The Jane Austen Society

I heard about The Jane Austen Society from a number of sources, but it was my bookish friends who raved about this book that made me give it a go. I love Jane Austen, as well as all of the re-imaginings and variations on her books and life. This novel seemed to be one destined for me. I chose the audiobook version because I have lots to do this summer and need to squeeze my pleasure reads into any available time I can find. So I listened while I walked, cooked, and managed other chores and errands. I flew through it! It captured my attention and imagination immediately. So, thanks to all who recommended it.

The book is a fictional account of a small group of people who want to preserve Jane Austen’s home and legacy for future show more generations. The characters are extremely varied, having little in common except for the impact Austen has had on their lives. Jenner creates an ensemble cast that you will take into your heart. I can’t even say I have a favorite among them — the main characters are all so wonderful. The story details a good deal of sadness, disappointments, regrets, and heartaches. I admit that I was wondering if I was ever going to get to anything happy. 😉 If you feel that way too, stick with this book. You won’t be sad or disappointed. Although you don’t have to be an Austen fan to enjoy this book, it just might prompt you to pick up those unread novels. There are plenty of references to Austen’s books and parallels between Austen’s characters and Jenner’s. True Janeites are apt to swoon. 😉 It is really hard to believe this is a debut novel. The complex construction, plotting, and heartfelt storytelling are masterful. And the epilogue? Brilliant!

One thing to note: this is a general market book, so there is some adult language and situations that some may find offensive. I am not a fan of the use of a certain word, but it was used sparingly and by a particularly odious character. Richard Armitage is the narrator — he does a great job with the variety of voices.

Recommended (with adult language/situation warning)

Audience: adults

(I purchased the audiobook from Audible. All opinions expressed are mine alone.) show less

I'm ambivalent as hell, because I did enjoy the book, and it was comforting, and I loved characters talking about Austen and thinking about her. But I was never comfortable with made-up people doing a thing at a different time from documented real, other people, doing the same thing at a different time.
Alternate history seems to follow a guideline of Something Huge and Unmistakable is Changed. This isn't big enough, or far away enough. There are unlikely to be true participants still living, but there are certain to be quite a few people who knew Chawton of old, and who knew the participants and their families and the Society. Jenner does explicitly and clearly state that these are all made up people, with no names of actual Chawtonites show more used, except of course, Knight, but most people don't read back matter, and when the inevitable film or series is made, it is going to usurp that memory space for many people.
I don't know where the line is, exactly, why I don't worry about how residents of Guernsey feel about [b:The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society|39832183|The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society|Mary Ann Shaffer|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1529026760l/39832183._SY75_.jpg|2754161], for example, but, sorry y'all, I don't.
So there it is: a charming and hopeful and comforting story that is just so wrong on a visceral level.

Library copy show less

I first started reading The Jane Austen Society back in February when I did nothing more than “blurb read” it – I read the first three chapters, enough to be able to write a concise but detailed blurb about it for submission to the Indie Next List and to the publisher, satisfying the unofficial requirement of my job as a bookseller. And in February, I didn’t really think too much more of it – it struck me as just another Austen story, nothing setting it apart, save the personal letter from the author, which is, admittedly, really cool.

But as my knee injury dragged on and self-isolating began and the bookstore closed (I’m back now, yay!), I was drawing further and further away from books that may have even remotely held my show more interest. I’ve wasn’t too inclined to finish it, and it was fiction – I’ve spent the last three years reading almost exclusively nonfiction. But then I needed a book to review for today, so I looked back at the post I did for May new releases and wondered what book I would want to read enough of for a full review. Since last weekend I powered through Lovely War in 36 hours, I figured I might want to take a chance on another historical fiction title.

I restarted The Jane Austen Society around 2pm yesterday and was finished by 9:30pm. I legitimately cannot recall a time where I read a non-graphic novel in one day while at home (I do it on vacation sitting on the beach all the time.) Right now, historical fiction calls to me (sung in my head in Moana’s voice) and I’ve now added a lot of Austen and Jane-related books to my reading list, including reading Northanger Abbey and finishing up The Austen Years, a memoir due in July. Laura is the true Austen devotee in the family while my interest has always been more passive.

