Both Funny and True

Fran Lebowitz on why people like Jane Austen for the wrong reasons.
Great but not developed sufficiently. She could write 20 pages on this subject and I would be so happy to read it.

Dusting Off the Desk

Lots of chatter in the blogosphere of what Jane Austen actually died of!

And many interesting people pursuing JA in their own special ways.

November was terrible for writing. Ghastly, forgettable. Today, staring down the barrel of the year-end, I finally emptied my mind of other things and sat down to concentrate on Chapter 20. The result was not amazing, but it was encouraging.

Onward.

@the Morgan Library

I went to the exhibit.

Actually, I joined the Morgan Library, so I could go repeatedly, the chance to see Jane Austen's actual letters being something that does not happen every day, even in New York. So I plan to go back.

Here, then, are my very first impressions: The exhibit is confined in too small a space. The Gillrays, however, are great. I had seen them reproduced in many books, and digitized in various British museums, but there is nothing like seeing an actual print, life-size, in front of you.

The letters of Jane Austen! Oh, what can I say? She has wonderful handwriting, tiny, perfectly even and perfectly spaced, with never a blot, matching to her what her younger relatives remembered of her being dexterous and clever in every handy undertaking: needlework, spillikins and cup-and-ball. Her handwriting is in fact so perfect you might be tempted to think this is something innate to people from the 18th century, were it not that Morgan had happened to also collect one of the letters to JA from James Stanier Clarke, the librarian to the Prince Regent, who wrote to JA after her visit to Carlton House, the Prince Regent's London home, in the fall of 1815. His handwriting is a sloppy, random disaster, something I might produce if you gave me a quill and ink. And he had been using a quill and ink all his life, unlike me. So perfectly spaced, perfectly composed handwriting, such as you see in the letters of Jane Austen or facsimiles of the Declaration of Independence are not ordinary, but examples of unusually orderly minds, and unusually dexterous hands.

@ the exhibit: numerous letters are on display, as well as other rare examples of words actually written by Jane Austen: manuscript pages of "Lady Susan," "The Watsons," the "Plan for a Novel, According to Suggestions From Various Quarters." And yet no transcriptions are provided, and I cannot help wondering why. It's not like we don't know what they say: they have all been transcribed. I have read them all. Despite the perfect evenness of JA's handwriting, they are not so easy to read that you can read them standing there over a glass case.

File Under Yes!

Oh, good Lord, Ms. Gold, I could not agree more.

Do you remember Becoming Jane (2007)? "Society expected her to marry," said the unforgettable trailer, "but Jane Austen had ideas of her own." You think? Austen was played by Anne Hathaway, a skeletal actress with a big smug grin. If Austen had looked like her, she would never have written a word – she would have been staring in a mirror, saying, "I am hot, I am smoking, I am babelicious." I remember the anger still. I remember thinking, Hollywood has raped Jane Austen. They have turned the patron saint of celibates into a hottie. Austen's writing was incidental, a stuck-on accident that unfortunately had to be mentioned. "What is Jane doing?" asks a character. "Writing," was the reply.

Chapter 19

First, the Wordle.

It's funny what, you know and what you don't know. I was startled when I wrote a sentence yesterday and suddenly realized, but hey, that's the end of that chapter! I was thinking it would go on for longer, but then I knew it had to end exactly where it did. And not just because I had written 17 pages, at least 10 of which will turn out to be superfluous (If only I knew which 10).

What am I doing? I wish I knew. Events are running away with me. And yet... I would not trade this experience for anything else, right now.

Oh, the Glory of It All

It's hard to write a good novel. It is even hard to write a bad one, though probably a little easier. Right now I find myself saddled with a new character who seems to have wandered in from Daniel Deronda, and not at all sure this is a good idea. When is a tangent just a tangent, and when is it a powerful message from your unconscious? I'll be damned if I know. Liam and Rachel stuck in St. Giles, breathing bad air and wondering how to get out. It's all a long way from Jane Austen.

Jack Aubrey Saves the Day, Again

More than a year ago, I wrote about the mysteries of 1815 food in this post. I was, however, an idiot, and I stand corrected, for there is actually a wonderful book from 1997 with descriptions, recipes and a dash of brio much beyond anything I can ever hope to achieve. And it was written by people who are practically my neighbors: a mother-and-daughter team out on Long Island.

What is this wonderful book, you might ask? It is Lobscouse and Spotted Dog (Which It's a Gastronomic Companion to the Aubrey/Maturin Novels). It answers many of the questions I have long had -- what is Soused Hog's Face exactly? (Exactly what you feared. And I now know how to make it, not that I ever will.) What is toasted cheese? And some I never thought to ask, such as how one might cook a rat, and what the result would taste like (surprisingly delicious, the authors contend).

These are the foods that Jack and Stephen ate. We do not recommend them to the unimaginative or faint of heart: some of them call for exotic, revolting, or fearfully expensive ingredients; many take upwards of a week to make; most of them cheerfully violate all the nutritional tenets of the health-conscious '90s. They are all, however, practical and authentic recipes, tested to our satisfaction (and to the detriment of our waistlines) in our own kitchens.