A Comparison

I am a Jane Austen fan.

I always feel very typical and oh-so girlish when I make that confession; it's like saying that pink is my favorite color or that getting a new pair of shoes is a form of therapy (neither of which is true for me). Every girl seems to like Jane Austen. But I figure that the poor lady couldn't help that, and so, popular or not, I am a Jane Austen fan. Her novels are my comfort books. I read them when I'm feeling blue, and just seeing them on my shelf is cheery. Jane Austen and tea are synonymous for "comfort."

Elizabeth Gaskell, on the other hand, is a different matter. A contemporary of Dickens, writing in the mid-1800s when Britain was in the throes of the Industrial Revolution, Gaskell dealt with much harsher subjects than Austen. She also seemed to have a thing with killing characters; I think it made her happy. So many people died in her novel North and South that I came out on the other side very blue indeed, and even the lighter Wives and Daughters had its share of gloom. Light and comfortable her novels are not, and neither are the movies based on her works, particularly the grand miniseries North & South.

Whence, then, the comparison between the two authoresses? Actually, I don't mean to compare them at all. It would be like comparing tea and black coffee; the differences are so vast, where would you even begin? No, I mean to compare two of their characters who are in some ways remarkably similar. If you know about Gaskell and Austen, you have probably guessed which ones I mean. And you would be right: I am going to be cliche for the second time in one post and compare

fitzwilliam darcy and john thornton

The former is more famous than the latter, as Austen is more famous than Gaskell. Fair enough, I suppose, since Austen proceeded Gaskell by about forty years. Yet their two heroes have similarities that stand out even at a glance: dark and brooding types with the same sort of unwilling attraction to the heroine. Each is his own character, however, and they deserve a good look to see where their comparisons end.

mr. darcy

It is impossible to stay that Mr. Darcy is cliche, because he really began the cliche of darkly handsome heroes who have passionate hearts under their arrogance. In addition to that, he has more depth than such a simple generalization could give him: as he says himself, he was given good principles and then left to follow them in pride and conceit; he is selfish and arrogant at his core, and over the course of the story these things change. Yet even early on, he has his good points. He is an affectionate brother to Georgianna and a good, albeit meddling, friend to Bingley, and I consider it proof of his self-control that he was able to show respect to his extremely annoying aunt. He also has his weaknesses, being in his own eyes "unqualified to recommend himself to strangers." (Apparently Georgianna didn't get all the shyness in the family.)

mr. thornton

John Thornton is a more complex character than Fitzwilliam Darcy. Thornton was practically born into hard circumstances: schooled by a stern mother after his father's suicide, put in the position of "man of the house" at an early age. To me, one of the most significant things about his character was the fact that he worked, not merely to provide for himself and his family, but to pay off his father's debts and start afresh. That right there is a mark of courage.

At a relatively early age, Thornton manages to start his own cotton mill - and with his father's history looming over him, he will fight to keep it running. He is certainly biased against the workers and whatever kindness he shows them is rather self-serving; it takes Margaret to change that, as it took Elizabeth to change Darcy. (That seems to be a necessary component of romance novels.)

Of these two, Mr. Darcy is perhaps the grander. His witty comebacks are a riot, and the way Elizabeth slights him and Wickham drags his name through the mud for half the novel is painful for me to read. Yes, Darcy is certainly a favorite. What would the world be without him and Elizabeth Bennet and Pride and Prejudice?

Yet, all in all, I believe that Mr. Thornton is the better man. Despite his faults, he speaks more to an ideal: he works hard, honors his mother, provides for his family, and in time also learns charity in his dealings with the mill workers. I do not mean to read into the novel more than Gaskell, a Unitarian, meant to be there; but I come away from the story seeing at least these biblical values in Thornton, and they are what make me consider him the better character. In a sense, he is more real than Mr. Darcy.

Both characters fit their stories. Pride and Prejudice is light, whimsical, jaunty, while North and South is more gritty and realistic, and the same goes for their heroes (although I wouldn't exactly call Darcy "jaunty"). Mr. Darcy would no more fit in Milton than Mr. Thornton would fit in Pemberley.

