Pride and Predators
May 11, 2021 7:41 AM Subscribe
Heidi Bond (aka historical and romance novelist Courtney Milan) re-reviews Pride and Prejudice for the Michigan Law Review (PDF). "Pride and Prejudice details the community-wide damage that can be laid at the feet of serial sexual predators. It details the characteristics of predators, discusses the systemic social failures that allow predators to abuse others, and grapples with difficult questions of how communities should deal with those predators."
We must defend men by claiming that until about six months prior to the current date, whatever the current date may be, men were simply unaware that it was wrong to hurt people of a lesser social status.
The more things change...
posted by pangolin party at 7:52 AM on May 11, 2021 [31 favorites]
The more things change...
posted by pangolin party at 7:52 AM on May 11, 2021 [31 favorites]
Got to the end thinking this was a piece about Pride and Prejudice. As an analysis of Pride and Prejudice, it is insightful, novel, and strongly convincing - perhaps the best discussion of Pride and Prejudice that I have read. Yet that is not the main point of the article, and the author makes her point in as artful and subtly cutting a manner as Jane Austen herself. That was amazing; and should be required reading in composition classes or something.
posted by eviemath at 8:01 AM on May 11, 2021 [30 favorites]
posted by eviemath at 8:01 AM on May 11, 2021 [30 favorites]
God, Courtney Milan / Heidi Bond never stops being amazing.
posted by jacquilynne at 8:23 AM on May 11, 2021 [11 favorites]
posted by jacquilynne at 8:23 AM on May 11, 2021 [11 favorites]
Very glad to read this. What a ride.
The heart of Pride and Prejudice is that civility is not character.
And, from footnote 28:
The heart of Pride and Prejudice is that civility is not character.
And, from footnote 28:
I have also spent six years (and counting) stuck on a massive project involving billionaires. But here we are in 2021 and . . . behold, billionaires. Yikes. How do you not examine that? And yet, how do you examine it? It’s taking me a while to figure out how to solve capitalism. Compare COURTNEY MILAN, TRADE ME (2015), with Courtney Milan, What Lies Between Me and You (currently unpublished and sitting in drafts on my computer).posted by brainwane at 8:26 AM on May 11, 2021 [6 favorites]
This is great. For personal reasons, my application to be on law review was weak, and it got rejected. If I had known I could write something like this, I would have tried again the next year.
I read a lot about Regency and Victorian times, and no matter how common it is, it never ceases to surprise me how quickly upper-class parents cut their children out of the family for marrying incorrectly. It makes sense if you see the project of Respectability as spanning generations and branches, and a threat to that project as requiring pruning for the sake of the whole tree. But it's still remarkably cold. Mr. Collins' response to the family, encouraging them to consider Lydia dead or face social death themselves, is remarkably real, transforming him from a buffoon to a character of Dickensian wickedness.
Jo Baker's Longbourn makes Wickham even worse while still entirely believable. I am interested in a parallel fiction about what became of the Wickhams afterward; the one I saw looked like poor quality. I should probably check out AO3.
posted by Countess Elena at 8:27 AM on May 11, 2021 [5 favorites]
I read a lot about Regency and Victorian times, and no matter how common it is, it never ceases to surprise me how quickly upper-class parents cut their children out of the family for marrying incorrectly. It makes sense if you see the project of Respectability as spanning generations and branches, and a threat to that project as requiring pruning for the sake of the whole tree. But it's still remarkably cold. Mr. Collins' response to the family, encouraging them to consider Lydia dead or face social death themselves, is remarkably real, transforming him from a buffoon to a character of Dickensian wickedness.
Jo Baker's Longbourn makes Wickham even worse while still entirely believable. I am interested in a parallel fiction about what became of the Wickhams afterward; the one I saw looked like poor quality. I should probably check out AO3.
posted by Countess Elena at 8:27 AM on May 11, 2021 [5 favorites]
The author, Heidi Bond, was a rising legal star until she was victimized by a sexual predator.
posted by caddis at 9:26 AM on May 11, 2021 [25 favorites]
posted by caddis at 9:26 AM on May 11, 2021 [25 favorites]
it never ceases to surprise me how quickly upper-class parents cut their children out of the family for marrying incorrectly. It makes sense if you see the project of Respectability as spanning generations and branches, and a threat to that project as requiring pruning for the sake of the whole tree.
