I had never heard of Jane Austen by Margaret Kennedy, published in 1950 as part of a series called ‘The European Novelists’, until Simon reviewed it last month but when I did, I knew immediately that I had to read it. In just over one hundred pages, Kennedy absorbingly describes Austen’s literary predecessors, her life, her novels, and her place in literature. It may lack the depth of other more definitive Austen books but it is a wonderful addition to any Janeite’s collection.
Kennedy never pretends to be anything other than a Janeite herself, which is part of what makes this such an engaging book. She cares. She not only wants to tell us what happened in Austen’s life but wants to know how it impacted Austen, imagine how she must have felt. Examining the letters, Kennedy looks at the abrupt change in their author after the move to Bath, contrasting the joyous girl of the pre-Bath letters –one Kennedy could cheerfully imagine and love – with the more subdued, enigmatic woman she quickly became:
The pre-Bath letters were written by a girl with an enormous capacity for enjoying life. Her high spirits dance through every line. She can cry with joy at a sailor brother’s promotion. She prefers that people should not be too agreeable, as it saves her the trouble of liking them very much in a world which is full of things to like. She shares a bed with another girl and they lie awake, gossiping and giggling, until two o’clock in the morning…And then, after one or two letters describing the removal, the long silence descends. We never meet this girl again.
For me though, the absolute highlight was reading Kennedy’s thoughts on Austen’s novels. As you know, I can never read or hear enough of other people’s reactions to Austen. Kennedy manages to be affectionate yet insightful, to voice her admiration as well as her criticisms. I didn’t necessarily agree with all of her opinions but her points are well-considered and intelligent – I could always see the appeal of her argument, even when it didn’t win me over.
Considering the early novels, Kennedy adores Elizabeth Bennet and has a fair amount to say on Pride and Prejudice, is quite brief on Sense and Sensibility (though I deeply enjoyed her distaste for Edward Ferrars, ‘a poor stick’), and admires Henry Tilney and the technical skill of Northanger Abbey. These are the ‘fun’ novels, the bright, exuberant stories from Austen’s youth, and Kennedy is happy to treat them as such, saving her more detailed consideration for the later novels.
Persuasion and Emma are both intelligently discussed (though there was not enough on Emma for my tastes, but then there never is) but Kennedy saves her energy for another book. She is an admirer of Mansfield Park. Which, in and of itself, is unexceptional. But I think where we disagree is in Kennedy’s assertion that:
It is the most important of the novels, the most ambitious in theme, and the best example of her powers. She put all that she had into it. As a work of art it heads the list, and if it is not the universal choice, that is because so many people do not ask that a novel should be, primarily, a work of art.
That statement alone almost sent me back to my bookshelf to grab it for a reread. ‘The best example of her powers’? Admittedly, it has been a few years since I last read it but…no. Not for this reader. For me, there is a bitterness at the heart of Mansfield Park that saw Austen create a singularly unbalanced cast of characters. She divided virtue and wealth so that they were never distributed equally and were always, unsubtly, in opposition, with the virtuous, impoverished Fanny’s moral superiority clearly on display. It is a forceful, effective message but I think too forceful to match the skilful, balanced execution of either Persuasion or Emma. This is one argument Kennedy was not able to sell me on.
But she did persuasively discuss the merits of Fanny Price. Now, I’ve never hated Fanny as some readers do; I’ve just been generally indifferent towards her, though on some readings my feelings warm to border on mild fondness, mostly for the reasons Kennedy highlights:
In every way she is of finer grain that Edmund, her guide and mentor. He recommends books to improve her mind: she reads them for pleasure. He tells her the names of the stars: she finds them beautiful. And to her exclamations on the glories of a summer night he can only rejoin, with patronizing indulgence: ‘I like to hear your enthusiasm.’ He is pitched in too low a key for her, and it is one of the subtleties of the book that Henry Crawford, had he been a better man, would have been the right man. With him she would have developed her latent capacities more fully and they might have read Shakespeare together for a better reason than self-improvement. With Edmund she secured happiness at a cost, the sacrifice of certain possibilities in her nature. For Mansfield Park is not a fairy story.
