I seem to be in (yet another) Jane Austen kick these days.
Author and Vanity Fair contributing editor Fran Lebowitz on Jane Austen (via Survival of the Book):
[vimeo id=8100960]
One thing Lebowitz says is that most people who enjoy Jane Austen are misreading her. What do you think about this? Some of the points she makes are pretty valid–I would agree that most people like the romance aspect of her works–but I’m not sure that reading it this way is “misreading” or “misunderstanding” her work. Can’t an author mean to write more than one thing when they are constructing a novel? I’m sure in Austen’s own time, many people saw her books as romance novels as well.
Another statement she makes is that Jane Austen is talented at portraying irony (which I don’t think can be disputed) and that British writers usually do irony a lot better than Americans. She argues that this is because irony goes against the American ideal of optimism. I think this is an interesting point.
Any thoughts?
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