Episode 329 || Jane Austen Revisited

This week Annie is joined by friend, Bookstagrammer (@shelfbyshelf) and frequent co-host, Hunter McLendon to talk all things Jane Austen!

To purchase the books mentioned in this episode, visit our new website:

Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen
Persuasion by Jane Austen
Sense & Sensibility by Jane Austen
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
Emma by Jane Austen
The Jane Austen Society by Natalie Jenner
The Prayers of Jane Austen by Jane Austen
Karen Swallow Prior, “A Novel Approach to Virtue”:
https://www.ttf.org/portfolios/online-conversation-reading-jane-austen/

From the Front Porch is a weekly podcast production of The Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in South Georgia. You can follow The Bookshelf’s daily happenings on Instagram at @bookshelftville, and all the books from today’s episode can be purchased online through our store website, www.bookshelfthomasville.com.

A full transcript of today’s episode can be found below.

Special thanks to Dylan and his team at Studio D Production for sound and editing and for our theme music, which sets the perfect warm and friendly tone for our Thursday conversations.

This week, Annie is reading Beautiful Country by Qian Julie Wang. Hunter is reading Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead.

Thank you again to this week’s sponsor, Visit Thomasville. Whether you live close by or are passing through, I hope you'll visit beautiful Thomasville, Georgia: www.thomasvillega.com.

If you liked what you heard on today’s episode, tell us by leaving a review on iTunes. Or, if you’re so inclined, support us on Patreon, where you can hear our staff’s weekly New Release Tuesday conversations, read full book reviews in our monthly Shelf Life newsletter, follow along as Hunter and I conquer a classic, and receive free media mail shipping on all your online book orders. Just go to patreon.com/fromthefrontporch.

We’re so grateful for you, and we look forward to meeting back here next week.

episode transcript

Welcome to From the Front Porch, a conversational podcast about books, small business, and life in the South.

“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”

- Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

I’m Annie Jones, owner of The Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in beautiful downtown Thomasville, Georgia, and today, I’m reflecting on the six months I’ve spent with Jane Austen and what the next six might hold. Joining me for today’s conversation is my frequent cohost and reading buddy, Hunter Mclendon, also known as @shelfbyshelf on Instagram.

Hi Hunter.

Hunter: [00:01:01] Hello.

Welcome back.

It's good to be back. Also every time I hear the word stupid and I know it's supposedly being immature, but I giggle so hard.

Annie: [00:01:11] Right. Funny coming out of Jane Austen's mouth, like imagining, because, and it's probably because I was not allowed to say stupid growing up. Um, that was like a word the Butterworth children were not allowed to say and so even still now, when somebody says it, it's almost shocking. Like, even though, I mean, I feel like I say it. I dunno. It's just funny to hear it in what I imagine Jane Austen's voice.

Hunter: [00:01:35] I agree.

Annie: [00:01:36] Okay. So you we're one of the first people I told that I was reading Jane Austen this year because you and I did, this feels forever ago, by the way, but we did that podcast episode about our reading intentions for the year and how I really wanted to pick an author I focused on every year and this year I wanted it to be Jane Austen. So we're six months in, um, heading into seven [00:02:00] and I thought it would be a good time to kind of touch base and tell you kind of where I'm at in my Jane Austen journey and I wanted to talk to you specifically, because if I'm not mistaken, you did something similar with Jane Austen last year. Is that right or am I misremembering?

Hunter: [00:02:17] I read like four, I think of her books last year. Uh, so like I read a good bit of it. I feel like, I don't know how many she has.

Annie: [00:02:26] Uh, maybe six, I think. Yeah. And four is my goal. Like four I'm reading one a quarter. That was always my goal and I wanted to talk with somebody who had read them relatively recently because it has been such a joy and I actually think has helped my reading life and I think I've talked about this on the podcast a little bit, but whenever I'm in a, like a reading slump or things are slow, it's nice to know Jane Austen's like on the back burner.

Like I know that I can reach for a Jane awesome book and be working toward a goal and be kind of meeting this criteria [00:03:00] I set for myself for the year. So if I'm ever in a lull, Jane Austen has become kind of my go-to and I'm anxious to see that continue. Like I have goals of who my Alto for 2021 is going to be, or 2022 to 2023. So anyway, I have read thus far, I have read Sense & Sensibility and Persuasion. So I read Persuasion the first quarter of the year. That's what I started with and I've read Sense & Sensibility, but I did want to ask you what your relationship to Jane Austen was prior to kind of reading some of those books last year?