Yes, I’ve watched all the movies and adaptations with her and can wax eloquent about the wonderfulness of Lizzie Bennet and the infuriating aspects of Emma’s personality with the best, but admittedly, Pride and Prejudice is the only one of Austen’s novels I’ve read in it’s entirety (I love the graphic novel adaptation of Northanger Abbey though it’s unfortunately out of print.) So I always wonder if I’m some sort of fake reviewing books about Austen, I feel woefully unqualified, comparatively speaking. And I don’t have a Darcy obsession, so I felt that ruled me out of most of the unofficial diehard fan clubs I stumbled across over the years.

But The Jane Austen Society is something truly special. Will being an Austenite enhance the enjoyment of reading it? Absolutely. But even a passing knowledge of England’s greatest novelist (I’ve read Dickens and Chaucer and will stand by this statement) will suffice in ensuring decent comprehension of the numerous references to her many works peppered throughout.

I’ve read a quite a few debuts in my days as a bookseller, though not many before. I was very much the type of reader who needed books to be vetted by others before I spent my time reading them and I’m very glad this is not the case any more. The Jane Austen Society, having now finished it, is a book that I sped through and wished I had read more slowly so that I could have savored the reading experience more.

Every sentence, every turn of phrase, every allusion, every piece of dialog, is so deliberate and exact – nothing is written without purpose. Each and every character is so perfectly crafted with such compassion and empathy, one had me bawling within 100 pages, I can’t remember the last time I got so attached to a cast of characters so quickly. Those most familiar with the novels will be able to draw some early connections between Natalie’s newcomers and Jane’s iconic characters, but Natalie’s are fully and completely their own.

As I read, I felt I was walking around Chawton, immersing myself in the world of her colorful inhabitants, surprised by how they handled certain situations, while simultaneously feeling like they were behaving exactly as they should. The plot is intricate and beautifully woven, written by the hand of the master storyteller – I continually had to pinch myself that this is a debut novel.

Natalie Jenner has a background in many areas (as do I), but her history as a bookseller shines through so brightly in her writing. As booksellers we read hundreds if not thousands of books every year from many publishers. We know that of those books, few truly hold our attention and even fewer are ones that we want to sit back and read cover to cover, savoring each and every word on each and every page. Natalie’s debut is a bookseller’s dream – the perfect gift for a loved one, a great book for a summer afternoon read, a book that makes you feel all the feels, a contemporary Jane Austen. show less

A must-read for Austen fans and anyone who enjoys character-driven fiction with hope at its heart.

I bought 'The Jane Austen Society' by Natalie Jenner on the basis of the title and cover alone. I'm a sucker for Jane Austen and books about Jane Austenish things, both because I love her novels and because I'm fascinated the devotion of Jane Austen's fans.

I'm glad I didn't read the publisher's summary first because it might have put me off and then I'd have missed out on a good read and a new author.

The first part of the publishers summary was encouraging, with some reservations:
'Just after the Second World War, in the small English village of Chawton, an unusual but like-minded group of people band together to attempt something show more remarkable.'
It offers a book focused on Jane Austen fans and set in the currently fashionable (by now verging on over-used) historical setting of England in 1945. An 'unusual but like-minded' group who 'band together' sounded quirky and jolly, which would have been OK but it suggested that 1945 in England was being positioned as a time of renewal and optimism rather than as a time of huge social conflict, widespread deprivation and collective PTSD.

The next sentence was discouraging:
'One hundred and fifty years ago, Chawton was the final home of Jane Austen, one of England's finest novelists.'
The book is set in 1945. Austen lived in Chawton from 1809 to 1817. How is that one hundred and fifty years ago? This left me hoping that this was an oversight by the marketing department and that Natalie Jenner had paid more attention.

I'm happy to say that five chapters into 'The Jane Austen Society' I could already see that this was not the glib, light and instantly comforting book in period dress that had been marketed to me. It was something much better.

The scope was broad, the pace was measured and the tone was sombre, almost melancholy. Everyone's story was edged with grief or the threat of grief and the period was not romanticised and the research was meticulous both in terms of the 1945 setting and of Austen's works.

This is not a book about a set of quirky villagers who band together to do something jolly. They are people marked by war and loss who have Austen as their common thread. Her books are their refuge and her flawed characters, passionate, stubborn, blind to their own needs or the needs of others, are valued companions who are all the more welcome because they are guaranteed a happy ending.

They don't come together to found the Jane Austen Society until nearly halfway through the book and when they do, it's not a light-hearted let's-throw-a-party kind of thing, more a route for some seriously depressed people, who each find solace in Jane Austen, to achieve some sense of agency for themselves through engagement with the real world in a way that honours Austen.

