Jane Austen was the author's inspiration behind "What Matters in Jane Austen?"
What was your inspiration behind your most recent book?
Jane Austen was my inspiration! Re-reading and - especially - teaching her novels to students over the years, I kept noticing things that I hadn’t noticed the last time round. What is more, students in classes would often point out something subtle or ingenious that she had done that I had not seen before. The closer you look, the more you see. I wrote my book to try to work out how she did it and to do some justice to her ingenuity. I wanted to work out how it could be that every one of her six novels could seem new and surprising every time you returned to it. (I think that this is an experience that many of her readers have.)
Why do you believe Jane Austen's books were underappreciated when they were released?
I’m not sure that they were exactly "underappreciated." They sold pretty well ("Pride and Prejudice" sold very well). In the brief six years between the publication of the first, "Sense and Sensibility," and Austen’s death aged only 41, they brought her more money than most novelists of the time managed to earn. And they had some high-profile admirers, including the Prince Regent (who asked to have "Emma" dedicated to him) and Walter Scott, the leading novelist of the early nineteenth century. What is true is that none of the reviewers, or those who praised her books in writing, noticed what an experimental and inventive novelist she was. This is because her plots and situations were similar to those of other novelists of the period. Her narrative method and her use of dialogue were so innovative that critics could not notice them.
Tell us a little more about the book and why you decided to write it.
There are already plenty of books about Jane Austen, of course, but surprisingly few try to explain (or rather, discover) what is so good about her novels. Virginia Woolf (a big Austen admirer) said that, "of all great writers, she is the most difficult to catch in the act of greatness." I think that this is true. It all seems so easy, so elegant, so funny. Plenty of academic books seems to me to avoid analysing her brilliance and instead tell us all about the "context" of her novels - the "world" of early 19th-C. England. But I don’t think that people read Jane Austen to discover about social history. I wanted to write for her readers, for those who already know and love her fiction. My real hope was that my book, "What Matters in Jane Austen?," would help these readers notice things in her novels that they had half-noticed before, but not quite put their finger on.
What can fans expect from your book?
The first thing is that I hope that my book is readable. I have tried to be scholarly, but I am writing for the general reader - not for academics or PhD students (though I hope that they will read it too). The second thing is that my book is about Austen, not about me! I have written it to show how clever and delightful and funny she is, not to impose any of my ideas on her. Each chapter of my book answers a question that reveals something about the conventions of her time ("How much money is enough?", "Why is it risky to go to the seaside," "What are the right and wrong ways to propose marriage?"), but also shows how she manages to escape her times. The idea is that you can take any small topic and, by following the thread, as it were, discover something of the intricacy of her fiction.
What's up next for you in the bookish world?
Right now, I am editing the "Oxford Handbook of Jane Austen," with my friend and fellow Austen expert Professor Freya Johnston. "Handbook" is a misnomer, as it is a huge book, with chapters (by different contributors) on every aspect of her writing (even one on her use of punctuation, a topic that has long fascinated me). We are writing some chapters ourselves, but have a roll call of terrific critics and literary historians. Like my own book, I hope that it will be accessible to anyone who loves Austen’s novels.