Plus consider how much money pruning saves!
posted by trig at 9:38 AM on May 11, 2021
Plus consider how much money pruning saves!
posted by trig at 9:38 AM on May 11, 2021
This is where I take off my Regency Romance* fan hat, and put on my social historian hat:
Wickham's behaviour is not condoned by anyone in the novel - he's a reprobate and a cad. The way that he targetted vulnerable girls and women isn't a literal crime, but it is a social crime. (Well, at least when he goes after girls of "good families". No one would have cared if he has slept with a maid or a farm labourer's daughter, and if she ended up pregnant, she'd bear the stigma.) The income he is promised is more for Lydia's sake.
However, his crime is not statutory rape under either the laws or beliefs of the time. While modern people would claim that 15 is "under-age" and thus Lydia was unable to consent, that 16 years is not a universal number. Early modern Europeans absolutely had the concept of "age of consent" below which a person is incapable of consenting to sexual activity, but that age was between 10 and 13 years old, depending on the time and location. In England from about the 16th-19th centuries, it was a felony to have sex with a girl under 10, and a misdemeanor to have sex with a girl from 10-11 (even if she was okay with it, because they believed that she couldn't consent). But the age of consent for marriage - or any other sexual activity - was 12 years old until the later 19th century.
We might not agree with these laws, and at the time social practice generally put the average (and generally acceptable) marriage age higher -- late teens for upper class women, and early 20s for working class women. However, Wickham's historically-placed crime was not Lydia's age, but the way that he took advantage of her immaturity and naiveté to have sex with her outside of the protection of marriage. And he is certainly a serial predator - he seeks to abuse vulnerable people for either money (Georgiana) or sex (Lydia - he wasn't expecting any money there, and had no intention of marrying her which would have given him access to her money if she had any).
To translate to the 21st century: picture Wickham as an older man who who keeps hitting on 18 and 19-year olds. Not illegal, but super icky, and no one likes him. They allow the marriage, for Lydia's sake - her life without that marriage could have been much, much worse. But in their minds, she could consent -- but had a kind of adult immaturity that we would assign to someone over 18.
As for the age spread: that would have been less of an issue. This was a society in which 17 or 18 year old girls regularly - and with enthusiastic family support - married 30-50 year old men. (At least among the upper classes - lower class women got married later and to men closer to their own age). But there's a reason that in Sense and Sensibility there is no scandal (in the marriage of characters who I won't name because spoilers but a bigger age difference). Men were expected to have an establishment - an estate or profession - and to then "settle down" with a much younger woman. This persisted well into the late 19th century for the middle and upper classes; army officers, for example, were not allowed to marry as junior officers, but would marry in their 30s or 40s to a woman who was maybe just 18 or 22.
*I would agree with her footnote: P&P is not really a Romance novel - and it's certainly not a "Regency Romance" novel, despite having a marriage plot and being published in the Regency period (though perhaps set in the 1790s). It doesn't fit a lot of the other generic conventions of the Regency Romance genre, including the class of the characters depicted: most Regency romances (except the queer and/or consciously working class books) are set among the haut ton, the class of great aristocrats and nobles who made up London society. It's a completely different class than the Bennet's "parish gentry" with their trade connections -- as is repeated emphasized in P&P. But more than that, the entire concept of love and what makes a good relationship is different in Austen's work than in most of the Regency Romances I've read (and, in addition to having read all of Austen, I have read at least a couple of hundred Regency and other historical romances, including some by Milan.)
posted by jb at 9:53 AM on May 11, 2021 [31 favorites]
Wickham's behaviour is not condoned by anyone in the novel - he's a reprobate and a cad. The way that he targetted vulnerable girls and women isn't a literal crime, but it is a social crime. (Well, at least when he goes after girls of "good families". No one would have cared if he has slept with a maid or a farm labourer's daughter, and if she ended up pregnant, she'd bear the stigma.) The income he is promised is more for Lydia's sake.
