I found this video interview with Fran Lebowitz discussing Jane Austen's fame on You Tube by chance and it made me think over and over about something I have always been convinced of. I have already mentioned that fact here on My Jane Austen Book Club, especially when I began writing this blog a couple of years ago. Maybe you noticed that I often asked Austen - inspired writers in our "Talking Jane Austen with..." sessions if they didn't think that movie and TV adaptations had misled our reading and interpretation of Jane Austen's novels. Most film versions - if not all of them - focus on the romantic aspect of the love stories told in the books and that gave start to the illusion that Jane Austen's work was mainly romance. Honestly, Jane Austen is one of the least romantic authors I've read in my life, of that I am definitely convinced. The most unromantic proposals or happy ending in books can be found in her works. She made slight exceptions for Emma (If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more) and Persuasion ( You pierced my soul ) but, still, what Jane Austen cannot be considered is a romantic writer. I don't love her the less for that, and you also know how much I love watching the TV series or the films adapted from her works.
I found out that Fran Lebowitz expressed the same kind of doubts in this interview. Many people love Austen because they are convinced that she wrote books full of romantic scenes, while she is convinced that Jane Austen's huge popularity is due all to the wrong reasons. She doesn't mention the film adaptations which instead I think contributed greatly to this misunderstanding . Lebowitz's first assumption in this video interview for The Morgan Library NYC is that Austen is so popular because she is in fact misread: "It's because of the enormous extent which she is misunderstood." She adds: " It has to do with the worst kind of girlishness" and it has also to do "with the fact that, for some reason, people use to think that Austen was later in history than she was". She is seen through the lens of Victorianism in which romance had a great appeal. Since people love romances, they simply juxtapose romance to their reading of Austen novels.
Lebowitz ends the first part of her reflections saying: "I don't think she's popular for the right reasons, I think she's popular for the wrong reasons. In fact, it 's maybe impossible to be popular for the right reasons. You know, anyone who possesses the right reasons will be probably pretty unpopular."
So, do we read Jane Austen for the right reasons? Do we misread her novels? If you are interested in the discussion, have a look at this video interview which lasts about 6 minutes. Any contribution, question or comment will be welcome.