...but that would make for an interesting story.

Dust from the Pages

As Jenny observed over at The Penslayer, we're halfway through December already. December of 2011. Whoda thunk? On the one hand it feels like this year has whipped by in a crazy blur, but at the same time, 2010 seems very far away. Lord willing, before you know it 2012 will be here (and The Hobbit will be coming out!).

In 2010, The Soldier's Cross was published and I upped my - what do you call it? - "online presence." Part of that involved actually using the splendid site Goodreads instead of just having an account, so 2011 has been one of the few years in which I've kept track of the books I have read. I didn't set a goal, liking to go through books at my own speed or lack thereof, and so the quantity wasn't as great as some of you, but I did wander into the worlds of some excellent books. I read some classics; some brilliant fantasies; a heap of rereads that didn't make it on the Goodreads list (Jane Austen, mostly); and some histories and other nonfiction. I didn't enjoy everything, but it was a nice, eclectic year. Here's a taste.

Away back in January I commenced my education proper in Sherlock Holmes. He makes for easy reading, so I have now read all the novels and most of the short stories (having already seen the Jeremy Brett TV-series, I knew how those ones ended and only read the ones I hadn't watched). I read Mutiny on the Bounty at last and just this month read the second in the trilogy, Men Against the Sea; I also added to my collection of sea novels such books as The Line upon a Wind (lift with your legs!), the 1950s novel The Tall Ships, and about the first hundred pages of Master and Commander...until I determined that it is most distinctly a man's novel. I met Jack Easy some time last year, and Hornblower awaits me after I've completed my own novel.

I took a huge bound out of my comfort zone and read The Killer Angels, perhaps the most not-me book in 2011's collection, and yet one that I enjoyed nonetheless. I read a new novel (gasp!), Liz Patterson's charming debut, The Mark of the Star. Just a couple months ago I also got Anne Elisabeth Stengl's newest novel, Veiled Rose, read it and promptly backtracked to read Heartless as well. They're some of my favorites from this year. (Yes! Abigail does read modern novels! ...Sometimes. Rarely. Alright, moving on.) I succeeded in finishing the Puritan Paperback The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment (take a bite, chew ten times, swallow, digest, repeat); grudgingly picked up The Odyssey (even Athena recognized that Odysseus was an idiot!); and dabbled in some light reading with James Herriot. I had to read something light, you see, because at the same time I was reading Little Dorrit (you can't just come in saying you want to KNOW, you know).

In June I read my first G.K. Chesterton work, Four Faultless Felons. I can't decide what I think of Chesterton. I'll get back with you at a later date. Then there was...Team of Rivals. (May I remind you about lifting with your legs?) It involved some trudging, but it was very interesting. Then, Jenny having been on to me to read Beowulf, I picked that up (I like Wiglaf better than Beowulf). I read Rosemary Sutcliff's novel Frontier Wolf, which was like having my heart wrung a couple times (but wait, it's Sutcliff, so we expect that). The Forgotten Spurgeon, by Iain Murray, earned one of my rare five star ratings. It was good, accessible, encouraging, convicting, and did I mention that it was good?

For some light reading and inspiration for Sunshine and Gossamer I picked up the little book Dew on the Grass, a sweet read with some inside-out theology. I reread a couple Agatha Christie novels, Towards Zero (a favourite) and Murder at the Vicarage (not so much). I ventured a little dubiously into my first Robert Louis Stevenson novel, the odd Master of Ballantrae. Last week I finished The Count of Monte Cristo, complete and unabridged in its 1400-page glory. I'm not sure if I would read it again; it had its high points and its low points. Last night I (finally) reached the last page of Harry Blamire's The Christian Mind. I believe the crowning jewel of the year, however, was Howl's Moving Castle. This little book was clever, light and serious at once, and absolutely hilarious; after finishing it I loaned it out to various family members, and have yet to get it back.

