"Longbourn," by Jo Baker

Of COURSE no current writer can even touch the hem of Jane Austen’s gown. But writers keep trying to enter Austen’s world, with their prequels, sequels, and alternate versions of her novels. And some of us who love Austen’s novels keep reading these versions, hoping against hope that they will provide a new way to connect to Austen’s original work. They always, it goes without saying, disappoint. But there are degrees of disappointment. I have to say that English novelist Jo Baker’s new novel, “Longbourn” (Knopf, 2013) is a much-better-than-average Austen-related work. As Austen followers well know, Longbourn is the name of the house where the main characters in “Pride and Prejudice” live. The focus of this new novel is on the servants in this house, and their parallel lives during the course of the events described in “Pride and Prejudice.” This is no “Upstairs, Downstairs” or “Downton Abbey”; the house is far smaller, and the servants’ lives are much drabber and harder, or at least harder than the portrayals in those two television shows. The novel opens with the housemaid Sarah’s doing the laundry, with all the miserable details of scrubbing and cleaning the clothing for a family with five daughters. “Washday could not be avoided, but the weekly purification of the household’s linen was nonetheless a dismal prospect for Sarah. The air was sharp at four thirty in the morning, when she started work. The iron pump-handle was cold, and even with her mitts on, her chilblains flared as she heaved the water up from the underground dark and into her waiting pail. A long day to be got through, and this was just the very start of it” (p. 3). We learn of Sarah’s background and dreams, and of those of the other servants: Mr. and Mrs. Hill, the child Polly, and the mysterious Joseph Smith who is taken on as a footman, and who turns out to have a secret prior connection with the household. The Bennet family is generally kind to the servants, if occasionally thoughtless; there is love and support among the servants; and there are some happy events as well. But there is no getting around the drudgery of the work to be done. Meanwhile the events of the Bennets’ lives go on in the background, in this “inside out” version of the story. Interestingly, Elizabeth Bennet is portrayed as less lively and witty, and more worried and sometimes muted, than in the original novel. “Longbourn” is well written, and is a good reminder of the lives of the majority of the English people at the time, those who were not in the upper class. So, unlike in the case of some other Austen-connected novels, I am glad to have read “Longbourn.” But as with those other cases, the final impression we are left with is that no one can hold the proverbial candle to the real thing, the original masterpiece, “Pride and Prejudice.”

RIP, Doris Lessing

Most of us who were budding feminists in the late 1960s and early 1970s remember reading the amazing 1962 novel "The Golden Notebook." It was one of those breakthrough books of that time period that we eagerly read, hungry for the stories that laid bare the lives of women who wanted more in life than what they were then allowed. Its author, Doris Lessing, died two days ago, on November 17, 2013, at the age of 94. She was born in Iran to British subjects, lived in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), and then moved to London, where she lived the rest of her life. Her work was widely recognized and praised, and she was awarded many prizes, culminating in the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2007. She was only the 11th woman to win that honor. At the time of her Nobel Prize, the Swedish Academy praised her work and its impact, and in particular noted that "The Golden Notebook" was "a pioneering work" that "belongs to the handful of books that influenced the 20th Century view of the male-female relationship." Interestingly, Lessing herself, being a very individualistic writer who didn't want to be categorized, didn't necessarily agree with some feminist views, or with being labeled a feminist. But her work, once out in the world, has been vastly influential. She wrote some 30 novels, several volumes of short stories, countless essays and reviews, and more. In later years she wrote science fiction, and although -- as regular readers of this blog know -- I am not a fan of science fiction, I know that many readers are passionate about that work. Of course, as with all good science fiction, it goes far beyond entertainment into astute commentary on society. I will end by urging interested readers to read Lessing's Nobel Prize lecture (http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2007/lessing-lecture_en.html)(if this link doesn't work,just Google it), in which she passionately and beautifully advocates for and speaks about the importance of books and reading, the hunger that even poor and uneducated people have for books, the great legacy of storytelling, and the power of literature to feed people's minds and to make a difference in this difficult, complicated world.

A Trivial Complaint

I have a trivial complaint about some matters that are small annoyances, but nonetheless annoyances. I love the magazine Vanity Fair, and have been subscribing to it for many years. But sometimes I take a while to get to my latest issues, because of the following: 1. The issues are so thick that the pages don't bend back and over easily, making them just a little bit awkward to read. I actually go through before I read an issue and rip out many of the ads, especially the ones on extra-thick paper. 2. The layout is cluttered. 3. Worst of all, in my view, lines of text are often printed over pictures or other colored backgrounds, making the print harder to read. OK, these are small things, but I do feel a pinprick of annoyance every time I read Vanity Fair. No, I won't switch over to reading it on an e-reader; I am still not quite converted to those. And no, I won't stop reading it -- Vanity Fair is way too much fun to read, with its irresistible combination of serious stories and high-toned gossip.

