Jane Austen

[Rumpelteazer]

I chose option 3 but I'm in between 3 and 4. I like her books but I have to be really in the mood for those types of books to enjoy (re)reading them.

[Dedale]

I've read my first one quite recently (Emma) and although there's some slowish things I thought it nice.

It might be 3 in your poll but more like 3.5 really

[Pomtroll]

Read one or two while in high school & college. To be honest she is not my favorite author....But by no means the worst I have read either.

[chamekke]

I reread her books so frequently that I chose the last option... even though I don't have a scheduled annual reread per se.

The Emma Thompson Sense and Sensibility is hugely enjoyable. But on balance I preferred the 2008 BBC-TV adaptation. It made explicit just how precarious the Dashwood women's existence was, how dependent they were on the (casual and potentially temporary) generosity of others. The Thompson version is sunny and cosy, but in that respect I don't think it's entirely faithful to the book.

[wyndslash]

@chamekke: my sisters and i enjoyed the BBC adaptation as well, but they are more of a Jane Austen fan than myself : )

[Historiann]

Originally Posted by Pomtroll

Read one or two while in high school & college. To be honest she is not my favorite author....But by no means the worst I have read either.

You might want to give her another try some day. I read Pride and Prejudice in high school and found it boring. A few years later, I tried Emma and was enchanted. After that I read just about everything she ever wrote, including a collection of minor works that made me laugh out loud.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by Historiann

You might want to give her another try some day. I read Pride and Prejudice in high school and found it boring. A few years later, I tried Emma and was enchanted. After that I read just about everything she ever wrote, including a collection of minor works that made me laugh out loud.

I understand Steve Allen had a similar experience with Moby Dick when he was in school. He didn't like it but then years later he went back and read it and found himself enjoying the story. His thought was that different people are ready for different books at different points in their lives.

[wyndslash]

Originally Posted by crich70

I understand Steve Allen had a similar experience with Moby Dick when he was in school. He didn't like it but then years later he went back and read it and found himself enjoying the story. His thought was that different people are ready for different books at different points in their lives.

that's an idea

i went to the UK site of Penguin recently, and they had several of Jane Austen's work cloth bound and it was beautiful. i fell in love. i also knew that i wouldn't have space for any of them

[odiakkoh]

#6: Never picked up any of her books

Haven't purposely avoided her but haven't purposely pursued her books either.

[DMB]

I first read P&P at the age of 12 at school. We weren't given any guidance on it and were merely asked to write our impressions. At that time I had no real sense of historical perspective and anyway didn't know when P&P was written. I wrote a serious appraisal that was quite appreciative but complained about the author;s "old-fashioned" attachment to carriages rather than cars. Mind you, that wasn't all that long after WW2, when shortage of petrol had driven many civilians in England to revert to horse-drawn vehicles.

About 3 years later I had matured quite a lot and was studying Emma for A-level English. I didn't at that time like Emma all that much, but at least I understood a lot more about the social background and could appreciate some of the subtleties of Austen's writing. I also read Northanger Abbey, which I greatly enjoyed, having also come across The Castle of Otranto and The Mysteries of Udolpho, so that I could enjoy the satire. During my teens I read and reread Austen and my respect for her increased, although at that time I found Mansfield Park disappointing. I loved characters such as Mrs Norris, Mr Price and Mr Rushworth, but I did so want Fanny to marry Henry Crawford and Edmund to marry Mary. Although I felt great sympathy for Fanny in her difficult situation, I thought that Fanny and Edmund were a couple of prigs who needed the right partners to lighten them up instead of getting one another and thereby reinforcing their less admirable qualities.

As a teenager, I also felt that Anne Elliott in Persuasion had been very weedy in giving in to the forces that separated her from Captain Wentworth.

Now I am much older, however, I have much more understanding of how very difficult things were for women at the time when Austen was writing. After all, this was a time when a married woman had no legal existence: "Husband and wife are one person, and that person is the husband". A married woman had no property of her own. Men could legally beat their wives. A divorced woman was permanently disgraced and banished from polite society (like Maria Rushworth) and she had no right to even see her children. Among the lower classes women were even bought and sold, as in the famous scene in The Mayor of Casterbridge. There were no proper careers open to women apart from the servitude of being a governess, and you only have to read the Brontes to realise how tough that could be.

So Austen's novels are not the frothy romances they are sometimes taken to be by readers who lack the historical perspective. They are about desperate women struggling to survive and retain integrity in a hostile world.

[Maggie May]

I went with option 4
I usually re-read her books during the winter months. Sitting in my favourite armchair, an open fire and a glass of white wine. Nirvana.

[orlok]

Not for me. I couldn't even finish Pride & Prejudice and Zombies (and I like Zombies), as I found the (imitated) style too stilted.

[Aladyleyna]

I admit, so far, I have only read 2 books by her, that being Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility. I was actually introduced to her works while studying A-level literature, which was Pride and Prejudice, and I have to admit, I really enjoyed it. I have to read that book once a year or I'd die.

I'm not too sure about Sense and Sensibility though. I did like it, but not as much as the first, because I found the language harder to understand than Pride and Prejudice, but that could be because I actually had my teachers to clarify some points I didn't understand.

But I love her style of writing. I love that gentle mockery and satire she uses in her books, and I really want to read the rest of her works when I have the time. And now that I can use my iPad to get her books for free, I really don't have any excuse not to read her works.

[BenG]

I fall between options 3 and 4. I liked the books that I've read, but I haven't re-read anything.
You may want to read A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, and the Things That Really Matter by William Deresiewicz.
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9...sten-education

[Catlady]

I'm not especially fond of Austen's stories per se, but I do love her language and wit. A movie version of an Austen story interests me very little.