The year is not quite finished; I hope to complete Thomas Costain's The Magnificent Century before January rolls around. But I am pleased with the books I've read and I enjoyed just about all of them. Unlike Jenny, many of my books had little (or little that I can pinpoint) to do with The White Sail's Shaking, and yet so many of them were beneficial in expanding my horizons. I read my first Dumas, my first Stevenson, and my first Chesterton this year. I found some new writers whose works I can watch for. I ventured into some very different eras, including the Civil War and the Age of Sail. And then of course there were those wonderful rereads.

what have you read this year?

Basking in Ink

Summer is usually the time when people first eye the tremendous stacks of books they have been meaning to read, then eye the calendar and the somewhat-less-hectic months, and set themselves reading goals. I don't have a set reading list, but I do hope to be able to bathe in ink this summer as much as possible - reading books, writing letters, and writing White Sail's. There will probably not be half as much ink this summer as I should like, but oh well! At least there will be some.

In honour of the ink-theme of summer, and because I don't have a list of all the books I hope to read in three months, I thought I would do a writeup of books I have already read - my top ten. It was a bit difficult limiting it to ten, but I managed it, and so here they are (in no particular order).

1. The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper. This is a rather surprising choice for a favourite, since it was a book assigned to me in American Literature and I have little to no love for the classic literature on this side of the Pond. I slogged through the first chapters, grumbling about it as I went, until I discovered a little ways in that the storyline and the characters are made of pure Awesome. Not, I admit, a highly sophisticated analysis, but true nonetheless.

This book has two people in it that made it onto my list of top twenty fictional characters - not Hawkeye, although I liked him, but Uncas and Cora. Uncas I adore, and if he is not my absolute favourite character, he at least makes it into the top five. I also love Cora's strength and faith (although I would not go so far as to call it a Christian novel).

2. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Who could not like Jane Austen's classic novel? I have read all of her works, but this one still takes the cake with its delicious wit and array of characters. It needs no explanation.

3. The Gammage Cup by Carol Kendall. A children's book, to be sure, but one that can be enjoyed at any age. I love everything about it: the whimsical writing, the characters (particularly Muggles), the land of the Minnipins - oh, everything! It is just the thing to curl up with on a blue day when you want to read something cheery. The Gammage Cup is a classic, and ought to be better known than it is.

4. The Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliff. I'm not as big a fan of Rosemary Sutcliff as some people. Because of the emotion she elicits in her writing, I have to be in the right mood for Sutcliff's books; they aren't ones that I can pick up any rainy day. But I do enjoy many facets of her writing and am steadily pulling together a larger collection of her works, and this first book of her Dolphin Ring Cycle is absolutely fantastic. The setting, the quest, the "this is just the beginning" atmosphere all combine to give me a tight-throat feeling while I read it. But the characters are what I especially love. Marcus, Esca, Cub, Cottia, Uncle Aquila - they are all unique and wonderful.

5. The Knowledge of the Holy by A.W. Tozer. I seem to be especially fond of books with "of the" in the title. This work on the attributes, or perfections, of God has more meat between its covers than you would expect from so thin a book, but it is also written in a style easy to follow and understand (as easy to understand as such a subject can be) and should be a part of any Christian's library. A simply splendid book.

6. Ben-Hur by Lew Wallace. Positively the best book set in the time of Christ's life on earth. I cannot express adequately how wonderful this novel is - strong, profound, rich, thrilling, satisfying... This book is all of the above and more. It has a fantastic hero, a fantastic villain, and a fantastic heroine, too, and treats with reverence the true Hero of the story: Christ.

7. The Space Trilogy by C.S. Lewis. Yes, yes, I do realize this is three books and that I'm cheating, but how am I expected to choose a favourite? Many people have only read Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia, but while that is an excellent series, stopping there will leave you with the mere milk of his writing. Though he was by his own admission no theologian, his fiction and nonfiction are brilliant with truth. Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength are his contributions to the realm of science fiction, but as with most of Lewis' writing, he delves into the glory of Light and Goodness and the truth of fairytales.

