Jane Austen

One of my favourite authors. A number of good films have also been made some quite recently although she was born some 250 years ago.

We have visited houses where she lived and enjoyed tea at Chawton House Hampshire where her brother had lived though Jane Austen had resided there at one time also. 

The Times has a good but brief article about her today reading:

 "Weather Eye: How Jane Austen used weather to flesh out her novels

 

This year marks the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth. One aspect of her work is often overlooked: she was a genius at weaving weather into her novels, with plots often turning on a weather incident.

In Sense and Sensibility, Marianne Dashwood goes for a walk with her sister Margaret, declaring that the day would be “lastingly fair” despite threatening clouds. “Suddenly the clouds united over their heads, and a driving rain set full in their face”. They run down a hill in a rush to reach home but Marianne falls and sprains her ankle and is left helpless. Just then, the dashing John Willoughby sees her fall and carries her home, stirring strong feelings in Marianne for this gallant stranger. But just as she misread the weather, so she misjudges Willoughby’s devious character.

In Emma, a Christmas Eve dinner at the home of the Westons brings together a cast of key characters. But when snow begins to fall, Mr Woodhouse, Emma’s father, becomes particularly anxious, “What is to be done, my dear Emma?—what is to be done?” Woodhouse is portrayed as somewhat neurotic, even though the other guests are also fearful of the snow, but this apparent overreaction was understandable. Austen wrote Emma in 1814 and truly reflected the weather during a particularly cold year with heavy snowfalls.

In Pride and Prejudice, Jane Bennet is invited by Caroline Bingley for dinner at Netherfield. Her mother, Mrs Bennet, sends Jane on horseback rather than by carriage, “because it seems likely to rain; and then you must stay all night” as she hopes to stir a romance between Jane and the eligible Mr Bingley. But Jane is drenched in rain and becomes so ill she has to stay at Netherfield. Her sister Elizabeth comes to care for her but Elizabeth’s stay has unintended consequences when Mr Darcy, another guest at Netherfield, realises that “she attracted him more than he liked” — and so the plot thickened..."

To me at least, there are many attractions of reading Jane Austen's novels; no guns apart from hunting, no mobile phones and no TV. The novels themselves do all the work that modern day novels share with so many other aspects of the media.