alobear | Who's Afraid of Jane Austen? review

Many thanks to lareinemisere for this book by Henry Hitchings, which has provided interest and stimulation to several people over the last few days.

This book was definitely not aimed at me - though this did not preclude me getting a lot out of it. It is apparently aimed at people who want to be able to talk about books they have not read, without revealing the fact that they have not read them. This doubly does not apply to me, as I have read a lot of the books discussed, and would never pretend to have read things I haven't - firstly because I see no shame in admitting ignorance, and secondly because I have enough trouble talking sensibly about things I *have* read. The author does not seem to be advocating the practice, merely enabling people who insist on doing it to do it more successfully, as it evidently irritates him when people talk bollocks about literature in an attempt to impress.

My first issue with the book was the discussion of attitudes to reading that is found in the introduction. I have no idea who these people are, who apparently spend a lot of time hanging out with the kind of people who would be disparaging of them not having read certain things. My advice to them would be to find nicer friends, or at least people who are interested in the same kinds of things as them.

The chapters of the book discuss authors who fall into three categories for me - those I've read for study, those I've read for leisure, and those I've not read at all. In the below list, the following abbreviations apply:

St - study
Le - leisure
No - not read

Austen - St/Le - there were some interesting thoughts expressed in this chapter, and a good deflation of the blinkered views of both Austen-obsessives and Austen-haters.

Homer, Virgil, and other Latin and Greek authors - St - I had read at least something by most of the writers mentioned in this chapter, a lot of it in the original, though all of it through study rather than leisure. One thing I learned that I did not know before was that Plato's name was actually Aristocles and that Plato was a nickname from "platon", meaning "broad-shouldered".

James Joyce - No - I've never been interested in reading Joyce, and nothing in this chapter led me to change my mind. In fact, it confirmed my view that I wouldn't enjoy it at all. However, I did discover that in occasionally referring to vegetables as "weggebobbles", I have been unknowingly been quoting Joyce all my life. Whether this is a knowing parental influence remains to be verified.

Dante - No - it was interesting to learn about the tragic love story at the heart of Dante's Divine Comedy. I think quintus_marcius mentioned Dante's love for his childhood sweetheart Beatrice on our trip round Europe in 1997, but I hadn't remembered the very sad details, or realised that it was referenced in his work.

Poetry - St/Le - this was quite a broad chapter, and obviously a pet subject for the author as he waxed lyrical about the joys of reading poetry. As with the Classical chapter, I had read at least something by most of the people mentioned, but not always just for study. I'm not a great fan of poetry as a whole, but there are some poets I own works by, which I do actually read on occasion - for example, The Metaphysicals, Milton, and Browning.

Shakespeare - St/Le - despite not having studied Shakespeare as an undergraduate, I can claim a certain amount of knowledge of him, since I have actually read my Complete Works all the way through, which is how I have reached the controverisial opinion that he is over-rated. Some of the plays *are* great, but quite a few are really not - I'm certainly not saying he was a bad playwright, just that the incredible hype goes a bit far. I thoroughly enjoyed studying A Winter's Tale and Othello at A Level, and those are consequently my two favourites of the plays, which is why it irritated me that Hitchings suggested claiming A Winter's Tale as your favourite to put more knowledgeable people off balance, since it's one of the more obscure plays - it really *is* my favourite, dammit!

The Bible - St/Le - another work I have read in its entirety, though not since I was fifteen. This chapter contained a lot of stuff that was not new to me, but also an interesting discussion of the Bible as a work of fiction, especially in relation to the poetry of its language.

The Qur'an - No - the interesting thing about this chapter was the contrast to the one before. Where Hitchings discussion of the Bible demonstrated some quite anti-Christian views and declared the text to be a work of fiction, he dealt with the Qur'an very respectfully and spent most of the chapter dispelling various myths about things it contains.

Proust - No - I always think I've read some Proust, but that's because I get him mixed up with Camus. Proust is in my "life's too short" pile, and nothing in this chapter suggested he should be moved elsewhere, even if he does talk about cake.

Tolstoy & Dostoevsky - Le - I have only read the former (War & Peace), and not the latter. I rather enjoyed War & Peace on the whole - it was much lighter and more entertaining than I had expected, so I'm glad I decided to give it a try.

The 19th Century Novel - St/Le - I generally groan when mention is made of "the 19th century novel" because I associate the period with books I found dreary, depressing and dire. However, in recent years, I have discovered Middlemarch and The Warden (and will soon be essaying Barchester Towers), which lighten the genre somewhat and do relieve the over-riding sense of doom.

Henry James - St - this is not a 19th century novelist who relieves the doom, and Hitchings had the audacity to compare him to Austen. I think not! Stylistically and thematically, James is far more stultifying.

Don Quixiote and The Tale of Genji - No - I only heard of the latter recently as it is mentioned in Iris Murdoch's The Book and the Brotherhood. Now, that's a book about people who need to be able to talk about books they haven't read to avoid disparagement by their better-read friends - and I spent most of the time wondering why they all hung out with each other.

Aesop, Chaucer, Arabian Nights - St/Le - I can't claim to have read the Arabian Nights (though I did see a stage production of it last night) but I have studied the other two in the original. Hitchings says it is rare to find someone who came across Chaucer for the first time outside the lecture theatre or classroom - and I am that person (though I suppose you could claim I was introduced to his work through school). I discovered at the age of fifteen that there were GCSE syllabuses that included The Canterbury Tales, and I was disappointed that I was not studying one of them, so I bought a copy and read it anyway. I then got to study it at university, and I have always been a fan. In fact, it's the only work that reading this book has made me want to re-read.

Philosophy - St - I had only read one of the philosophers mentioned (David Hume) but was familiar with the basics of the theories of all the others. Philosophy is definitely one of those things you pick up by osmosis as you go through life, though obviously there's an awful lot more to most of it than the soundbite versions you generally come across.

Books The Changed The World - No - this concerned books about science, economics, politics, feminism, etc. I have to admit that I hadn't read any of them, though again I had heard of most.

Modern Literature - Le - I had read three of the authors mentioned (Peter Carey, Philip Roth, Alan Hollinghurst) but all only last year, due to a wonderful new literary influence in my life.

Popular Books - Is There Any Excuse? - Le - this was the chapter that made me want to throw the book in the river. The author is the type of person who "allows" himself to read something "popular" in between apparently forcing himself to read "proper" books. I find this ridiculously on both counts - why people should feel obliged to read things they don't enjoy and ashamed of reading things they do enjoy is utterly beyond me. My reading in recent years has been immeasurably enriched by the inclusion of non-fiction books, and I do read so-called "literature" because I get pleasure from good writing that stretches my brain - but I read far more historical detective novels, fantasy novels, children's books and "trashy" novels than anything else, and I see no shame in admitting it. The author does claim his primary reason for reading is pleasure, but he doesn't seem to believe this is really a valid reason, and I pity him for that.

The Quiz - This involved an EPIC FAIL. Out of 50 questions, all but a handful of which were based on information provided in the book, I got 17 right, only 7 of which I knew beforehand. My three lunch companions, not having read the book, got 8, 9, and 10.

Overall, an interesting and enjoyable book. It didn't make me want to read any of the books I hadn't read already, and served to remind me of a great deal of literature I wish I'd never read at all, but I enjoy literary criticism, and this was a good collection of it.