the_tank

The introduction to this collection of short stories made me uneasy. Movies, t.v., Darcy getting dripping wet -- there seemed to be very little about Jane Austen’s actual words. I wanted to read stories inspired by her books, not by wet t-shirt night Colin Firth. Happily, “Jane Austen’s Nightmare” by Syrie James cheered me up immensely and was a great start to the collection. Rather than a sequel or retelling, it’s a first person narrative by Austen herself about unexpectedly meeting some of her characters... who have a few choice words for her about how she portrayed them. It’s very funny, with some affectionate bite to it. Adriana Trigiani pens a charming fictional letter of life advice from Austen as she might write it if she were alive today in “Love and Best Wishes, Aunt Jane.” “I lament the loss of letter writing in our time. I cannot imagine that a tweet or a post, an email or a text, will provide the great thrill of receiving a letter, written by hand. There is so much to learn about a person from their handwriting, and even more in the depths of the words one chooses to express himself.” “The Ghostwriter” by Elizabeth Ashton visits the sharp-witted and sharp-tongued spirit of Austen upon a young woman whose lover has left her because he can’t compete with fictional Mr. Darcy. How satisfying to see a sentimental image of Austen dashed by a ghost saying things like “‘Pull yourself together. Your tears have made your complexion blotchy, and your nose is running. Do you often cry? If Charles sees you like that, I’m not surprised he’s left you.” Ghost-Austen also gives a fascinating insight into some of her characterizations, claiming to have based Lizzy on her beau Tom Lefroy and Mr. Darcy on herself: “Had I been born male instead of female, and in affluent circumstances, I would have been just such a man: reserved, proud, and clever. And no doubt have made some woman’s life a misery. Put him out of your head, or at least leave him on the page where he belongs and, as you say today, get a life.” I don’t know if this is an original idea from Ashton (though Googling leaves me thinking that Tom Lefroy was far more like Mr. Wickham than Mr. Darcy.) but either way, I love it. I think the story pulls a few punches, but it was sharp, and the ending made me laugh out loud. What’s an Austen-inspired collection without an epistolary story? “Letters to Lydia” by Maya Slate cleverly retells the last half of Pride and Prejudice though the eyes of a minor and quite clueless character, who unwittingly affects the outcome. The most innovative story in the collection is “Jane Austen, Yeah Yeah Yeah!” by Janet Mullany. I expected a historical from Mullany and it is -- but set in the 1960’s rather than the Regency, where a young teacher helps her students learn to appreciate Sense and Sensibility by showing how it relates to their lives. In the process she makes discoveries about her own life and what she really wants. The rest of the collection is a mixed bag of sequels, prequels and ghost stories. Some work and others don’t quite capture what they’re aiming for. My most frequent complaint was abrupt, unsatisfying endings. The romantic stories, oddly enough, were the most disappointing -- perhaps because there just isn’t enough room in the short story format to do justice to romance as Austen would do it, with great care and attention to character and detail. But I was genuinely moved by "The Love Letter," winner of a contest to be included in this book by currently unpublished author Brenna Aubrey, in which Persuasion influences a young doctor to try again with his own lost love. Overall I enjoyed this very much. The writers clearly know their Austen -- many have written other books in a similar vein, or nonfiction about her -- and there are only a few moments that twanged as wrong. Best of all, unlike some Austen-inspired fiction there’s no attempts to portray her classic characters getting it on... and only one dripping wet faux Darcy. (Reviewed from an e-arc courtesy of netGalley.)

2022-11-14 18:28