So, part of the reason I wanted to do this in 2021 was because I realized I'd only ever read Pride and Prejudice and that's the movie I had seen. I had seen Emma. I've also seen, yeah, highly recommended the Lizzie Bennet diaries on YouTube and they do an Emma one as well that I really enjoyed but when I was in high school, we had to read Pride and Prejudice in 11th grade English. Like a summer reading and I hated it. Like, I think I started it and couldn't finish it. I think I [00:04:00] picked a different book. I hated it and I'm so disappointed and sad because Jane Austen is mentioned, in You've Got Mail as Kathleen Kelly, like Kathleen Kelly loves Pride and Prejudice and so I was devastated.

I felt like, oh, I'm not smart enough, or I just don't get it. I don't like this language and then the summer after my freshman year, I try freshman year in college. I tried Pride and Prejudice again and loved it. Like I re and I still have very fond memories of that book. So I'm wondering, what was your personal history with Jane Austen? Had you read her before and all of these were reread for you or was it all new?

Hunter: [00:04:34] So when I was, um, like 15, 16, I was dating this girl. Yes. A woman. Her name was Nicole and she was her favorite book was Pride and Prejudice and so of course, like everything, I was getting her like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and all these different additions of Pride and Prejudice and I did not know anything about it, but. I was like, you know what? I was like, I need to [00:05:00] know everything about Pride and Prejudice. I still didn't even know who Jane Austen was, but I was like, I was like, I'm going to learn all that Pride and Prejudice just that way I can talk to her about it and so I watched the movie, which has like some, some changes.

Annie: [00:05:13] The Keira Knightley movie? Yeah.

Hunter: [00:05:16] Um, which has some changes to it and so then I, like, I was like telling her all about like how I, I was like, oh yeah, I've read Pride and Prejudice. I know all about it and I, and honestly, when I first started trying to read it, I was like, Ugh, this is so like such a classics kind of book.

Annie: [00:05:31] Yeah. I think it must be the language. It's a little bit how I feel sometimes while reading Middlemarch, like, I just feel like I am not in practice of reading that language and if you're in high school, And I loved my English teacher. Like my high school English teacher was phenomenal, but for whatever reason, I just really struggled. I don't know what made it click two years later. Like I have no idea why all of a sudden it clicked, but it did.

Hunter: [00:05:53] Well, I think it's so funny. Cause I, and I've talked about this before, but especially with like with classics or with certain books that are [00:06:00] different, like from different regions or something, I, I will start with an audio book just to understand the rhythm.

Annie: [00:06:07] Yes.

Hunter: [00:06:07] Because. When I, so like last year I was like, okay, let me, I was like, let me start with audio books for Jane Austen, because I really wanted to read her and I think that there's also this very like sexist idea that Jane Austen is not as good of a classic. Like her work is not as good as like some of these other people's, but I don't think that's true, one and two. I think that she's actually really hilarious and I think that you just have to understand, you just really have to get into the rhythm of the work and sometimes I think that really just does come from being able to hear it, like in your ear.

Annie: [00:06:43] What prompted you last year to pick them up again? Was it because we kind of diminish her work because of the subject matter? Like she doesn't kind of have, I mean, obviously she is beloved but I think we almost consider her Chicklit or something [00:07:00] to use that term that I think we all pretty much hate now, but like, I think was that what kind of led you to try her again? What prompted you to pick them up last year?

Hunter: [00:07:10] Yeah, I will want, uh, like, I'll be honest. Like part of it was just that the penguin classics, deluxe additions are gorgeous. Um, so that was like a major part, but also, yeah, like I think I just got really mad because there were people whose, whose like, who were very opinionated about it in a negative way and we're just talking about how awful. How they were like, oh, she's like, she's like they didn't, I see any merit in her work and I was like, Hmm, I don't think that's true and I, I was like, I don't, I can't really speak on that but I was like, let me do my due diligence. Let me read this work and let me really evaluate it with a critical eye and give it the time it deserves and, and so I did, and I came to the conclusion that she is brilliant and even though she is like, uh, you know, a major name that people know, I still think that she's underrated in some way.

Annie: [00:07:57] Yeah. Which, which four did you read [00:08:00] last year?

Hunter: [00:08:00] Um, I read Pride and Prejudice again, cause I ha I did read, so I started Pride and Prejudice when I was 16. I read it when I was, um, in my senior year when I was about when I turned 18, I think and then I read, um, Sense & Sensibility, uh, and I read Persuasion, but I was very inebriated during my entire read of Persuasion, so I don't remember much of it.

Annie: [00:08:26] Okay. Okay. So I started with Persuasion because I discovered that the audio book available and I love Libro FM, but this was like a Spotify special kind of thing and so there was an audio book version of Persuasion, narrated by Cynthia Oribo and so I thought, okay, I had like a little trip to Asheville, North Carolina planned in February, and I thought I'm going to listen to Persuasion on my drive and I did not realize it's so interesting that you said that about the audio books, because I am typically not a huge audio book listener.And [00:09:00] when I am, it is often nonsense.