It was a sombre book that felt real to me. Austen's books and her association with the village in which the main characters live were a source of hope, offering the possibility of community and perhaps happiness.

Many of the challenges facing the people in the Society mirror those of Jane Austen's characters: we have property being entailed away, spirited women being courted by charismatic but dangerous men, long-held but unspoken passions, shy men with good hearts and vulgar men with money but no manners. The people in the Society aren't Austen's characters in modern dress but I had a lot of fun lining up their situations, attributes and relationships with the characters up against the characters in Austen's novels, in a sort of Fantasy Football way.

Surprisingly, the relationship that had me thinking most about the parallels with Austen's characters is between two Americans: a successful movie star and leading lady, Mimi Harrison, who has a passion for Jane Austen and a ruthless millionaire turned studio owner, Jack Leonard, who, despite his obsessive pursuit of her, Mimi initially refuses to take to her bed.

I was fascinated to see how Jack, a man with an acute insight into the weaknesses of others but who avoids all introspection, and who is paying attention to Austen as a strategem for getting in Mimi's head, admires what he sees as Austen's attraction to bad boys. Jack never reads Austen's novels. He has a screenwriter write treatments of 'Sense and Sensibility' for him and finds himself admiring Willoughby and wondering why Austen gave him such a happy ending. Jack, of course, is a 1940's version of Austen's bad boys, but with a twist. He has Wickam's passions and Darcy's self-discipline, a frightening combination,

There's also a scene where the studio head pulls a Harvey Weinstein on Mimi, who fends him off. The contrast between his attempt at rape and Jack Leonard's patient but relentless hunt for submission turns Jack from bad guy to something more complicated.

This ability to recognise how complex people are is one of the things that attracts the various members of the Society to Austen's work. In one of the many discussions of Austen between the members of the Society, they speculate on what it must have been like to see people as clearly as Austen does, with their sillinesses and their veniality and small pettinesses all on display, and yet still be able to write about them with compassion and even give them some hope of happiness.

I think that combination of insight and compassion and hope is the defining attribute of this book. 'The Jane Austen Society' is a lovely piece of writing about a small group of people and what they know and are able to feel and say about themselves and each other.

Its clean, calm prose lets us see the world through their eyes, amplified by the different things each of them gets from reading Austen and the way they see Austen's characters.

There's a lot of grief and pain and awkwardness but there is also a backdrop of quiet hope.

I became completely engaged with these people and found myself hoping for a happy ending for each of them.

I recommend the audiobook version of 'The Jane Austen Society'. Richard Armitage's narration is perfectly judged and increased my enjoyment of an already enjoyable book. Click on the SoundCloud link below to hear an excerpt.

https://soundcloud.com/orionbooks/the... show less

Directly after the end of World War II, several townsfolk in the small English village of Chawton realize their shared love of Jane Austen and decide they should start a charitable trust to preserve local items related to Austen, including the cottage where she spent her last days. The motley crew -- including a young war widow, a widowed doctor, a quiet farmer, a smart servant girl, a lively auctioneer, a cautious lawyer, a Hollywood movie star, and the last of Jane Austen's living relatives -- find their lives become intertwined as a result.

This was a really interesting and enjoyable read. To be honest, there have been so many Austen-related books that were such drivel that I didn't necessarily go into this book with high hopes. I was show more actually surprised at the end of this book to learn that it was the debut novel from the author. I found all of the characters compelling and realistic; I was eager to find out what would happen to them all next. The ending did feel a tiny bit rushed and perhaps a little too perfectly tied up, but I was in the mood for something lighter so happy endings were welcome. The book isn't saccharine though; there were definitely ups and downs for all the characters, but the overall mood is optimistic.

While I do think the book is best for Austen fans, it is not inaccessible to those who are only vaguely aware of her and her works. The story is much more about these characters and how they engage with one another, although those interactions do often include discussions about Austen's life, books, and characters. Usually there is just enough of an explanation to make it work even for non-Janeites.

The audiobook was expertly narrated by Richard Armitage, who brought each character to life with appropriate accents and intonations. This version also included an interview with the author at the end. I also flipped through an ebook version, which contained a map of the village, a different interview with the author, reading discussion questions, and a preview of another Austen-related book penned by Jenner. This version's backmatter also included information about which parts of the book were based on real-life events and which were not. show less

I don't always love fiction inspired by Jane Austen. Those books usually leave me wishing I was reading the real thing. This one was delightful though. It's about a group of people who live in the tiny English village where Austen wrote some of her novels. They form a society to try to preserve her legacy. Each of their stories, from Mimi the Hollywood star to Adeline, the strong young widow, mirrored a portion of an Austen novel or added a new layer to the impact she had on the world. This was a cup of hot cocoa that hit the spot.

