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Me and Miss Austen
I could write about my reaction to the speeches at the Democratic National Convention. But I don't really feel like doing so. I was pleased, for the most part, with what I've heard, but enough ink is going to be spilled on that subject that I don't particularly feel like adding to the torrent tonight.
I could tell you about coaching the girls on the Genesis form, because they're going to test for their next belt tomorrow. Actually, I'm not entirely sure they are going to pass, because for some inexplicable reason, their classes didn't include the form instruction this past month until the very last lesson before the test this Friday, so we've tried to learn the form in one lesson and I've been drilling them on it since Tuesday. And it's tough: they obviously don't have all the moves down cold yet, despite our best efforts. My parents are coming to watch the test tomorrow, since they're in town, which is a cause of some excitement (my parents live in Georgia, and they've never seen the girls do karate before). But I'll give you a more complete report about all that after the test.
I was indulging in one of my habitual daydreams again today, and I realize that I've never told you about it. Once I realized that and thought about writing a post about it, I realized that this daydream is a bit odd, really, and I wondered whether you would think me really strange for indulging in it. But then I realized if you've been reading my journal for awhile, you already know that I'm rather strange.
I love to daydream about meeting Jane Austen.
For some reason, Jane Austen appears at my home, and it's my job to sort of shepherd her around for a day or two. Or if I'm lucky, for a week or more. I know who she is, of course, but she has no idea who I am. It's my job to introduce her to the life in the 21st century.
I've had more fun than you can imagine trying to picture her reactions to various things: microwave ovens. Riding in a car for the first time. Seeing an airplane. Computers. I imagine showing her the Internet, and clicking onto to www.pemberley.com and telling her, "This is a place where people from all over the world are discussing your books, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week." We could spend a weekend watching movies made from her books. ("That Mr. Colin Firth! Don't you think he is the handsomest man you've ever seen?") I want to give her a copy of Lord of the Rings and get her opinion after she's read it. I imagine her watching me exercise and gasping in horror at the shocking costumes worn by those brazen hussies on the FIRM DVD. Showing their legs! And their stomachs, and their -- no, she can't even say it. Where are her smelling salts?
I don't know why I keep embroidering on this daydream. I've thought of being Shakespeare's buddy for a day, but that doesn't have the same appeal. Perhaps because he's a guy, or an actor? As if once I showed him the Guthrie Theater, he'd disappear backstage and spend the rest of the visit ignoring me and talking shop with other actors. No, I keep returning to Miss Austen. (I can never imagine calling her "Jane." I want her to feel comfortable, so I address her as "Miss Austen." I imagine she would also be shocked because my children address my next door neighbor by her first name, or as Miss Austen would put it, her Christian name.)
I think I would prefer to spend the time with Miss Austen because I've always been fascinated by her observant eye and needle wit, and I can't help but wonder how they would manifest themselves if she turned her full attention to my life, to my foibles and my struggles (not that Shakespeare didn't have an observant eye and needle wit himself, but for some reason that I can't quite pin down, I've just always been more curious about her reaction). Would Miss Austen be kind? No, I rather think she would not. It pains me a little to say it, but as eager as I am to receive her good opinion, I fear she would be reluctant to give it to me. First of all, I work for a living, and am therefore not quite of her class. How to explain to her that in the time and place that I live, there are no servants for most people; we have all manner of labor saving devices, but that most people do work, and do not think any less of each other for doing so? I also have the bad taste to live in America, rather than dear old England.
I also fear my habit of wearing jeans would astonish and horrify her.
But what bothers me the most is the thought that I would not feel comfortable giving her my own books to read. Emerald House Rising--well, perhaps. She would perhaps be kind to someone else's first effort.
But I could never explain The Wild Swans to her. The relationship between Elias and Sean would, I think, be beyond what a 19th century clergyman's daughter would think proper to read about.
Could she be open to it? If I attempted to explain what the book was about before handing it to her to read, would she be brave enough to try it? What would she think about telemarketing calls and televangelists and light rail and skyscrapers? Would she think I was doing a good job raising my children?
I hope that there might be some small part of her that might learn to like me. Once she got over the shock of my short hair and my wardrobe, and the fact that I drove in a strange metal contraption every day and left my children with others so that I could earn my living. I would hope that if anyone could survive the jolt of being transported two centuries beyond her own time, it might be Miss Austen.