However, his crime is not statutory rape under either the laws or beliefs of the time. While modern people would claim that 15 is "under-age" and thus Lydia was unable to consent, that 16 years is not a universal number. Early modern Europeans absolutely had the concept of "age of consent" below which a person is incapable of consenting to sexual activity, but that age was between 10 and 13 years old, depending on the time and location. In England from about the 16th-19th centuries, it was a felony to have sex with a girl under 10, and a misdemeanor to have sex with a girl from 10-11 (even if she was okay with it, because they believed that she couldn't consent). But the age of consent for marriage - or any other sexual activity - was 12 years old until the later 19th century.
We might not agree with these laws, and at the time social practice generally put the average (and generally acceptable) marriage age higher -- late teens for upper class women, and early 20s for working class women. However, Wickham's historically-placed crime was not Lydia's age, but the way that he took advantage of her immaturity and naiveté to have sex with her outside of the protection of marriage. And he is certainly a serial predator - he seeks to abuse vulnerable people for either money (Georgiana) or sex (Lydia - he wasn't expecting any money there, and had no intention of marrying her which would have given him access to her money if she had any).
To translate to the 21st century: picture Wickham as an older man who who keeps hitting on 18 and 19-year olds. Not illegal, but super icky, and no one likes him. They allow the marriage, for Lydia's sake - her life without that marriage could have been much, much worse. But in their minds, she could consent -- but had a kind of adult immaturity that we would assign to someone over 18.
As for the age spread: that would have been less of an issue. This was a society in which 17 or 18 year old girls regularly - and with enthusiastic family support - married 30-50 year old men. (At least among the upper classes - lower class women got married later and to men closer to their own age). But there's a reason that in Sense and Sensibility there is no scandal (in the marriage of characters who I won't name because spoilers but a bigger age difference). Men were expected to have an establishment - an estate or profession - and to then "settle down" with a much younger woman. This persisted well into the late 19th century for the middle and upper classes; army officers, for example, were not allowed to marry as junior officers, but would marry in their 30s or 40s to a woman who was maybe just 18 or 22.
*I would agree with her footnote: P&P is not really a Romance novel - and it's certainly not a "Regency Romance" novel, despite having a marriage plot and being published in the Regency period (though perhaps set in the 1790s). It doesn't fit a lot of the other generic conventions of the Regency Romance genre, including the class of the characters depicted: most Regency romances (except the queer and/or consciously working class books) are set among the haut ton, the class of great aristocrats and nobles who made up London society. It's a completely different class than the Bennet's "parish gentry" with their trade connections -- as is repeated emphasized in P&P. But more than that, the entire concept of love and what makes a good relationship is different in Austen's work than in most of the Regency Romances I've read (and, in addition to having read all of Austen, I have read at least a couple of hundred Regency and other historical romances, including some by Milan.)
posted by jb at 9:53 AM on May 11, 2021 [31 favorites]
tl;dr: Wickham is absolutely a missing stair, but it's for his behaviour, which didn't progress to legal crime but was completely socially irresponsible (especially the threat to leave Lydia as "ruined" but unmarried - much could be forgiven, even pre-wedding pregnancy, so long as they got to the altar before the birth).
posted by jb at 9:58 AM on May 11, 2021
posted by jb at 9:58 AM on May 11, 2021
it never ceases to surprise me how quickly upper-class parents cut their children out of the family for marrying incorrectly. It makes sense if you see the project of Respectability as spanning generations and branches, and a threat to that project as requiring pruning for the sake of the whole tree. But it's still remarkably cold.
It makes a lot more sense when you realize that Respectability controlled access to polite society, and thus controlled access to credit, capital and patronage. For an aristocratic family that was (as most of them were) heavily indebted, or just not as wealthy as they put out to be, a loss of respectability could be an economic as well as a social disaster, ending in penury or a debtor's prison.