“Dr. Gray is a good man,” Adam replies simply.
“Yes, he is—which is remarkable, given how clearly he sees everyone and everything.”
“Like Austen herself.”

“Yes.” Adeline Set up even straighter show more in agreement. “Exactly. The humanity—the love for people—mixed with seeing them for who they really are. Loving them enough to do that. Loving them in spite of that.”

“Reading is wonderful, but it does keep us in our heads. It’s why I can’t read certain authors when I am in low spirits.”
“But one can always read Austen.”
“And that’s exactly what Austen gives us. A world so part of our own, yet so separate, that entering it is like some kind of tonic. Even with so many flawed and silly characters, it all makes sense in the end. It may be the most sense we’ll ever get to make out of our own messed-up world that’s why she lasts, like Shakespeare. It’s all in there, all of life, all the stuff that counts, and keeps counting, all the way to here, to you.”

"It is part of me, that awful, irrevocable act. And I am never going to be quite whole again because of it. You are not the problem: the loss is.” show less

I no longer remember when or how I first came across Jane Austen and her works. She seems to have always been a part, a happy part, of my reading life. I've read the six novels many times, for pleasure and for school, and I've spent hours watching film adaptations and reading modern retellings, books inspired by her works, and books about the author herself. If there is the slightest hint that a book has a connection to Austen, I am all but guaranteed to pick it up. So I was delighted to discover Natalie Jenner's new novel, The Jane Austen Society, a fictionalized account of the founding of the eponymous Jane Austen Society, about a group of people in Chawton trying to preserve Austen's legacy before it's too late.

Set mainly just show more post-WWII, with only two brief bits outside of this time frame, one before the war and one during, the novel echoes Austen's own stories in the best way. An ensemble cast, composed primarily of residents of Chawton, where Austen lived out the last years of her life in a cottage on the grounds of her older brother's estate, comes together with a few outsiders who are also transported by Austen's works as they try to create a place worthy of the author, a place that justifies the pilgrims that periodically find their way to the small village looking for any sign of the once lived life of Jane Austen. Just as in Austen, the action centers almost entirely in the village, paying similar attention to the everyday realities of the main characters, Austen descendant Miss Frances Knight, farmer Adam Berwick, the widowed Dr. Gray, former teacher and war widow Adeline Grover, the young maid Evie Stone, lawyer Andrew Forrester, and outsiders actress Mimi Harrison and Sotheby's representative Yardley Sinclair, and the society they live in as do Austen's own novels. Each character is simply living his or her ordinary life when they come together in a passion project to do an extraordinary thing, to create the society. And as they create the society, their regular lives and small but important dramas continue to unfold. They are very different from each other on the surface but they are all touched in some way by real life, facing death, addiction, poverty, grief, and disappointment, understanding and learning their own hearts and their very beings, and finding or rediscovering love. And just as in Austen, there is also a villain who could derail the hopes of the society and a crass heir who cares for nothing beyond money.

Jenner has written a completely delightful novel and tied it to Austen, not just in name but in the very fabric of the story she's created. Had Austen been writing a little more than a century onward from her own time, she very well might have written characters like these, found in her own small village in the aftermath of the war. Certainly Jenner has captured the themes of Austen, love and friendship, the state of society and the paths in life open to people from each stratum within it. She has captured the change afoot after the war and its lasting effect on all those who lived through it, even if only indirectly. The reader will warm to and sympathize with each of the main characters, rooting for them to find a way to preserve Austen's quiet legacy amidst the setbacks, legal, financial, and personal. The opening of the novel is a bit slow and the sheer number of characters can be overwhelming until the way that they come together and start to weave in and out of each others' lives consistently becomes clear but the slow build is definitely worth the payoff. Austen fans will love this addition to the books about the author and the impact of her works on ordinary people, smiling broadly as yet another Austen element makes its way into the story and on the page. It is a lovingly drawn picture of an English village post war, a time capsule of society, a historical fiction full of heart. It is not even close to the actual true story of the founding of the Jane Austen Society, nor does it try to be. What it is instead, is a charming novel dedicated to the spirit of Austen, an imagined and creative exploration into the continued importance of literature and reading in our lives, and the ever enduring legacy of Austen and her novels. show less