Who knows? Perhaps she might discover that she likes lifting weights or reading Tolkien herself, now that she's tried them.
I could tell you about coaching the girls on the Genesis form, because they're going to test for their next belt tomorrow. Actually, I'm not entirely sure they are going to pass, because for some inexplicable reason, their classes didn't include the form instruction this past month until the very last lesson before the test this Friday, so we've tried to learn the form in one lesson and I've been drilling them on it since Tuesday. And it's tough: they obviously don't have all the moves down cold yet, despite our best efforts. My parents are coming to watch the test tomorrow, since they're in town, which is a cause of some excitement (my parents live in Georgia, and they've never seen the girls do karate before). But I'll give you a more complete report about all that after the test.
I was indulging in one of my habitual daydreams again today, and I realize that I've never told you about it. Once I realized that and thought about writing a post about it, I realized that this daydream is a bit odd, really, and I wondered whether you would think me really strange for indulging in it. But then I realized if you've been reading my journal for awhile, you already know that I'm rather strange.
I love to daydream about meeting Jane Austen.
For some reason, Jane Austen appears at my home, and it's my job to sort of shepherd her around for a day or two. Or if I'm lucky, for a week or more. I know who she is, of course, but she has no idea who I am. It's my job to introduce her to the life in the 21st century.
I've had more fun than you can imagine trying to picture her reactions to various things: microwave ovens. Riding in a car for the first time. Seeing an airplane. Computers. I imagine showing her the Internet, and clicking onto to www.pemberley.com and telling her, "This is a place where people from all over the world are discussing your books, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week." We could spend a weekend watching movies made from her books. ("That Mr. Colin Firth! Don't you think he is the handsomest man you've ever seen?") I want to give her a copy of Lord of the Rings and get her opinion after she's read it. I imagine her watching me exercise and gasping in horror at the shocking costumes worn by those brazen hussies on the FIRM DVD. Showing their legs! And their stomachs, and their -- no, she can't even say it. Where are her smelling salts?
I don't know why I keep embroidering on this daydream. I've thought of being Shakespeare's buddy for a day, but that doesn't have the same appeal. Perhaps because he's a guy, or an actor? As if once I showed him the Guthrie Theater, he'd disappear backstage and spend the rest of the visit ignoring me and talking shop with other actors. No, I keep returning to Miss Austen. (I can never imagine calling her "Jane." I want her to feel comfortable, so I address her as "Miss Austen." I imagine she would also be shocked because my children address my next door neighbor by her first name, or as Miss Austen would put it, her Christian name.)
I think I would prefer to spend the time with Miss Austen because I've always been fascinated by her observant eye and needle wit, and I can't help but wonder how they would manifest themselves if she turned her full attention to my life, to my foibles and my struggles (not that Shakespeare didn't have an observant eye and needle wit himself, but for some reason that I can't quite pin down, I've just always been more curious about her reaction). Would Miss Austen be kind? No, I rather think she would not. It pains me a little to say it, but as eager as I am to receive her good opinion, I fear she would be reluctant to give it to me. First of all, I work for a living, and am therefore not quite of her class. How to explain to her that in the time and place that I live, there are no servants for most people; we have all manner of labor saving devices, but that most people do work, and do not think any less of each other for doing so? I also have the bad taste to live in America, rather than dear old England.
I also fear my habit of wearing jeans would astonish and horrify her.
But what bothers me the most is the thought that I would not feel comfortable giving her my own books to read. Emerald House Rising--well, perhaps. She would perhaps be kind to someone else's first effort.
But I could never explain The Wild Swans to her. The relationship between Elias and Sean would, I think, be beyond what a 19th century clergyman's daughter would think proper to read about.
Could she be open to it? If I attempted to explain what the book was about before handing it to her to read, would she be brave enough to try it? What would she think about telemarketing calls and televangelists and light rail and skyscrapers? Would she think I was doing a good job raising my children?
I hope that there might be some small part of her that might learn to like me. Once she got over the shock of my short hair and my wardrobe, and the fact that I drove in a strange metal contraption every day and left my children with others so that I could earn my living. I would hope that if anyone could survive the jolt of being transported two centuries beyond her own time, it might be Miss Austen.