But I adored listening to Persuasion on audio book and I totally was able to get the rhythm. I had read like a couple chapters of a physical copy and then I think after the road trip ended, I still had a couple chapters left so I physically read those, but it was so good and of course, Cynthia Oribo has this beautiful voice and you know, is a very talented actress and so her audio book in particular was just very stunning and I think very true to the, to the nature of the work and so I really loved my audio book experience and I think made Jane Austen more accessible than it would have been if I was trying to read like a physical copy while also trying to read, you know, a modern thriller or, you know what I mean? Like while trying to read my regular fiction that I, that I am typically drawn to, or typically having to read.

So I started with Persuasion, which I think most people [00:10:00] call like the most grown-up of all of the books. The protagonists are older and I loved it. Like solid five stars thought the whole premise was super smart. I know, I think one of the criticisms I hear about Austen is that all of her books primarily deal with like miscommunication and like the trope of miscommunication but I don't mind that and also I think she handles it beautifully and differently in every book, at least so far as I have experienced and so I really was drawn to these characters. Really fell in love with, with Anne and fell in love with the love story and also just liked that they were older, I think more, more fully formed characters.

Hunter: [00:10:45] Yeah. Oh, I did also forget. I did. I read Mansfield Park a couple of years ago and I forgot about that.

Annie: [00:10:53] I'm anxious. Okay. So I started with Persuasion then moved on to Sense and Sensibility, which I do want to spend a little time on this one because [00:11:00] I, I felt not that you would ever give like Jane Austen, you know, only three stars or whatever, but Sense and Sensibility was harder for me. I wound up doing again a combination of audio book and then some physical reading, but I mostly listened to the audio book narrated by Phoebe Judge, who is like a podcast host and she does a series called Phoebe Reads a Mystery where she's reading a chapter of a book every day, which I think is super clever, kind of jealous somebody else came up with that idea because it's really good.

She'll never run out of content that way, but she did Sense and Sensibility this March and April. So I was like, oh, this is perfect. So that's the next book I decided to pick up and. I, I want, I'm so curious to talk to you about this. So I have been on the hunt to figure out which Jane Austen character I am because my whole adult life, every Buzzfeed quiz, every 17 magazine quiz, I have always been Elizabeth Bennet [00:12:00] and I was very curious and I thought, oh, surely I might be now I know Anne or maybe I will be Eleanor. Like, I know I've read Sense and Sensibility and so I feel a kinship with Eleanor, but Sense and Sensibility, people had told me about Eleanor, I really wound up thinking both of those characters were deeply flawed, which I think Jane Austen does very well.

They're not, characatures. Like, I think I had thought Eleanor was going to be this, um, really kind of stoic, brainy kind of character like a rash, a very rational person. So Eleanor is kind of the rational and then Marianne is younger and therefore a little bit more flighty, but even if she weren't flighty, she's very passionate. She follows her feelings, her gut, and there are some really phenomenal interactions between Eleanor and Marianne but I guess I thought I would find a kinship mostly with Eleanor and instead I really found both of them to be so fully formulated and, and to experience such growth in the novel that I, I no longer found myself like [00:13:00] falling into one of their descriptions because they were wound up being so much more complex than I originally thought they were going to be.

Hunter: [00:13:07] Yeah. I it's really funny. So I actually, I love the, I, I, I enjoyed the book. I loved the movie the first time I watched. Um, I believe that

Annie: [00:13:19] Emma Thompson.

Hunter: [00:13:20] Yeah. Um, cause she wrote the screenplay because I think she won an Oscar for it.

Annie: [00:13:24] She did, and I had never seen it. So I had never seen it finished my reading experience and as my reward, I watched Sense and Sensibility and actually I never, I feel like I never say this, but I thought the movie did a phenomenal job, a fantastic job. I don't want to say better, but I think.

Hunter: [00:13:43] I think we can say better.

Annie: [00:13:44] I think Emma just did a really good job of nailing down exactly what Jane Austen was going for and really crafted this fantastic story that I fell in love with and I can see why Sense and Sensibility the movie version is so [00:14:00] beloved because I really did, I was not sure what I would think, but I really fell in love with it. I want to discuss with you cause some people DMD me about this and I think they're right, where Sense and Sensibility, part of what Jane Austen is going for is that this is a book, not about the love stories, because I found the love stories and the romantic elements of sense and sensibility to fall quite short.

I did not particularly enjoy the male leads. I did not. I mean, I liked Colonel Brandon, but other than that, I felt pretty ambivalent and most people kind of responded or interacted with me and said, but that's because the book is really about Eleanor and Marianne and once I could kind of understand that, I think they're right and I think some people even argued and I've done a Jordan jokes that like I've created my own, like college course entry-level, uh, entry level, freshman level college course on Jane Austen because I've also watched some videos and done some research and so the argument is that [00:15:00] Jane Austen is really showing how ridiculous it is to have to try to find a spouse when, when that's really unnecessary or that it was necessary in that time.