Nowhere in Austen is this clearer than in the character of Miss Bates in Emma. Miss Bates is a spinster, from a gentle family, but with no land and almost no money of her own. (And certainly no skills that would allow her to earn a living by working). Her access to polite society (and therefore wealthy friends who would happily support her in a crisis) is her insurance, the one thing that ensures that a single misfortune won't leave her homeless and destitute. This is why Emma's mocking of her is so astoundingly thoughtless and cruel, because it doesn't just make Miss Bates wonder whether her friends are really her friends, it also makes her wonder whether the people she's counting on to keep the wolf from the door might just decide to let her starve. And that's why it is so essential that Emma make an abject apology that makes it clear that Emma was the one offending against Respectability.
posted by firechicago at 9:58 AM on May 11, 2021 [30 favorites]
It makes a lot more sense when you realize that Respectability controlled access to polite society, and thus controlled access to credit, capital and patronage. For an aristocratic family that was (as most of them were) heavily indebted, or just not as wealthy as they put out to be, a loss of respectability could be an economic as well as a social disaster, ending in penury or a debtor's prison.
Nowhere in Austen is this clearer than in the character of Miss Bates in Emma. Miss Bates is a spinster, from a gentle family, but with no land and almost no money of her own. (And certainly no skills that would allow her to earn a living by working). Her access to polite society (and therefore wealthy friends who would happily support her in a crisis) is her insurance, the one thing that ensures that a single misfortune won't leave her homeless and destitute. This is why Emma's mocking of her is so astoundingly thoughtless and cruel, because it doesn't just make Miss Bates wonder whether her friends are really her friends, it also makes her wonder whether the people she's counting on to keep the wolf from the door might just decide to let her starve. And that's why it is so essential that Emma make an abject apology that makes it clear that Emma was the one offending against Respectability.
posted by firechicago at 9:58 AM on May 11, 2021 [30 favorites]
That's the thing that makes Austen so compelling for me; she has a very clear, cold understanding of the financial architecture under her society. She's not a rebel, she's not interested in overthrowing anything, but she very precisely delineates the terrors that falling through the gaps has for a woman in her milieu. My favorite college paper was one exploring how most of the tropes are reversed in Emma, because Emma is the one who has the money, not the man.
posted by tavella at 10:24 AM on May 11, 2021 [27 favorites]
posted by tavella at 10:24 AM on May 11, 2021 [27 favorites]
As a citizen of Romancelandia -- longtime reader, professional editor, nascent writer -- I am always here for what Courtney/Heidi has to say/write. She is among the very best of our world.
posted by BlahLaLa at 10:33 AM on May 11, 2021 [9 favorites]
posted by BlahLaLa at 10:33 AM on May 11, 2021 [9 favorites]
I absolutely adore the footnote snarkery in this paper so much. And it's actually readable, since I normally cannot drag myself through scholarly papers.
The whole thing is fucked up that the best happiest "happy ending" to the entire situation is to trap a teenager into a marriage with a sexual predator and literally anything else would ruin her life WORSE. I guess Lydia being literally too dumb to notice or care is about the best one could do to make it less horrid, but even dumb and shallow girls might grow up a bit and realize what's going on.
She makes a good point that Wickham being openly charming/flirty/friendly/what have you, as opposed to Darcy sulking in the corner, originally makes him seem like he's a good dude. Also that the whisper network would most likely permanently damage the reputation of any girl who's named in it, so it's not like you can openly yell out what Wickham did to Georgiana. And as usual, "what if we make the problem worse by actually making the guy face consequences, so he does something EVEN WORSE when he lashes out?"
I am interested in a parallel fiction about what became of the Wickhams afterward; the one I saw looked like poor quality.
You'd have to see it as a play, but I can recommend "The Wickhams: Christmas At Pemberley" for giving Lydia more of a "Let's get rid of this asshole" happy ending.
I am baffled as to why Heidi/Courtney has been working on some billionaire project for six years? Romance? Scholarly something?