Who knows? Perhaps she might discover that she likes lifting weights or reading Tolkien herself, now that she's tried them.
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(I can never imagine calling her "Jane." I want her to feel comfortable, so I address her as "Miss Austen."
Hee, remember Tam Lin -- "I'd never dream of addressing Miss Austen so" (quoting from memory, so might be a bit off).
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But have you considered writing an essay about this, and submitting it? It's just, I know that I'm going to have this in my head all day long, and probably for longer. And it's going to be shaking up a few things as I wander through my life. I bet it would hit a lot of people like that.
I'll stop being presumptuous now, and just congratulate you on Solvieg's name. I'm a Name freak, so that gave me goosebumps!
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(sighs)
(goes back to work)
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But there would probably be friction. She valued reserve almost above all; we see it again and again in her works, and in the fact that her passionate letters--the ones about her own emotional risks--were all sedulously burned. We see it in her strong ambivalence to her brother's relationship--and eventual marriage to the fascinating but finally repellently demonstrative Eliza.
In short, I don't think she'd be a comfortable person to be around. She had a satiric eye, and a gift for mimicry of what she found silly or stupid, once she was back in her private bastion. But I do think she would understand working. A woman's being useful was important to her.
But like you I do wonder how she might accept that central relationship in Wild Swans--whether, having seen how the world evolved, and the possibilities women were discovering, she might be able to embrace it. She did write about real love, after all, as opposed to mere lust, or trophy-hunting...companionship of the mind and heart were important to her.
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"I am doatingly fond of writing -- passionately fond; -- and my friends say I am not entirely devoid of taste; but as to any thing else, upon my honour my performance is mediocre to the last degree. You, Miss Austen, I well know, write delightfully. . . I do not think I can live without something of a literary society. I condition for nothing else; but without reading and writing, life would be a blank for me.'"
*Shudders*
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I used to daydream about going back in a time machine and saving Vincent Van Gogh and introducing him to Greenwich Village; this was when I was in my teens and the Village was still where artists hung out.
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That's an appealing fantasy, about Vincent Van Gogh! Poor man, he really deserved a better fate. I was just thinking about his yesterday, when a radio station I was listening to played Jim Croce's "Starry, Starry Night."
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Although I think Ben Franklin might have been better able to accept modern mores than either Jefferson or Austen. And he would have been even more fascinated than Jefferson with the technology. "What does this do? How does this work?"
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Chantal
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Chantal
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Have you by chance read Karen Fowler's The Jane Austen Book Club (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0399151613/qid=1091202986/sr=ka-1/ref=pd_ka_1/102-8829947-9767343)? I read it last week, and it's lovely. Your daydream is reminiscent of one particular character in the club, and it strikes me as something you might enjoy.
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I think I started having this day dream after I read Fay Weldon's Letters to Alice on First Reading Jane Austen.
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Chantal
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Chantal
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I didn't much care for it, but it is out there:
"Paying it Forward" by Michael A. Burstein
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I have to say, though, this entry made my entire week. I have daydreams about authors myself but none so detailed. I have to wonder myself what Miss Austen would think of me, or the state of things about me. Like the DNC and its coverage.
Anyway, what I wanted to say was thank you for writing this. :)
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I have had the EXACT same fantasy all my life, except I always thought about Laura Ingalls Wilder, one of the seminal figures of my childhood literary life. I've imagined bringing her to my house and how I'd explain TV, and women's lib, and the Holocaust.
That's kind of spooky. I wonder how many other people have had the same thoughts? I'd better peruse your comments to this post!
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Again Dangerous Miss Austin
Have you ever seen _Until_The_End_Of_The_World_? It came out in 1991, was directed by Wim Wenders, and stars (among others) William Hurt, Max Von Sydow, & Jeanne Moreau. It’s about... well, *many* things, one of them an experimential type of video camera that records images that blind people can view. Later in the movie it turns out that it can be used to record people's dreams, so that others (and the dreamer while awake) can view them - with unfortunate narcotic like side effect
The reason I mention this is when you mentioned Miss Austin here in the 21st Century I immediatly flashed on to the main character (played by Solveig Dommart) staring empty-eyed into a video monitor. Just staring, and staring, and...
Re: Again Dangerous Miss Austin
Miss Austin & Large Japanese Lizards
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Oh dear...