And so Sense and Sensibility is showcasing, what it was like to have to choose a husband, even if that husband was not necessarily well suited for you and instead the relationship that holds and that I think is reflective of Jane's relationship with her own sister is this relationship between Eleanor and Marianne and I wonder, did you, when you read that book or watch the movie, cause I think Emma Thompson does a better job with the romantic relations then Jane did, what did you think of Sense and Sensibility upon reading?

Hunter: [00:15:38] Um, I did like, but you know, I've always, I've always just preferred the dynamic between women, whether it's like sisters or like mother daughter or anything like that, uh or where they're best friends. I always think that's really fascinating. Um, and. I did, I remember reading it though, thinking like, are we supposed to actually root for any of this romance because I'm [00:16:00] not.

Annie: [00:16:00] Yeah. About halfway through I think I put out an all call to the internet and I was like, which is always a dangerous game, but I was, I was ready for it. I was ready for the feedback because I really thought, I honestly wondered if I was missing something by listening to it. Like I almost wondered have I missed. I liked Colonel Brandon, but otherwise found these other romantic leads to be sorely lacking.

Hunter: [00:16:24] Uh Willoughby.

Annie: [00:16:27] I cannot. And finally, like people were like, don't worry, you're supposed to hate Willoughby and I was like, okay cause I do and look, Jane does a good job. I think Jane Austen does a really good job of making her characters really complex so even by the end, I do think Willoughby was more complicated though I still loathed him. I think she will really did a good job of kind of filling out his picture a little better by the end but man, about three quarters of the way through, I really hated him and then Colonel Brandon, I really wanted Eleanor to fall in love with like, I really felt like [00:17:00] that writing was on the wall and I think it's because I love these friendships turned into romance.

I think that's, we've talked about that many times. I think that's a troupe I really love and then Eleanor winds up with Edward, who's going to become a clergyman that like Colonel Brandon finds him a job, but I found him, I think I was so disappointed. I felt like Eleanor was so much better than he was.

Hunter: [00:17:23] Do you know what it makes me think of? It makes me think of the ends of the book, Little Women when, when Jo-

Annie: [00:17:34] When Jo winds up with the professor.

Hunter: [00:17:37] Yes.

Annie: [00:17:38] It does and I wonder if it's almost the same thing being applied, right? Well, Louisa May Alcott did not want Jo to wind up with anybody, but you know, her hand was forced by fans or by publishers and Jane Austen knew her characters had to end up with somebody because that, because otherwise they were lost like there was no money for them. There was no future for them. So it wasn't [00:18:00] even that a publisher was telling her these things. It's just the life circumstances told her, Hey, these women have to be married. That's what life is like. But I do wonder, just like with Louisa May Alcott, if there is a hint of, Hey, I don't want to have to be doing this, but I'm doing it. So here's this really great, vivacious, stubborn, thoughtful, independent wise character who now has kind of with this boring. I just found Edward to be boring.

Hunter: [00:18:28] You can't well, that's the thing it's so funny to me, because even because I will say when I remember the first time I like when I read it and the first time I watched the movie, Marianne drives me crazy because she is very, firstly is a very frustrating character. She has. She's so good too, though and yeah, and I love that, but, but as frustrating as you could be, I felt like, well, at least she's at least she's better than all these men.

Annie: [00:18:53] Yes. Yeah and on what you have to remember about Marianne, what I had to remember, because I also, now look, there were some times when Eleanor also [00:19:00] drove me nuts. Yeah. And then I remembered I was coming off of Persuasion where the characters are older and more adult and Marianne is very young when the book begins when, Sense and Sensibility begins so by the end of it, they both are more fully formulated, not only characters, but people. They're just their, their brains are better developed by the, by the end of the book and I think you can really tell that and so that's what I would sometimes have to remind myself when Marianne, Marianne drove me the most nuts. Occasionally Eleanor would too, but I had to remind myself, these are young characters whose, you know, the rug has been pulled out from under them and they're now having to kind of recover but I definitely think in general, I function as more of an Eleanor in the world than as a Marianne.

Hunter: [00:19:40] And also to be fair, I get really frustrated with like polite society because I grew up in a trailer park and if you don't like somebody, you just push them down in the mud and yeah and like, and you know, they can't do that there. They have to like attempt to, you know, Be the bigger person and I'm like, don't do that.