And the ending to this one: YUP. That's how life goes. Nobody's made progress in over 200 years.
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:53 AM on May 11, 2021 [4 favorites]
The whole thing is fucked up that the best happiest "happy ending" to the entire situation is to trap a teenager into a marriage with a sexual predator and literally anything else would ruin her life WORSE. I guess Lydia being literally too dumb to notice or care is about the best one could do to make it less horrid, but even dumb and shallow girls might grow up a bit and realize what's going on.
She makes a good point that Wickham being openly charming/flirty/friendly/what have you, as opposed to Darcy sulking in the corner, originally makes him seem like he's a good dude. Also that the whisper network would most likely permanently damage the reputation of any girl who's named in it, so it's not like you can openly yell out what Wickham did to Georgiana. And as usual, "what if we make the problem worse by actually making the guy face consequences, so he does something EVEN WORSE when he lashes out?"
I am interested in a parallel fiction about what became of the Wickhams afterward; the one I saw looked like poor quality.
You'd have to see it as a play, but I can recommend "The Wickhams: Christmas At Pemberley" for giving Lydia more of a "Let's get rid of this asshole" happy ending.
I am baffled as to why Heidi/Courtney has been working on some billionaire project for six years? Romance? Scholarly something?
And the ending to this one: YUP. That's how life goes. Nobody's made progress in over 200 years.
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:53 AM on May 11, 2021 [4 favorites]
However, his crime is not statutory rape under either the laws or beliefs of the time.
It could, however, be a tort (as Bond notes). I would also point out that upper-class fifteen year olds were not generally considered old enough to marry at that time, because they were not "out". Georgiana Darcy is at school until she is fourteen, then lives with a guardian (suborned by Wickham) at the age of fifteen. Lydia and Kitty are only "out" because their mother is overly indulgent (they should be kept to their lessons and not allowed to go to adult parties or run around seaside resorts) and their father has abdicated his responsibilities.
posted by Hypatia at 11:17 AM on May 11, 2021 [8 favorites]
It could, however, be a tort (as Bond notes). I would also point out that upper-class fifteen year olds were not generally considered old enough to marry at that time, because they were not "out". Georgiana Darcy is at school until she is fourteen, then lives with a guardian (suborned by Wickham) at the age of fifteen. Lydia and Kitty are only "out" because their mother is overly indulgent (they should be kept to their lessons and not allowed to go to adult parties or run around seaside resorts) and their father has abdicated his responsibilities.
posted by Hypatia at 11:17 AM on May 11, 2021 [8 favorites]
I am baffled as to why Heidi/Courtney has been working on some billionaire project for six years? Romance? Scholarly something?
What Lies Between Me and You is the last planned book in her Cyclone Series, and is supposed to be about Adam Reynolds, the father of the male lead in the first book, Blake Reynolds. Adam is a Jobs-esque billionaire tech visionary.
posted by jacquilynne at 11:20 AM on May 11, 2021 [1 favorite]
What Lies Between Me and You is the last planned book in her Cyclone Series, and is supposed to be about Adam Reynolds, the father of the male lead in the first book, Blake Reynolds. Adam is a Jobs-esque billionaire tech visionary.
posted by jacquilynne at 11:20 AM on May 11, 2021 [1 favorite]
I would also point out that upper-class fifteen year olds were not generally considered old enough to marry at that time
This is a wonderful article and a wonderful discussion, and I apologize for my pickypickypickyness, and it doesn't affect anybody's points whatsoever, and it's only because I've read this book about four thousand times, but while Lydia is 15 at the beginning of the book, she turns 16 before she goes to Brighton and is victimized/married.
posted by JanetLand at 11:28 AM on May 11, 2021 [2 favorites]
This is a wonderful article and a wonderful discussion, and I apologize for my pickypickypickyness, and it doesn't affect anybody's points whatsoever, and it's only because I've read this book about four thousand times, but while Lydia is 15 at the beginning of the book, she turns 16 before she goes to Brighton and is victimized/married.
