Happy birthday, Jane!

Birthdays are a big deal…even more so when you’re turning 236, like the inimitable Jane Austen. I’m excited to participate in Austen’s Birthday Soiree today along with dozens of other Janeites worldwide…and to be giving away a copy of Potter-style Pride and Prejudice notecards to one lucky commenter! 

I’ve done lots of book events over the past few months, and the issue keeps coming up. Why is Jane Austen so revered and so relevant 236 years after her birth?

The answer is probably one that will annoy academics and occupy writers for centuries to come. In celebration of her birthday, I’ll tell you why I find Miss Austen so refreshing, two centuries on.

You see, the more I appreciate her body of work, the more I realize that it’s not Austen’s love stories that interest me. It’s the sense of inner amusement with which the author approaches all of society. Nobody found other people as ridiculous and as gently amusing as Jane, and even today in a world without the marriage market, the fumbling country-dance or the Empire waist, there’s something to be relished in passages that poke at all we once held dear.  Things haven’t changed so much in the many years since Jane Austen helped invent the modern novel, and what better birthday present could you wish for than the gift of timelessness?

Why do you find Jane Austen relevant today (or not)? Comment below and you could win a set of Potter-style Pride and Prejudice notecards!  The contest will close next Friday, December 24, and is open to residents of the United States and Canada only.

Don’t forget to visit the other Austen’s Birthday Soiree participants, listed below, for your chance to win even more Austenesque gifts.  Thanks to Maria Grazia of My Jane Austen Book Club and  Katherine Cox of November’s Autumn for organizing.