Annie: [00:19:58] There's a lot of [00:20:00] propriety in these books, which I really do love and I think you and I, when we did our faith books episode, I think we briefly mentioned Jane Austen because her characters are trying so desperately to be virtuous. So even if they're characters like Marianne, who may be, we struggle with, because she's a little flighty or a very impassioned, she is a character who is growing up and becoming and even an adult character like Edward or some of the clergy that we see like Edward kind of throughout Jane Austen's novels. These are all people, generally speaking, who are trying to be virtuous.

Now, I think, and I don't know if you'll be able to remember this because she doesn't play a huge role. I mean, I guess she does, depending on how recently you've read Sense & Sensibility, but I, there is a character that I think so far, I loath above all others. I don't know. I try. I'm trying hard because of Florence Pugh, and because of some friends I know in real life to really love Amy and Little [00:21:00] Women so maybe I'm switching my rage and my anger. I'm like re uh, recalibrating, re re I'm, detouring it three, maneuvering it to Lucy from Sense and Sensibility. So this is the character who claims to be, and is I think, engaged to Edward.

Hunter: [00:21:22] Oh, gosh. Yes.

Annie: [00:21:24] She like tells Eleanor, like she pulls owner aside and like tries to befriend Eleanor and tells her, oh, by the way, like I'm engaged to Edward and I found her to be so low sum throughout and even by the end, like I said, Willoughby was somebody who I didn't really like, but I felt like I understood his character a little bit better. I felt like he was fully formed and complicated and complex and interesting. I did not think that about Lucy. I hated. Hated her and I wanted to know, does Jane want me to hate her? Cause I definitely hate her.

Hunter: [00:21:54] Right. Like, I mean, I don't know also like, listen, I think that, and especially [00:22:00] in it, it's funny. Cause like I can tell that like watching the film before I'd seen the movie or before I read the book kind of did influence my view of it and so I can't help, but imagine like Imogen Stubbs who, you know, and, and she has like, she has that very like persnickety look about her. Yeah. Alrighty. So like watching or just that's the image that comes to mind and so I'm just like, Ugh, you just, she looks like a little rat.

Annie: [00:22:24] She's so um conniving and manipulative and, and maybe she sticks out because so often in Austen's literature, even the villains, or even like, I think about, um, the clergyman from Pride and Prejudice, right? Like I think about how he sticks out to me and, and you're right. Maybe like the movie version is also in my brain, but like he is kind of whiny and sniveling, but he also marries Elizabeth Bennett's best friend and like, you see a more, a fuller picture of him. It's almost like that person that you would never date [00:23:00] yourself, but there's a pot for every couple and like they find their person and you're happy for them. Lucy is somebody for whom I feel none of that affection. Like I just, I just really did not care for her. And I think Jane Austen typically does such a good job of making even the villains interesting and not one note, but that was a character high just felt like, and look sometimes in real life, there are people who are just manipulative, so maybe, maybe that's who Lucy supposed to be.

Hunter: [00:23:26] That's very true. But yeah, I don't think that there's any redeeming qualities about her that, yeah that I can think of off the top of my head. Yeah.

Annie: [00:23:32] So I read Persuasion read Sense & Sensibility, I am now in the third quarter of the year, starting on Northanger Abbey and I'm very excited to read that I have no familiarity with that story at all. Couldn't tell you anything that's about, so I'm anxious to read that and then for the fourth quarter, I wanted your opinion. So you mentioned Mansfield Park. Technically, when I looked at the list, I think of six books. What I decided was I was not going to revisit Pride and Prejudice because I [00:24:00] really wanted books I had not read yet and so hints all of these books so far. Mansfield Park now will be my fourth book because I am very familiar with the story of Emma though I have never read the book. I've seen the Gwyneth Paltrow version. I've watched the I've not watched the new one. So I'm familiar with the story, but I've not read it.

Here's my concern. You know my life so I want your honest opinion. If Mansfield park is for the fourth quarter of the year, that is a chunky book. Like that is a thick story and I'm wondering, am I better served by reading Mansfield Park or by reading Emma for the first time in the fourth quarter of the year. Northanger Abbey, I'm already sold on starting here pretty soon.

Hunter: [00:24:43] I don't know. I remember, I remember really liking Mansfield Park whenever I read it and I also think it has a good movie adaptation.

Annie: [00:24:54] Yes. I feel like I can picture the woman who stars in it in my head.

Hunter: [00:24:58] It's um, [00:25:00] Francis O'Connor. She's in Bedazzled as the love interest. Listen, this is my problem. All of my stuff is from trashy two thousands movies, but she she's an AI artificial intelligence. I think she's, I don't know. She's in lots of things. Anyway. I really like her. I think if you recognize, if you see her, you'll recognize her.

