Do you like Jane Austen? If you do there is a book you NEED to read.
A Jane Austen Education by William Derseiwicz.
I am only chapter 3 but the first 2 chapter really spoke to me. The first one is on Emma and how the novel taught him how to appreciate the small matters of life. At first William seems a highly snobbish guy thinking that he is above silly 19th century, women's literature. He hates the book because there is no adventure, no hero's journey, or big life lessons. Well little does he know there is. During the picnic where Emma criticizes Miss Bates. He then sees himself as Emma always criticizing those around him.
After that William realizes the point of Emma...
Austen was asking us to pay attention to the things we usually miss or don't accord us to pay attention to the things we we usually miss... those small "trivial" everyday things, the things that happen hour by hour to the people in our lives...That, she was telling us, is what the fabric of our years really consists of. That is what life is really about. After that I found myself putting little post-its on quotes I liked (I would have underlined it but it is my roommates book).
William points out that while Emma has big dreams and seeks out this ideal world she realizes
her "daily happiness" was right there in front of her. I have read Emma 3 or 4 times... I love it, it is one of my favorite Austen's but I did not notice these underline themes. But William and Jane challenged me
to pay attention to the "minute particulars" is to not your life as it passes, before it passes. This really caught my attention as it is one my challenges for the year to pay attention to the details of my life.
Emma finally learned that everyday life is not only more joyful--and more dramatic--than she could have imagined, is is also more joyful and dramatic than anything she did imagine, and of her plots or day dreams. I hope I that I will be like Emma. Of course I ended the chapter thinking I want to now read Emma again but I didn't I continued reading a Jane Austen Education and as much as I loved the first chapter I loved the second chapter even more so.
The next chapter was on Pride and Prejudice and how it taught him to grow up. William falls in love with Elizabeth Bennett from the start he sees her as clever and witty. But
beneath the polished wit that she flashed at the world like a suit of armor, Elizabeth was still scarcely more than a girl and like any young woman she makes mistakes while she is growing up. He writes
Elizabeth was all of twenty, and her mistakes were errors of youth--the mistakes, precisely, of a person who has never made mistakes, or at least, who has never been forced to acknowledge them. But the most important part of growing up is to admit your mistakes. He claims that Lydia will never grow up because she does not admit her mistakes but keeps making them, even when she runs off an elopes with Mr. Wickham, she does not see it as a mistake.
William and I guess always saw as growing up as going to school, getting an education, and learning what we wanted to do in life. But that really isn't what growing up. I have had some insights that growing up is more about the life lessons you learn through life. In Pride and Prejudice Elizabeth learns she makes mistakes but she either fixes them or changes her out look on life. William wrote that Austen did not see growing up as getting older for her, growing up has nothing to do with knowledge or skill, because it has everything to do with character and conduct. You can't grow up with out making mistakes but it is not just about making the mistakes it is about learning from your mistakes (a lesson I really need learn). Austen writes to grow up you have to make mistakes and they will humble or humiliate you because if they don't growing up won't happen. Austen understood that growing up hurts--that it has to hurt, because other wise it won't happen. I have written as one of my New Years resolutions that I don't want to make mistakes, well that is impossible, so if I make mistakes I want to learn from them and not make them again.
I am loving this book and the life lessons it is teaching me. So if you love Jane Austen and want a little insight into life I recommend this book, and I am only three chapters into it. I will keep you posted on my life lessons I learn from Austen.
Hope you all had a wonderful weekend.