posted by JanetLand at 11:28 AM on May 11, 2021 [2 favorites]
Oof. This is fantastic, and as eviemath says, once you get to the end it becomes clear that it's not really about Pride and Prejudice at all, in the end. But Austen's the best possible messenger.
posted by Mchelly at 11:33 AM on May 11, 2021
posted by Mchelly at 11:33 AM on May 11, 2021
Lol. Footnote #29. Random indeed.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 11:34 AM on May 11, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 11:34 AM on May 11, 2021 [4 favorites]
she has a very clear, cold understanding of the financial architecture under her society
Or as Auden put it:
Or as Auden put it:
You could not shock her more than she shocks me,posted by Quasirandom at 11:54 AM on May 11, 2021 [24 favorites]
Beside her, Joyce seems innocent as grass.
It makes me most uncomfortable to see
An English spinster of the middle class
Describe the amorous effects of ‘brass’,
Reveal so frankly and with such sobriety
The economic basis of society.
And Austen irritated Emerson: he found her novels "vulgar in tone, sterile in artistic invention, imprisoned in the wretched conventions of English society." (The Atlantic, 1998) “Never was life so pinched & narrow. The one problem in the mind of the writer in both the stories I have read, “Persuasion”, and “Pride & Prejudice”, is marriageableness; all that interests any character introduced is still this one, has he or she money to marry with, & conditions conforming? ‘Tis “the nympholepsy of a fond despair”, say rather, of an English boarding-house. Suicide is more respectable.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson (Other Austen detractors, via Mental Floss; Mark Twain: "I often want to criticize Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can’t conceal my frenzy from the reader; and therefore I have to stop every time I begin. Every time I read Pride and Prejudice I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin bone!”)
posted by Iris Gambol at 12:51 PM on May 11, 2021
posted by Iris Gambol at 12:51 PM on May 11, 2021
That was incredible. Insightful and thoughtful and all the things I generally expect of anything Heidi Bond writes. (And an explanation of why What lies between you and me hasn't been published yet, which is nice since my teen is anxiously awaiting it.)
I am amused at footnote 29 as well: "My random determination went as follows. I assigned the number one to the judiciary, two to the legislative branch, three to the executive branch. I then used Google’s random number generator to generate an integer between one and one."
posted by blueberry monster at 1:28 PM on May 11, 2021 [3 favorites]
I am amused at footnote 29 as well: "My random determination went as follows. I assigned the number one to the judiciary, two to the legislative branch, three to the executive branch. I then used Google’s random number generator to generate an integer between one and one."
posted by blueberry monster at 1:28 PM on May 11, 2021 [3 favorites]
The whole thing is fucked up that the best happiest "happy ending" to the entire situation is to trap a teenager into a marriage with a sexual predator and literally anything else would ruin her life WORSE.
Lydia's story isn't supposed to be a "happy ending" - anymore than Charlotte's marriage is supposed to be "happy", or the Bennet parents'. Charlotte, at least, went into her marriage with her eyes open and with enough wits to at least manage her husband.
I think Austen was honest and accurately appraising the potentials for women of her class and time and how it could be 'so pinched & narrow'. As men, Emerson and Twain had a lot more choices. If someone asked me if I wanted to be gentry woman of the period, I would absolutely turn them down. If I had to be a woman then and not independently wealthy (like Anne Lister, aka Gentleman Jack), I would be a middling sort woman -- someone whose family has a workshop and a good income but not so much restriction.
posted by jb at 1:42 PM on May 11, 2021 [12 favorites]
Lydia's story isn't supposed to be a "happy ending" - anymore than Charlotte's marriage is supposed to be "happy", or the Bennet parents'. Charlotte, at least, went into her marriage with her eyes open and with enough wits to at least manage her husband.
