If You Must Run On, Do It Well.

“In addition to what has been already said of Catherine Morland’s personal and mental endowments, when about to be launched into all the difficulties and dangers of a six weeks’ residence in Bath, it may be stated, for the reader’s more certain information, lest the following pages should otherwise fail of giving any idea of what her character is meant to be, that her heart was affectionate, her disposition cheerful and open, without conceit or affectation of any kind; her manners just removed from the awkwardness and shyness of a girl; her person pleasing, and, when in good looks, pretty; and her mind about as ignorant and uniformed as the female mind of seventeen usually is.”~Opening paragraph, Chapter 2 of Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

Jane Austen is, by far, my favorite female author. Although she lived a relatively short life,(Dec. 16, 1775 – July 18, 1817) and certainly a sheltered one, she wrote six novels (Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Northanger Abbey, Mansfield Park, Persuasion) and many short stories, from the time she was a young girl. Her books have been serialized on the BBC and Masterpiece Classics and made into major motion pictures, bringing her humor and biting wit to new generations who may or may not have had the pleasure of reading her original works.

What absolutely delights me about Jane Austen, aside from the shining life she gives her characters, is her mastery of the language. The paragraph opening this blog is an example. It consists of one sentence! There are 116 words in that one sentence! But tell me, who would remove a single word without damaging the flow of her language? Very prettily said, Miss Austen.

Novelist Henry James ranked Austen’s work with that of the literary elites—"the fine painters of life"—Shakespeare, Cervantes, and Henry Fielding. Oddly, because Austen's novels failed to conform to Romantic and Victorian expectations that "powerful emotion [be] authenticated by an egregious display of sound and colour in the writing", (Duffy, "Criticism, 1814-1870", The Jane Austen Companion, 98-99; MacDonagh, 146; Watt, "Introduction", 3-4.) nineteenth-century critics and audiences generally preferred the works of Charles Dickens and George Eliot. Though Austen's novels were republished in Britain beginning in the 1830s and remained steady sellers, they were not bestsellers.

Every year I re-read all of Austen’s novels. Although I know exactly what is going to happen to each of the characters, I turn each page eagerly and am wistful when I come to the close of the novel. What a testament to excellent writing!

I will also admit that for a day or so after finishing an Austen book, I tend to be “exceedingly diverted” (entertained) by events or persons, and find my family members “having a pleasing countenance” (they’re a good looking group).

Austen gets in my head a bit.