Disappointment From A Fan

Review: The Jane Austen Book Club


Even JB seemed disappointed... awwwww

First off I have to clarify that my disappointment is primarily due to my own expectations and I do not wish to any way pass judgment on the writing prowess and brilliance of the ideas of the author of this book. I was disappointed because… well, I just expected that the book will be about Jane Austen’s books and not about the characters in this book that’s supposed to be about Jane Austen’s books… know what I’m saying?

The Jane Austen Book Club is about a group of friends who share a love for Jane Austen and her books as well as lives that intertwine with each other. The book is divided into five reading group discussions in which they discuss the following Austen books: Emma, Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey, and Pride and Prejudice. I forgot if there was some logic as to the order of their discussions, but this is, I think, beside the point (unless someone corrects me, for which I shall be grateful).

While the Book Club was in certain parts so wonderfully astute about the Austen books, it also had other parts, i.e. Alegra’s on-again-off-again lesbian relationships, the will-they or wont-they puzzle that seems to be the only thing going for Grigg and Jocelyn, and Bernadette’s stories, etc., that I have to admit I just gave a dismissive glance-through in my hurry to get to the goods. I know I know… I probably wasted four-fifths of what I paid for this quite-expensive book by not reading these subplots. But frankly, the 20th century drama was definitely not what I paid for.

I really naively thought that this book would be filled with funny, witty, “woman-ly” conversations about Austen’s big five (Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Sense and Sensibility, Persuasion, Mansfield Park), with possibly a gay man appearing between a dozen or so pages to provide some comic humor, sparingly interrupted (so as to tease and tempt and not to annoy the reader in a cmon-lets-get-over-with-it-na way) with some short anecdote about the life of any of the protagonists that kind of mimic the Austen plot they were discussing. By “short anecdote” I mean a little something to give us a glimpse of the personality of the character making the shrewd comment that just so-nailed-it for you or that guy who just didn’t seem to get it and whom you think does not deserve to be part of any Jane Austen book club… just these little somethings to make you feel part of the conversation, part of the club.

What this book gave instead was too much of the post-Sex-and-the-City theatrics (complete with the de rigueur dash of controversy with politically-correctly-casted lesbian and divorcee), and too little of either Jane Austen’s life or ideas (even if both of these are as equally replete with theatrics and controversy). Here lies the reason this book has left me wanting. I didn’t want the 20th-century, Carrie-Bradshaw drama to obscure 18th-century Austen’s. If I wanted problematic Manhattanites bi*&hing about being single at thirty or getting divorced at 42, I would’ve just bought Lipstick Jungle (which I just have, by the way ;-p).

Even if I think the Austen insights were not enough to make this book a mainstay on my bedside table (as Pride and Prejudice and Sophie’s World have become), I believe they provide seasoning enough to tempt me to take this book for a second or even third spin. There were quite a few insights I myself have missed after reading Pride and Prejudice for the umpteenth time, and still other points that make me want to pick up Persuasion or Mansfield Park again. It may still be a great buy for any Jane Austen fan... if only to finally hear other people talk about Jane (call Ms. Austen by her first name?!! Horrors!) with such regard and passion.