Annie: [00:25:18] Okay. I do. I looked her up. Okay. Yes. She's who I recognize from me and so park. Okay. So there is that, I'm just, there's a part of me that I just look and look it's because I'm looking at, so I bought at the start of the year to embark upon this project I bought four books and they're the Chillsberry press additions so they're like short Squatty, little versions of the book, but I really liked them because they're lightweight and they lay flat, like they lay open flat. So I love these versions, these additions of these books. So I bought those four and I'm looking at them and Mansfield Park just looks like a commitment and for the fourth quarter of the year, I am concerned I'm setting myself up for failure.

Hunter: [00:25:58] I mean isn't Emma kind of, I mean, [00:26:00] cause I think I'm a compared to Persuasion is like double the length.

Annie: [00:26:03] Oh yeah. Double the length. Show me Mansfield Park.

Hunter: [00:26:08] But I don't know. I just, I don't remember it being, you know, what, if worst comes to worse, I will read it again and I'll read it with you.

Annie: [00:26:15] Buddy read it. Yeah. Okay. Well, and by the fourth quarter, the year we'll be done with Middlemarch, I'm just, I'm just afraid I'm I want to be able to finish the skull and see through to the end. I also have a Jane Austen t-shirt that I'm rewarding myself with I'm all done. So I'm very dedicated to this project. I'm just nervous about Mansfield Park, but okay. Maybe that's what I just need to do is do Mansfield Park at the end of the year. So Northanger Abbey, and then, well, and

Hunter: [00:26:40] I think you would like Franny, Fanny Price, the character.

Annie: [00:26:43] Yeah. So, okay that brings me to my question. So I've read, I now have read a total of three awesome books. I retook a couple of buzz feed quizzes. Do you want to know who I got?

Hunter: [00:26:55] Yes.

Annie: [00:26:56] Elizabeth Bennett.

[00:27:00] Hunter: [00:27:00] I don't know. I think maybe when you, maybe when you were like her age, but I think that it's really funny. Who is, who is her one sister that Rosemund Pike plays?

Annie: [00:27:13] Her beautiful, her sister, Jane,

Hunter: [00:27:15] Jane. I think that you have, I don't think that you're as, as like settled into like, like, cause I think that, I think that Jane in some ways is kind of settled into like, just not really well she's she's not as driven as you are

Annie: [00:27:29] she? Yeah, she's a little more passive,

Hunter: [00:27:32] but I think that there is this, like this quiet intelligence and grace that you both have.

Annie: [00:27:39] Oh, that's very complimentary.

Hunter: [00:27:40] And I don't think that Lizzie Bennett has that.

Annie: [00:27:44] I, well, I used to joke that I'm not Elizabeth Bennett at all. I'm Mr. Darcy, but I, which does feel more accurate, but I would like a heroine. I would like to be a heroine rather than a male lead. [00:28:00] So I do think Mr. Darcy and I share similarities. So maybe it is maybe it's Jane Bennett and I've just been overlooking her this whole time. I don't know. We still have Northanger Abbey and we have Fanny Price from Mansfield Park. I know I'm not.

Hunter: [00:28:12] Yeah, no, I know you're not at all. Um, but I would be curious to know how you'd feel about Fanny Price because in my mind, at one point in time. I did think of you two, like together.

Annie: [00:28:24] Okay. So, well that may have convinced me to just deal with Mansfield Park at the end, so, okay. So I'm going to do Northanger Abbey. I'm gonna do Mansfield Park. We'll regroup, uh, maybe at the end of the year and touch base. Okay. So, well, here is my other question. After you read through Jane Austen last year, and you read some of her work, did you read any other like, outside resources? Like, did you explore a little bit about her at all or were you content after reading those books to kind of draw your conclusions about her work?

Hunter: [00:28:56] I didn't really do any outside research. I w I did become very curious about it. [00:29:00] I wanted to pursue retellings. I didn't end up doing it, but I did re I researched a lot of them. Like, you know, like, of course it's like the Curtis Sittenfelds, Eligible and stuff like that, which I do wanna read.

Annie: [00:29:10] Um, I really did like that.

Hunter: [00:29:12] Yes. So like I do, I do want to like kind of pursue and just kind of see how other people have inspired her. I will say though, I read this really interesting article where somebody was like, trying to criticize, not just, it was, it was her along with like two or three other people. I think Middlemarch was also in there and they were talking about how so many classics that they all just are unintended, they're they're needlessly, uh, just too long and drawn out and all of that stuff and, and it's interesting to me, cause I, I understand that, that idea, but whenever I was, because I was actually, I was flipping through Jane Austen last night, just different books of hers I had in preparation for this, just to think about, get my thoughts together and I thought at a point in time, there was not another book to look at that had like more like concise, you know what I mean? Like there might've been short stories, but.