Participants in Austen’s Birthday Soiree

• Sharon Lathan
  Blog: Sharon Lathan
  Giveaway: one copy of Miss Darcy Falls in Love
• Emily Snyder
  Blog: O! Beauty Unattempted
  Giveaway: one copy of Letters of Love & Deception 
• Laurel Ann Nattress
  Blog: Austenprose
  Giveaway: one signed copy of Jane Austen Made Me Do It
• C. Allyn Pierson
  Blog: SemiTrue Stories
  Giveaway: one copy of Mr. Darcy Little Sister (open internationally)
• Cindy Jones
  Blog: First Draft
  Giveaway: one signed copy of My Jane Austen Summer and a package of Lily Berry’s Pink Rose Tea by Bingley’s, Ltd.
• Farida Mestek
  Blog: Regency stories set against the backdrop of Regency England
  Giveaway: one copy of I was Jane Austen Best Friend, by Cora Harrison
• Marilyn Brant
  Blog: Brant Flakes
  Giveaway: A canvas ACCORDING TO JANE tote bag and a pair of A SUMMER IN EUROPE luggage tags
• Prue Batten
  Blog: Mesmered’s Blog
  Giveaway: one copy of Georgiana Darcy’s Diary: Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice continued, Anna Elliott
• Erin Blakemore
  Blog:  The Heroine’s Bookshelf
  Giveaway: Pride and Prejudice notecards, by Potter Style
• Blog: vvb32 reads
  Giveaway: Jane Austen’s Little Instruction Book (Charming Petites), by Jane Austen, edited by Sophia Bedford-Pierce, illustrated by Mullen & Katz, introduction by Barbara Paulding
• Karen Doornebos
  Blog: The Fiction vs. Reality Smackdown
  Giveaway: 2 Jane Austen candles and 2 signed copies of Definitely Not Mr. Darcy plus drink coasters and tea!
• Regina Jeffers
  Blog: ReginaJeffers’s Blog
  Giveaway: one signed copy of Christmas at Pemberley
• Alyssa Goodnight
  Blog: Alyssa Goodnight   
  Giveaway: one Jane Austen Action figure
• Deb Barnum
  Blog: Jane Austen in Vermont
  Giveaway: 2012 calendars from the Wisconsin JASNA Region
• Laura Hile, Susan Kaye, Pamela Aidan, and Barbara Cornthwaite
  Blog: Jane Started It!
  Giveaway: one copy of Young Master Darcy: A Lesson in Honour, by Pamela Aidan; one set of Frederick Wentworth, Captain (Books 1 and 2), by Susan Kaye; two copies of Mercy’s Embrace: So Rough a Course (Book 1), by Laura Hile; one copy of George Kinghtley, Gentleman (Books 1 and 2), by Barbara Cornthwaite
• Juliet Archer
  Blog: Choc Lit Authors’ Corner
  Giveaway: one copy each of Persuade Me and The Importance of Being Emma
• Jane Greensmith
  Blog: Reading, Writing, Working, Playing
  Giveaway: one copy each of Intimations of Austen, and Sense & Sensibility (Marvel Illustrated)
• Jenny Allworthy
  Blog: The Jane Austen Film Club 
  Giveaway: a copy of Northanger Abbey DVD starring Felicity Jones and JJ Feild (The winner will choose region 1 or 2 DVD)
• Sitio Jane Austen
  Blog: El Salón de Té de Jane
  Giveaway:  one copy of the Spanish edition of Sense and Sensibility and one copy of  DVD package with adaptations of Jane Austen. (It’s only zone 2, but it’s in Spanish and English ), and one copy of BBC’s Emma with Romola Garai (Blue-ray)
• Kaitlin Saunders
  Blog: Kaitlin Saunders
  Giveaway: one copy of A Modern Day Persuasion
• Becky Rhodehouse
  Blog: One Literature Nut
  Giveaway: selection of Austenesque Reads
• Patrice Sarath
  Blog: Patrice Sarath
  Giveaway: one copy of The Unexpected Miss Bennet
• Adriana Zardini
  Site: Jane Austen Brasil
  Giveaway: DVD – Sense and Sensibility (1995) – English / Portuguese subtitles
• Jane Odiwe
  Blog: Jane Austen Sequels 
  Giveaway: one mug with one of Jane Odiwe’s illustrations and one copy of Mr. Darcy’s Secret
• Courtney Webb
  Blog: Stiletto Storytime
  Giveaway: one copy of Noble Satyr by Lucinda Brant (Regency Romance)
• Jennifer Becton
  Blog: Jennifer W. Becton
  Giveaway: one copy of the eBook of the Personages of Pride and Prejudice Collection, which contains Charlotte Collins, “Maria Lucas,” and Caroline Bingley. Open internationally.
• Vera Nazarian
  Blog: Urban Girl Takes Vermont
  Giveaway: a copy of Vera Nazarian’s gift hardcover edition of her inspirational calendar and diary, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration
• Abigail Reynolds
  Blog: Pemberley Variations
  Giveaway: one signed copy of Mr. Darcy’s Undoing
• Blog: AustenAuthors
  Giveaway: one copy of Georgette Heyer’s Regency World, by Jennifer Kloester
• Katherine Cox
  Blog: November’s Autumn
  Giveaway: one $10 B&N Gift-card (US only)
• Maria Grazia
  Blog: My Jane Austen Book Club
  Giveaway: A selection of Austenesque reads

If you’ve read The Heroine’s Bookshelf, you’ll know that I come from San Diego, CA. I never felt self-conscious about my speaking voice until I started my first year at Smith College in Massachusetts (I shall leave out the period of time I lived in Germany, which was another kind of speaking anxiety altogether). When I got to Smith, I didn’t just hear a bunch of new accents…I realized I had one, and that it had a kind of class/intelligence implication to some of my schoolmates and teachers. I started to feel really nervous about the sound of my own voice, even though I’ve always been a big talker.

A decade later, I’m a bit more accepting of my voice. I’ve worked hard to eliminate “like” from anything but casual conversation. Cue many opportunities to speak. From book clubs to conferences to groups of interested parties (I just did a really fun workshop at the Boulder Writers Meetup and am thrilled to have been invited to speak to the Denver/Boulder Jane Austen Society tomorrow) to interviews (this just in from Blackstone Audio…a conversation with the narrator of my book, Tavia Gilbert), I am called upon not only to say something, but to have something to say. And I find that I really like it.

In a way, this is all about layers, self-confidence, and security. Speaking to a group is just as thrilling, terrifying and instructive as writing, and I always learn something about myself along the way. Something else I’ve learned, though, not only from a career of counseling and training clients, is that effective speaking is also about listening, so don’t be surprised if I ask you some questions during my talks.