I think Austen was honest and accurately appraising the potentials for women of her class and time and how it could be 'so pinched & narrow'. As men, Emerson and Twain had a lot more choices. If someone asked me if I wanted to be gentry woman of the period, I would absolutely turn them down. If I had to be a woman then and not independently wealthy (like Anne Lister, aka Gentleman Jack), I would be a middling sort woman -- someone whose family has a workshop and a good income but not so much restriction.
posted by jb at 1:42 PM on May 11, 2021 [12 favorites]
I think Austen was honest and accurately appraising the potentials for women of her class and time and how it could be 'so pinched & narrow'. As men, Emerson and Twain had a lot more choices.
I love seeing men get all wound up when they feel women are being insufficiently romantic. Must ruin some fond fantasies, I guess. Too much realism about the female experience probably kills the vibe for them.
It's nice to see though that Auden at least could see the humour in his own shock!
posted by sohalt at 1:54 PM on May 11, 2021 [16 favorites]
I love seeing men get all wound up when they feel women are being insufficiently romantic. Must ruin some fond fantasies, I guess. Too much realism about the female experience probably kills the vibe for them.
It's nice to see though that Auden at least could see the humour in his own shock!
posted by sohalt at 1:54 PM on May 11, 2021 [16 favorites]
Powerful men fantasizing about violence against women for having their own perspective? Unpossible!
posted by Lyn Never at 3:01 PM on May 11, 2021 [10 favorites]
posted by Lyn Never at 3:01 PM on May 11, 2021 [10 favorites]
Well now I think less of both Twain and Emerson.
It's too bad Austen wasn't around to write a Transcendentalist character. I feel like she would not have failed to notice Thoreau lauding self-sufficiency while his mother did his laundry.
posted by emjaybee at 3:17 PM on May 11, 2021 [24 favorites]
It's too bad Austen wasn't around to write a Transcendentalist character. I feel like she would not have failed to notice Thoreau lauding self-sufficiency while his mother did his laundry.
posted by emjaybee at 3:17 PM on May 11, 2021 [24 favorites]
Charlotte Brontë didn't care much for Austen, moving from dislike to acknowledging her skill as a writer even though "the Passions are perfectly unknown to her". Virginia Woolf felt similarly, respect for the writing, not into the books.
posted by betweenthebars at 3:23 PM on May 11, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by betweenthebars at 3:23 PM on May 11, 2021 [4 favorites]
Lydia's story isn't supposed to be a "happy ending" - anymore than Charlotte's marriage is supposed to be "happy", or the Bennet parents'. Charlotte, at least, went into her marriage with her eyes open and with enough wits to at least manage her husband.
"Best of all possible available options" ending, then.
posted by jenfullmoon at 3:55 PM on May 11, 2021 [1 favorite]
"Best of all possible available options" ending, then.
posted by jenfullmoon at 3:55 PM on May 11, 2021 [1 favorite]
It's funny to me that Bronte disliked her, when both authors were so important to me. But possibly she got tired of being compared to Austen, as there weren't many other famous lady authors.
posted by emjaybee at 4:31 PM on May 11, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by emjaybee at 4:31 PM on May 11, 2021 [1 favorite]
> "Virginia Woolf felt similarly, respect for the writing, not into the books."
I'm not an expert on Virginia Woolf, but my impression of her opinion of Austen made it seem less "not into the books" than "veering wildly between obsessive fandom and sharp criticism on any given day".
posted by kyrademon at 5:19 PM on May 11, 2021
I'm not an expert on Virginia Woolf, but my impression of her opinion of Austen made it seem less "not into the books" than "veering wildly between obsessive fandom and sharp criticism on any given day".
posted by kyrademon at 5:19 PM on May 11, 2021
> It's funny to me that Bronte disliked her, when both authors were so important to me. But possibly she got tired of being compared to Austen, as there weren't many other famous lady authors.
Maybe she didn't like Austen's take on the house with a room you're never supposed to enter.
posted by lovecrafty at 5:23 PM on May 11, 2021 [5 favorites]
Maybe she didn't like Austen's take on the house with a room you're never supposed to enter.
posted by lovecrafty at 5:23 PM on May 11, 2021 [5 favorites]
This is the best thing I have ever read via Metafilter. Thank you so much, it blew my mind, and my next P&P re-read/re-watch is going to be so much better.
posted by Maarika at 5:32 PM on May 11, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by Maarika at 5:32 PM on May 11, 2021 [4 favorites]
Since she mentioned it in a footnote, I strongly recommend her Cyclone series, even if you don't normally read romance.
