Jane Austen For Dummies
by Joan Elizabeth Klingel Ray PhD
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Book Summary Information
Author: Joan Elizabeth Klingel Ray PhDEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2006-07-31
ISBN: 0470008296
Number of pages: 384
Publisher: For Dummies
Book Reviews of Jane Austen For Dummies
Book Review: Title says it all
Summary: 3 Stars
This book is absolutely chock full of useful background information that will help you to understand the novels of Jane Austen (all of which I had read long before getting this book).
The author's main argument is that the world of Jane Austen is enclosed in the inherited class known as the 'landed gentry' and its younger brothers and sisters--gentry who are not landed, but would like to be. The landed live on and manage their estates. While the younger brothers make careers in the church, army, or navy, there are no careers for the girls, so they stay home reading novels and learning the skills they need to attract a husband (mainly dancing and sewing). If they succeed they marry and breed, but if they fail they are doomed to be childless and to write novels instead.
Now to avoid confusion you should know that in this society "breeding" as applied to animals like dogs and horses means their genetic inheritance, but "breeding" as applied to humans means acquired social skills. I mention this point because the author omits it, even though it is central to her argument.
This system of marriage and inheritance, and the system of manners and social codes by which this class defines itself and perpetuates itself is dissected in anthropological detail in the main part of the book.
Within this narrow band of society, Jane Austen, who never married, and whose every sentence drips with irony, writes revenge comedies in which, contrary to real life, the Ugly Bettys invariably swipe the Brad Pitts of the world from the clutches of the Angelina Jolies. (Our guide would undoubtedly point out to all dummies that 'jolie' is the French word for 'pretty'.)
However I have one main objection, which some people may not see as a problem, which is that the author takes the title of the book a little too literally. The idea of the For Dummies series is to write books that start the subject from scratch, but they are not actually intended to be read by real dummies. There is something about this author's style of writing that is just a little too flat and pedantic for my taste and I suspect that readers who enjoy Jane Austin may find some of this book painfully obvious, even though it does contain a great deal of useful content.
I suppose I should give an example of what I mean, so how about this?
(Instructions for getting to Jane Austen's grave at Winchester Cathedral).
"Depart the train at Winchester and take a taxi from the station... Head for the town center or centre, as the English spell the word." (Yes, Dummies would find that one hard to figure out.)
Or in describing the routine duties of a clergyman, she enumerates visiting the sick, giving spiritual counsel, offering religious instruction to children, and finding help for the poor and hungry, yet completely omits to mention performing baptisms, burying the dead, and performing marriages, plus performing all the duties of the registration of these events and the maintenance of records, which in an age of relatively high child mortality would have been pretty time consuming, as even a Dummy would know.
In spite of having two proofreaders listed in the credits, the book is rife with typos, the most hilarious being Jane Austen's name given as "Jane Ascent" on p.20, or the Bigg sisters being referred to as the Biggs sisters on p. 64, but the text is regularly dotted with typos and minor, but irritating errors such as referring to Aunt Norris having 'free reign' when the idiom should be 'free rein'.
The cartoons at the start of each section are, to put it mildly, worthless, and yet when illustrations ARE needed, such as in the description of the various types of horse drawn vehicle, there are not enough. On p. 174 there is even a verbal description of a painting of a governess, but no graphic illustration of that painting, presumably as budget would not allow.
The front cover has an interesting painting of a ball, in which all the females have heavily rouged cheeks. I cannot find any acknowledgement of this interesting piece of cover art, but it just serves to point out that the book has hardly any discussion of cosmetics and dress of the period, which you would think would be an essential component of understanding the courtship and mating patterns of the gentry.
Wedding attire IS discussed, even though there is no wedding scene in Austen's writings, with this bizarre statement: "Traditionally, the bride was married in a formal white bridal gown complete with x and y..." (Surely another proofreading error!)
I don't really trust the author as a guide to the books either. She makes a great deal of Mrs. Elton's maiden name being Augusta Hawkins, explaining that this means she 'hawks' or advertises like a hawker or sales person. A better explanation if you wanted to pursue this avenue would be that she is rapacious like a hawk (bird of prey), but even this is questionable, because Sir John Hawkins was a British national hero of the Spanish armada of 1588, the man who brought the first potato to Europe, irrevocably changing the British diet, and, lamentably, pretty much a founding father of the slave trade--as everyone person of Austen's era would have known, and Austen, who had brothers who served as naval officers was a great admirer of the British navy. So it seems highly unlikely to me that Austen's readers would have perceived this distinguished family name in the way the author thinks. I think you can also say that Mrs. Elton seems like a basically well meaning, if insecure, young woman who we see mainly as someone who has aggravated Emma Woodhouse, who is a massive snob and one of the least appealing characters in all of literature.
A better example, if you wanted one, of a name symbolizing the qualities of its owner is surely Mr. Knightley who epitomizes the qualities of Chaucer's 'verray parfit gentil knight'.
The author also bizarrely claims that the pianoforte is the predecessor of the modern piano, whereas the word piano is actually an abbreviation of pianoforte and it is essentially the same instrument. To say that the pianos of Jane Austen's day sounded more like harpsichords is a bit misleading, because the harpsichord plucks the string and the pianos (or pianofortes, if you like) used both by Mozart and Jane Austen's characters used a hammer mechanism. Of course, I would agree that the technology of the piano has evolved since Austen's time, but then what has not?
All in all the book is not completely useless, but, leaving aside the question as to whether it is good for Dummies, it hardly lives up to the billing of "A Reference for the Rest of Us", because it lacks comprehensiveness and seems to be an ad hoc cobbling together of lecture notes, a study of horse drawn vehicles, a filmography, and a few other bits and pieces. It would be quite useful for a high school teacher to use as a resource for finding some points of discussion in Austen's novels.
Another apparently similar book that I have not read is Jane Austen: The World of Her Novels by Deirdre Le Faye, which by an amazing coincidence has the same painting as this book on its front cover--even though it does not make Dummies list of the ten best books about Jane Austen.
I should perhaps add what may be obvious, which is that I am just a casual reader and not a teacher or any kind of expert on Jane Austen, so the points about the book that bug me may not be a problem for you.
Summary of Jane Austen For Dummies
Explains Austen's methods, motivations, and moralsThe fun and easy way(r) to understand and enjoy Jane Austen
Want to know more about Jane Austen? This friendly guide gives the scoop on her life, works, and lasting impact on our culture. It chronicles the events of her brief life, examines each of her novels, and looks at why her stories - of women and marriage, class and money, scandal and hypocrisy, emotion and satire - still have meaning for us today.
Discover
* Why Austen is so popular
* The impact on manners, courtships, and dating
* Love and life in Austen's world
* Her life and key influences
* Her most memorable characters
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