I guess I never realized that I might have something interesting to say!

Scarlett O’Hara, Gone With the Wind:  Scarlett is not beautiful, nor is she a good mother at all.  We can barely chasten Rhett Butler for telling her a cat is a better mother than she, for Mrs. Hamilton/Kennedy/Butler extravagantly neglects the sheepish son and the ugly daughter who precede lovely little Bonnie Blue.  (Side note:  Margaret Mitchell’s portrayal of Wade Hampton Hamilton’s reaction to the events of the siege of Atlanta are brilliant and well worth rereading for anyone looking to learn a great lesson about conveying terror, the sweep of historical events, and the plot intricacies of main characters)  Though Scarlett gets punished for her neglectful motherhood in the end, we can’t help but wonder how her own angelic mom’s lessons never managed to wear off on her…and somehow manage to identify with her all the same.

Joan Crawford, Mommie Dearest: Okay, so Joan isn’t exactly a fictional character, though God only knows how fictitious her daughter’s famous tell-all memoir really is.  One fact, however, is abundantly clear:  JOAN CRAWFORD WAS AN EVIL MOTHER.  Attempted stranglings?  Throwing her daughter’s adopted status in her face?  Wire-hangered beatings?  Yeah.  Chalk it up to old Joan, who really knew how to bring the drama to her trainwreck family.

Mrs. Bennet, Pride and Prejudice: Our next selection is not so much a terrible mother as a very…misguided one.  Burdened with the cross of five daughters to marry off, Mrs. Bennet has many pressing worries.  But worse than her bumbling around all matrimonial affairs is a complete disregard of her daughters’ feelings that we have to admit seems excessive, even for the turn of the nineteenth century.  Mrs. Bennet is also…clueless.  “My poor nerves, you tear them to pieces! But I never complain.”

Ingrid Magnussen, White Oleander: Cruelty, neglect, abandonment, and even murder are all on good old Ingrid’s plate at some point, but once again the emotional aspects of the relationship between this anti-heroine and her daughter are of the most interest to me.  It isn’t that Ingrid is evil (she is)…it’s that she is utterly unable to identify with the daughter she gave birth to, and Janet Fitch explores the fallout of a mother’s failure in a pulpy, poignant read.

From left to right, top to bottom:

1)  First, a bit of history.  Here’s the original front page (they didn’t do fancy artsy covers in the early 1800s).

2)  is kind of a swinging late 60sish take on P&P (reminds me of the exquisite Fairy Alphabet on Sesame Street).

3) has to be in the running for Lamest Cover Ever, right?

4) This illustration by Reuben Toledo brings a bit of fashion to Meryton.

5) and 6) Marvel recently put out a comic version of P&P that deserves two postings for its amazing covers by Sonny Liew.  I’ve included the first cover and the fourth.  Make sure to click to enlarge…they’re exquisite. 

7) Harper recently released a version of P&P styled after the Sparkly Vampire Series That Cannot Be Named…eek!

For another cool roundup of P&P covers, check out Belle of the Books’ recent post, which features tons of international Pride and Prejudice flava.

I have of course neglected to post the many, many covers that include a classic portrait of a woman on them.  Zzz.  What’s your favorite of these covers?  Got a favorite P&P cover you’d like to share?

• Jane began writing Pride and Prejudice when she was just 21 years old.  The book was originally entitled First Impressions.
• Jane actually gave away the rights to her best-known book, selling them to publisher Thomas Egerton for just £110 (he argued her down from £150).
• Though witty and accomplished herself, Jane was more similar to her grumpy, outsiderish leading man, Fitzwilliam Darcy, than her sparkling female protagonist.
• Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, the spoof spinoff from Quirk Books, has sold over 700,000 copies to date and spawned an entire series of spooftastic books related to classic literature.
• The 1995 Jennifer Ehle/Colin Firth adaptation of Pride and Prejudice is the best televised or filmed P&P incarnation, ever.  This is an incontrovertible fact.

Finally, here are two of my favorite P&P resources:  a detailed Pride and Prejudice character map (left), and Pride and Prejudice in Facebook form (right):