They're contemporary fiction, told in alternating first person POVs. The characters are smart and snarky, and though they have baggage to overcome, nobody holds the idiot ball.
I picked them up last January during the RWA kerfuffle, and they've quickly become comfort reads.
You can read the first chapter on her website, and I'm restraining myself from quoting some of my favorite passages.
posted by cheshyre at 6:14 PM on May 11, 2021 [2 favorites]
They're contemporary fiction, told in alternating first person POVs. The characters are smart and snarky, and though they have baggage to overcome, nobody holds the idiot ball.
I picked them up last January during the RWA kerfuffle, and they've quickly become comfort reads.
You can read the first chapter on her website, and I'm restraining myself from quoting some of my favorite passages.
posted by cheshyre at 6:14 PM on May 11, 2021 [2 favorites]
That's the most on-point attack on civility that I've read. Thanks for that.
posted by clawsoon at 8:09 PM on May 11, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by clawsoon at 8:09 PM on May 11, 2021 [3 favorites]
I did get intrigued by that excerpt, cheshyre. Added to my long list.
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:10 PM on May 11, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:10 PM on May 11, 2021 [1 favorite]
I love seeing men get all wound up when they feel women are being insufficiently romantic. Must ruin some fond fantasies, I guess. Too much realism about the female experience probably kills the vibe for them.
Tangential reminder that makes me laugh everytime: from the cheerfully NSFW webcomic Oglaf, this one no exception: Rivulets. Substitute "romantic fiction" for "erotic bathing" and last panel duder's disgusted storming off is now part of the Clemens stage routine!
This whole essay was golden, thank you adrianhorn for linking it! Bond/Milan has been in my to-read pile since previously-on thread about the RWA doing a live reenactment of the stick-in-bike-wheel process of preferring to burn the house down rather than even think about addressing systemic racism issues; timely reminder to bump the priority further up. The footnote game is very on point!
posted by Drastic at 7:51 AM on May 12, 2021 [3 favorites]
Tangential reminder that makes me laugh everytime: from the cheerfully NSFW webcomic Oglaf, this one no exception: Rivulets. Substitute "romantic fiction" for "erotic bathing" and last panel duder's disgusted storming off is now part of the Clemens stage routine!
This whole essay was golden, thank you adrianhorn for linking it! Bond/Milan has been in my to-read pile since previously-on thread about the RWA doing a live reenactment of the stick-in-bike-wheel process of preferring to burn the house down rather than even think about addressing systemic racism issues; timely reminder to bump the priority further up. The footnote game is very on point!
posted by Drastic at 7:51 AM on May 12, 2021 [3 favorites]
Romance Writers of America. More links from Metafilter.
posted by blueberry monster at 8:34 AM on May 12, 2021
posted by blueberry monster at 8:34 AM on May 12, 2021
As long as we're talking good Courtney Milan novels, her most recent one is "Black technocrat and Chinese genius invent the Internet in the late 19th century" in a way that shouldn't work but totally does. Courtney even slipped in the dinosaur emoji, which she is the parent of.
posted by I claim sanctuary at 10:26 AM on May 12, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by I claim sanctuary at 10:26 AM on May 12, 2021 [6 favorites]
I loved Jane Austen and I loved this analysis. The way she dismisses the bulk of the story in a footnote and then focuses on Wickham was lovely. I hadn't ever considered the Lydia arc as being the heart of the story but without it the rest of the story wouldn't ever have actually come together.
posted by macrael at 2:59 PM on May 12, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by macrael at 2:59 PM on May 12, 2021 [4 favorites]
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Lizzy’s response [to Darcy's proposal] —which is basically, hell no, but longer—
posted by Sweetie Darling at 7:49 AM on May 11, 2021 [1 favorite]