a specific purpose in the writer's career. Because of this, there are some repetitive themes and elements. Several writers summarized Austen's upbringing, her family, and her all-too-short life. More than one expressed surprise that Austen's work never mentioned significant current events like the Napoleonic wars. Other essayists defended her in this regard. It was interesting, and sometimes humorous, to see how each author approached their task. One essay began with the phrase, "A truth universally acknowledged," while another decried this cliché.

Some of the essays discussed Austen's entire body of work, while others focused on specific novels. I began reading this book concurrent with a re-read of Pride and Prejudice, and found those specific essays enhanced my reading experience. Over the next several weeks I read an essay here and there, and then sat down to finish the book over a long weekend. I do not recommend the latter approach. The essays are so different from one to the next, that sequential reading is difficult to digest. The book did, however, reinforce my intent to re-read Austen's novels. The collection is best as a companion read, and I will take it off the shelf each time I read one of Austen's books.

I'll close with a paragraph from Janet Todd's essay, "Why I Like Jane Austen," which described better than any other my own reasons for enjoying the divine Jane:
Jane Austen seems to the writer nearest to a composer of classical music, her novels well-wrought symphonies; turbulent depths coexist with ordered surfaces and the ration of the expected to the unexpected feels just as it should. Each time I read her -- and she is one of the few novelists who can be read and reread -- I know I have not exhausted the books; something has again escaped me, as it does from a concert performance of a complex musical piece. It was beautiful, but did I listen as closely as I should? Like Lyme in Persuasion, Jane Austen's books "must be visited, and visited again." ( )