Annie: [00:29:58] Yeah. Yeah. Like, well, if [00:30:00] you think about it and one of the things I really do. Okay. I do really love about Austen's work. I understand the criticism of length. I mean, you and I are reading Middlemarch right now. I think more than more than most, we understand this criticism of the word. Um, I frequently will say when reading a work of modern literature, oh, this needed an editor. Like this could have been cut out. I think that about films. I hope it's not a sign of my dwindling attention span. I hope, I hope it's not, but I, but I think it could be, but I, one of the things I love about Jane Austen and the time in which her work was written is that, and of course this applies to a certain class and color of people, I'd like to be clear about that. These are, this was a relatively privileged population, but they were there were not a lot of activities in which these people engaged.

So I saw like, um, you know, a snarky CliffsNotes, Twitter account or something that was like all Jane Austen literature is, is people walking from house to house. Like, that's all it is and I, when I was reading Sense and [00:31:00] Sensibility, I was like, oh my gosh, it really is just people walking from house to house, but that was their activities. Like their activity was walking to a neighbor's house, walking in the rain, there was nothing wrong with that. That's what they did. Reading, playing the piano, singing and you see that portrayed in some of the films in a really beautiful way. I think like it's people sitting around, visiting, you know, embroidering or something like that and there is a part of me that really misses that and I do wonder if part of the writing and the literature of that time was, what else did you have to be doing?

Like, why couldn't you sit down and read a 300 page book because you had a lot of time and you had a lot of, um, energy to invest in these stories. You weren't flitting from thing which I w which we're doing right now. Like I sat down on my couch today and read Middlemarch and then moved on to the next thing. Do you know what I mean? Like, I didn't, I didn't even really get to sit and relish in it, like, and so I do wonder, I appreciate [00:32:00] that criticism and I understand where it's coming from, but I also think these books were of a time where, who cared if you sat for days an. You know, read and really took your time with a work of art.

Hunter: [00:32:13] Yeah, that's true.

Annie: [00:32:14] I don't know. So I, I wonder that. So I was going to say, if you were a Jane Austen fan and you are a person of faith, so those, I think I did not realize how much faith played a role in Jane Austen's work. Like, because I don't think I knew anything, especially in high school and really, even in college, I don't think I fully knew Jane Austen's story and then as I am, cause I love to say any chance I get, then I went to London and I got to experience that a little bit more, but I, this year I watched a woman named Karen Swallow Prior. She is like a, a Christian professor and writer and teacher and she did like a one hour session [00:33:00] on Jane Austen. I think the, the quote or the name of the session was A Novel Approach to Virtue. We'll put a link in the show notes, but I wound up just sitting and listening to her talk about the importance of Jane Austen's work as it related to virtue into goodness, which tied in directly to what you and I talked about a few months ago and so I really loved that and loved that approach to Jane Austen's workand perhaps even if you're not a person of faith, it would be interesting to, to read and listen to just because Jane Austen was a person of faith and what do you think, what do we think her intentions were in regards to her work?

And the, uh, Karen Swallow Prior also offered, I think a great critique of Austin's work, which I think is totally valid as we revisit classic literature and revisit it, not only under the lens of 2021, but just under a lens of, Hey, slavery was always wrong and how did these authors talk around that subject or not address [00:34:00] it at all? And Jane Austen's included in that and so anyway, I really appreciated that and really enjoyed that and then I also read a couple years ago, or last year I read The Jane Austen Society, which was just a fun, like book that Susie Butterworth would love just about the people who came together to formulate, um, kind of the museum for Jane Austen and kind of kept her belongings intact in her home in England and so I really loved that book for that. Like, I really appreciate it how artists artistry stays alive and the people who keep artists work alive, the people who fund artists. It's really interesting and something, I don't think we talk about very much anymore unless we're talking about things like Patrion.

Do you know what I mean? Like, like how do we support the artists that we love and what does that look like? And, you know, maybe we talk about it in terms of buying books or something like that, but who are the people funding, the authors and the artists and the painters. So I think that's an interesting thing to think about too.

Hunter: [00:34:56] Oh yeah. I hadn't even thought, wow. Now I want to read that

Annie: [00:34:58] book. It was just [00:35:00] like, it was just a light kind of fun fiction book, but you got to see, and I knew from visiting kind of the Jane Austen homestead that people, readers from America and from England, maybe from other countries may, maybe from Canada, had all kind of come together to buy her home and make sure that it wasn't destroyed. Like, and I think that's fascinating when you contrast that to some authors homes I've been to, like, I was in Jackson, Mississippi this past weekend and Richard Wright's house is nowhere to be found. Uh, in Monroeville, Alabama, like Harper Lee's house is like a dairy queen, like, and so you, if you want to preserve a history, contrast that to Jane Austen, or contrast that to Ella Montgomery and Prince Edward island, where the whole island has kind of captured her legacy.

