As Carson, a doctoral candidate in French at Yale University, explains in the introduction to this compilation of 33 essays on Jane Austen and her work, "The essayists.tell us why they read Austen.[and] explain the phenomenon of Austen's permanent popularity." Some of the essays are newly composed by contemporary academics and authors including A.S. Byatt, Amy Bloom, and David Lodge. Other contributors are venerable authors and literary critics including E.M. Forster, Somerset Maugham, and Lionel Trilling. In a powerful piece, Anna Quindlen explains that Jane Austen "wrote not of war and peace, but of men, money, and marriage, the battlefield for women of her day, and surely, of our own." Quindlen examines Pride and Prejudice but cautions that too much literary analysis obscures the most important element of the novel, that "it is a pure joy to read." Amy Heckerling reveals how she drew inspiration from Emma to create the 1995 film Clueless. Verdict Although fuller documentation for the source of each essay would have been helpful, devoted Austen fans will undoubtedly find this collection informative and thoroughly entertaining. --Library Journal (Check Catalog)
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
A truth universally acknowledged : 34 great writers on why we read Jane Austen
As Carson, a doctoral candidate in French at Yale University, explains in the introduction to this compilation of 33 essays on Jane Austen and her work, "The essayists.tell us why they read Austen.[and] explain the phenomenon of Austen's permanent popularity." Some of the essays are newly composed by contemporary academics and authors including A.S. Byatt, Amy Bloom, and David Lodge. Other contributors are venerable authors and literary critics including E.M. Forster, Somerset Maugham, and Lionel Trilling. In a powerful piece, Anna Quindlen explains that Jane Austen "wrote not of war and peace, but of men, money, and marriage, the battlefield for women of her day, and surely, of our own." Quindlen examines Pride and Prejudice but cautions that too much literary analysis obscures the most important element of the novel, that "it is a pure joy to read." Amy Heckerling reveals how she drew inspiration from Emma to create the 1995 film Clueless. Verdict Although fuller documentation for the source of each essay would have been helpful, devoted Austen fans will undoubtedly find this collection informative and thoroughly entertaining. --Library Journal (Check Catalog)