On Not Reading "The Goldfinch"

When I read Donna Tartt's first novel, "The Secret History," some years ago, I remember feeling it was a bit creepy and not terribly well-written; I did, however, keep reading to the end, and it did make an impression on me. When her second novel, "The Little Friend," came out some years later, I wasn't sure if I wanted to read it. The strange thing is that now I can't remember if I read it or not (my book list that I have kept since I was ten years old is all in notebooks, so not easily "searchable"); if I did, it obviously did not leave much of an impression. Fast forward to this year, when Tartt's new novel, "The Goldfinch," is receiving excellent reviews. Again I wavered -- should I read it or not? I put in my request for it at the local library, and in time it came in and I checked it out. I started it, but couldn't really get into it. And at 771 pages, it was going to require a real investment of time. Normally a book's length is not a negative for me; if I love a book, I am happy for it to be long (see the big Victorian novels of George Eliot and Charles Dickens, for example). But right now I am extremely busy, and my earlier ambivalence about Tartt's work is kicking in. So I made the decision to let it go. Back to the library it goes, unread (except for the first few pages). Maybe I will read it another time when I have more time, or when I am on a leisurely vacation. But I suspect not.

"Intuition," by Allegra Goodman

I have to admit (and I am not proud of this) that I am generally not particularly interested in reading about science topics. So I wasn’t sure if I would like Allegra Goodman’s novel “Intuition” (Random House/Books on Tape, 2006), but I was looking in the library for a novel on CD to listen to in my car, and this one looked promising. It tells the story of the researchers at a lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts who seem to be in the process of discovering a possible cure for some cancers. This potential breakthrough is of course very exciting, but soon becomes controversial, with accusations of irregularities by one researcher against another. The novel gives readers interesting insights into how such a lab works, the routines, the sometimes boring stretches, the excitement when it appears there might be a breakthrough, the competitiveness of the science research world, and the politics of funding research. Suspense builds throughout the novel, keeping the reader involved. The most interesting part though, for me, is the personalities and relationships of the researchers, and the insights into their private as well as work lives. This novel will not be on any of my “best” lists, but I did learn from it and enjoy it.

"Levels of Life," by Julian Barnes

The wonderful writer Julian Barnes, about whom I have written here several times, has written a wrenchingly sad new book, “Levels of Life” (Knopf, 2013). It consists of three essays, the first two of which provide a sort of historical/philosophical context for the third. The third is the one that many people will go directly to: the author’s description of his mourning for his wife, with whom he had been for 30 years, and who died about four years ago, suddenly (“thirty-seven days from diagnosis to death”) and too soon. He takes us through his feelings, struggles with various aspects of grief, and is unsparing in depicting the depth and unrelenting character of his loss. Grief, he tells us, is “unimaginable: not just its length and depth, but its tone and texture, its deceptions and false dawns, its recidivism” (p. 75). Apparently he and his wife Pat had a very close relationship, and after she dies, he cannot imagine going on without her. Barnes avoids sentimentality; instead, he cuts to the core of elemental feelings. Although his situation is particular to him, it speaks universally to the terrible truth of death and the unfathomable pain it leaves behind for those who have loved the one who died.

"Bridget Jones: Mad about the Boy," by Helen Fielding

I have written about the problem of critics’ and some male authors’ using the term “chick lit” or similar terms about almost any novel written by a woman that deals with relationships, love, and family. But that is not my focus today. I have also written about the positive side of “chick lit” -- the pleasures of frankly chick-lit-oriented novels -- and how I occasionally indulge in such novels. I have just read the third novel in the British writer Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones series: “Bridget Jones: Mad about the Boy” (Knopf, 2013). The two earlier ones (and the two movies based on them) were great fun to read (and see), and captured a certain time and atmosphere in many women’s lives with flair, humor, and sympathy. I, probably like other readers, wondered how a third book, telling of Bridget’s life at age 51, would be…I couldn’t quite imagine it. And it was a shock to learn (very early on, and in all the reviews, so this is not a spoiler) that she was now a widow. Yet I soon got caught up in the book and enjoyed it. Bridget’s distinctive voice is still the same, but of course a little older and (well, somewhat) wiser, and tempered by her grief and her trying to find a way to live and be happy again after the loss of her dear Darcy. She struggles, moves forward a bit, then relapses, then tries again. She continues to document her weight gain and loss and the amount she drinks, but in this new book now also documents her texts and her experiments with the new medium of Twitter. And of course meeting men and dating is, again, a focus. But now she is 51, has two children, and finds the world of dating has changed. Suffice it to say that she has adventures that are both hilarious and touching, learns a lot, and realizes that, five years after Darcy’s death, she should, can, and will have a happy life.