The final section, dealing with Austen’s place in the literary world, her importance to readers from her time until Kennedy’s, is wonderful for how Kennedy contrasts the reception Austen received from 19th Century female readers intent on breaking out of their homes with happily domesticated mid-20th Century ones:
Jane Austen described the life of women who must live at home, quiet and confined. The women of the nineteenth century were occupied in claiming the right to live elsewhere, if they liked, to be heard, to be free, to possess other privileges than that of hopeless love. They could have little patience with girls who were so well content to dance and wait for husbands. Even so late as 1915 the Principal of an Oxford women’s college was heard to condemn Jane Austen ‘because all her women were so trivial.’ The women of our own time are, perhaps, more sympathetic. A home in which to live quietly is often, now, the object of their highest ambitions.
She also intriguingly remarks on the abundance of male champions Austen has, in comparison to the disdain she often received from influential female readers:
Her best supporters have always been men. The leading women of the Victorian age, occupied in the struggle for the liberation of their sex, found less to appreciate in her. Even where they praised, they did so with a touch of patronage, a frequent suggestion that she was a little old-fashioned. She was ‘dear Jane Austen,’ a favourite maiden aunt, a relic of yester year. ..And this notion of a lavender-scented, unsophisticated day-dreamer in a vicarage still persists, thanks to the motion pictures and the dramatic critics.
Some things don’t change, do they?
Kennedy has so many fascinating thoughts and so much clever analysis to share, the kind that can only come from a passionate reader. She clearly finds her topic endlessly engaging and exciting, which makes for a truly enjoyable reading experience and one that any other Austen fan will find easily relatable. There is no distance here between the author and the reader: we are all Austen admirers. Kennedy’s passion is the same as ours. There are better biographies out there and more thorough volumes of criticism but, as a compliment to those, as an expression of one reader’s love of Austen and her work, this is perfect.
This sounds like a wonderful book. And oh my goodness I am so happy to read what she says about Fanny Price and MP as I am always trying to persuade people to love the book and love Fanny and here is some wonderful support. What a perceptive woman and how well she writes. I’ve read one of her novels but never knew about this until recently. Thanks!
If you love Mansfield Park, you’ll love Kennedy’s thoughts on it! Even though I didn’t agree with her entirely, I really enjoyed seeing the book through her eyes. Though I’ve had The Constant Nymph on my To-Read list for years, this was actually the first book by Kennedy that I’ve read and now I’m eager to read more.
Great review, Claire – and sounds like our reaction to it is pretty the same. It’s lovely to have a book which is both biography and appreciation, especially one written in 1950, for the perspective from that time.
I really loved reading Kennedy’s perspective both on Austen’s appeal at the time she was writing and on how Austen was viewed during the 19th and early 20th Centuries, largely because I though it was an interesting compliment/contrast to Claire Harman’s coverage of the same topic in Jane’s Fame. I never get tired of reading about Austen and only wish there were more books like this, particularly with Kennedy’s personal approach to her subject!
I haven’t read this book, and I’m intrigued. I don’t know why Austen’s life holds such a fascination for me. I love other authors but am not in the least curious about them as people. I think it is the ability to make a silk purse out of a sows ear that makes me long to know more about Jane Austen. That she was able to distill her knowledge of society into sparkling stories of love, humour and passion, it’s something I find endlessly fascinating. Thank you.
I love reading about all authors (even more than I love reading their books sometimes) but Austen is definitely special to me too. I think my main interest though is not in her life but in how she affects her readers and how she is perceived by them. Kennedy’s perspective is particularly fascinating for me because of how much she reveals about how she relates to and views Austen.
Let alone reading I hadn’t even heard of this one. Sounds fascinating.
Before Simon’s review, I’d never heard of it either, which I found slightly shocking given how desperately I search out everything Austen-related!
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