So, so I just think it's interesting, interesting to kind of think about in terms of how we support the work of the artists that we love and how we carry on their legacy. Okay. Any other tips, tricks, [00:36:00] points of interest things we haven't talked about in terms of Jane Austen as I embark on the next six months of my reading?

Hunter: [00:36:06] Hmm. I will just say that I think that just, this is a tip for anyone not you, I guess, because you already own books, but I think that even if you don't want to read Jane Austen, you should still buy the penguin classics deluxe editions because they're so pretty.

Annie: [00:36:22] Yeah, they are really pretty. I want to know, I'm curious after reading and I hesitate to ask this because I don't want it to spoil my own feelings, but I think I'm capable of independent thought. I'd love to know what your favorite is.

Hunter: [00:36:35] Of the ones I've read? Yeah obviously. I guess, yeah. Let me give, you know, oh yeah. Northhanger right now. You know, it's funny cause like, and maybe it's just because like, my memory is really foggy about them, but like, I feel like Mansfield Park was the, and maybe it's also because Mansfield Park is the one that I had, like the least knowledge of going in and so it was just one of those where like I had no [00:37:00] preconceived notions about it and so I just kinda went and then just, I don't know, it was, I felt like an experience that was all to myself.

Annie: [00:37:06] Um, that was brand new and something you hadn't done before. Did you, when you read Jane Austen, did you listen to the audio books last year or did you read the physical copies or both?

Hunter: [00:37:15] Both. I did both, especially Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility. I think I mostly read Emma, which is kinda surprising looking back on it because like, Emma's the biggest one and of course, like, that's the one you should probably do the audiobook, but I did just read that and flat out and then Persuasion. Like, I really, I like, I read that one flat out, but like I said, I had been drinking, so don't count that.

Annie: [00:37:37] I am so curious. I'm wondering if now that I have listened to the first two, I think I am going to try to find the audio book of Northanger Abbey, but I am also wondering if now that I've listened to the, these first two books if I have the rhythm down enough, that I could pick up the physical copies and be fine and have, and still have a good reading experience, just reading the [00:38:00] physical copies. I don't know, Northanger Abbey is short enough where I think I could give it a try. Um, but I also have really liked, I've liked having Jane Austen in my head, if that makes sense, like I've really liked having that voice in the background while I'm cooking dinner or something. Like it's just been kind of soothing in a way I was not anticipating, like I have found in general her work to be very soothing to me. I don't know. I don't know if that's true.

Hunter: [00:38:27] I wish that Juliet, Juliet Stevenson, who she does the audio book for Middlemarch, but she is fantastic and I would listen to her, read anything.

Annie: [00:38:37] Okay. I wonder who I'm going to have to look up um, what my options are for the next, from the next two books but, um, hunter, thank you for talking Jane Asuten with me. I really wanted to, I wanted to talk about her like I would over coffee. I don't drink coffee, but I want what I wanted to talk about her like I would in a coffee shop with a friend because that's what it feels like. I'm not [00:39:00] an academic, like I'm not a critic. I just am somebody who has wanted to read her work often for the first time, other than Pride and Prejudice for the first time and so I wanted to talk about it with a friend and so that's why I wanted to talk about with you. So thank you.

Hunter: [00:39:13] Well, thank you for letting me be that friend.

Annie: [00:39:19] From the Front Porch is a weekly podcast production of The Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in South Georgia. You can follow The Bookshelf’s daily happenings on Instagram at @bookshelftville, and all the books from today’s episode can be purchased online through our store website, www.bookshelfthomasville.com.

A full transcript of today’s episode can be found at www.fromthefrontporchpodcast.com.

Special thanks to Dylan and his team at Studio D Production for sound and editing and for our theme music, which sets the perfect warm and friendly tone for our Thursday conversations.

This week, what I'm reading is brought to you by Visit Thomasville. We've been out of town a lot this summer, and it's been so long since we traveled I think I had forgotten the joys of coming home. Driving back into Thomasville, where the air literally smells like freshly baked bread and the sunsets rival Pawnee Indiana's. I immediately breathe a sigh of relief. We hit the brick roads lined with quaint shops and friendly faces I recognize and I know that I am home.

To find out more about how you can visit my home and at Thomasville, Georgia, go to ThomasvilleGA.com.

This week, I’m reading Beautiful Country by Qian Julie Wang. Hunter. What are you reading?

Hunter: [00:40:38]I'm starting Colson Whitehead's Harlem Shuffle.

Annie: [00:40:43] Oh, I can't wait to hear what you think. Thank you again to our sponsor, Visit Thomasville. Whether you live close by or are passing through, I really do believe you would enjoy a visit to beautiful Thomasville.

We’re so grateful for you, and we look forward to meeting back here next week.

episodes, special guestAnnie JonesJuly 15, 2021