I’m going to blog about Mansfield Park this weekend but I’m trying to get more active on the blog and interact with readers again with just little things every day.
So, here’s the question.
What do you love about Jane Austen?
Jane Austen is my superhero. I’m convinced she saved my life. I know a lot of people who are hooked on reading her. She’s our drug of choice.
And with my family’s history of drug and alcohol addiction, things may have turned out very differently for me. I can escape reality any time in the pages of a book. It’s my go-to option when stressed. It can make me smile, laugh, cry, feel alive when I cope sometimes by feeling dead to the drama and stress around me. That manic must-read-what-happens-next-I-can’t-read-fast-enough feeling that builds and builds into crashing waves of euphoria at just the right turn of phrase or ending, is all the addiction I need.
It sounds nearly erotic, doesn’t it? They don’t call it “word porn” for nothing. Austen’s the best expert in the craft that I’ve read and I think she saved my life.
Why do you love Jane Austen?
Rose Fairbanks 
Jane Austen is certainly a healthy drug of choice. For me she provides an escape of sorts. She has a way with words and creates unforgettable characters who seem to come alive. There are just enough flaws to make the ones we like seem real. Others are types of people with faults with can find like over-pompous ones. Too, she has a way with dialogue that seems real and creates unforgettable responses to one another. She must have been quite an observer of human nature. Sometimes things are a bit extreme like the silliness of Mrs. Bennet, though she did have a real problem with the entail of the estate and 5 daughters to worry about with a husband who made no provision for them and shut himself away in the bookroom. Lady Catherine is overly pompous and delusional. Caroline Bingley is conceited and actually unrealistic in her quest to be mistress of Pemberly (she is haughty, cold, and not really the sort of woman to suit a man like Darcy who did not really care for society and entertaining). She does show some society restrictions like one sister’s wrong steps condemning all of them, or men and women who were not married or related by blood being unable to correspond with one another, and all sorts of formalities and restrictions, emphasis on wealth, status over love in marriage of upper classes in several of her books. Anyway for me it is a great means of escape from the cares of the world like collecting dolls (except it became too much of a business), practicing flute or mandolin which you can’t do at night and can only do so long. Thanks to the Kindle program on my Ipad I can read to all hours at night with the lights out and take it with me since my favorites are all downloaded. I always think I will run out of reading materials I have read so many original Austen, sequels, prequels, and variations, but it seems my appetite is forever finding new ones to read and others to re-read among the favorites. Now I am looking forward to several yet to be released.
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