8. The Iliad by Homer. Crazy choice, I know. But I happen to have a soft spot for Achilles (not shared by many) and I always experience a thrill when I read about him. And the opening line is one of my favourites: "Sing, O goddess, the wrath of Achilles, son of Peleus..." I have no other excuse to offer.

9. Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis. Because, in case I haven't mentioned it before, Lewis is awesome. This novel was his last and his favourite, and though many people struggle with it, it has just as many riches to be mined as any of his other works. He takes the Greek myth of Psyche and Cupid and retells it in a vastly different light; it is an allegory, but not after the style of Bunyan. It is so deep and so thought-provoking and so evocative that, as with Rosemary Sutcliff's novels (and more so), I can't just pick it up any old day and read it. But that doesn't make it any less fantastic.

10. The Life of God in the Soul of Man by Henry Scougal. I have only read this little book once so far, but it is so rich with truths that I expect to return to it many times. Written in the 1600s, it was originally a letter of encouragement and edification to a friend; that friend was so blessed by it that he subsequently published it. Like The Knowledge of the Holy, it is a must-read. This is perhaps my favourite quote from it: "They know by experience that true religion is a union of the soul with God, a real participation of the Divine nature, the very image of God drawn upon the soul, or, in the apostle's phrase, 'it is Christ formed within us.'"

I have many other books that I love, but these, despite being a motley collection, are the cream of the crop. These are the ones at the mention of which I either go shaky with happiness or become warm and content. These are my favourite sources of Inklight to bask in.

Jane Austen's Villains

Jane Austen's novels are fairly fluffy, light reads, and naturally they do not have "villains" as The Lord of the Rings has villains. Most of them do, however, have antagonists - because stories rarely work without them. Having read all of her novels, including her incredibly absurd and highly amusing "Minor Works," I found the differences in her antagonists quite interesting to note; all are smooth-talkers, but their actions and level of villainy differ from one novel to another quite refreshingly.

Pride & Prejudice: Pride and Prejudice boasts Jane Austen's most famous villain in Mr. George Wickham, the unscrupulous officer who charms everyone with his looks and winning ways. He is slippery and conniving - the sort of man most people think of when they think of Austen's antagonists. This is often the first of Austen's novels that people read, so it sets the precedent that if a man seems too good to be true, he will turn out to be the villain.

Sense & Sensibility: Sense and Sensibility (written before Pride and Prejudice) has a similar "antagonist" to Austen's more popular novel. Mr. Willoughby, the charming "suitor" of flighty, romantic Marianne Dashwood, is the quintessential knight in shining armor and fills the role of the tall, dark, and handsome hero that Wickham does in Pride and Prejudice. But though he does resemble Mr. Wickham (Austen seems to have had something against W's), he also has some unique facets. He is a much more tragic sort of character, first of all, and is meant to evoke as much pity as he does anger in the reader - though I confess, I didn't feel particularly sorry for him in the end. Secondly, the story is from Elinor Dashwood's perspective, and since she is less blinded by Willoughby's charms than the rest of her family, he comes across in a different manner than the all-deceiving Wickham.

Emma: This cheery novel does not have a Wickham-like villain, and, indeed, really does not have an antagonist at all, unless it be Emma herself and her matchmaking. It does, however, have the interesting figure Frank Churchill, who especially interested and annoyed me with his selfish, unpredictable ways. I did not know the storyline when first I watched the 1995, Kate Beckinsale production (I read the book after having watched the movie), and so I couldn't be sure how Frank would turn out by the end of it. I found him one of the more interesting Austen antagonists because of that, and also because, selfish though his deception was, he had an understandable reason for his actions that made it almost possible to forgive him.

Persuasion: Persuasion, even more so than Emma, lacked a real villain. In my opinion, the worst antagonist was also the hero - Captain Wentworth, with his offended pride and way of nursing his wrongs. However, that all worked out all right in the end and Wentworth seems to be popular among Janites, so I will say no more.

Northanger Abbey: This novel, different from all of Austen's other works in many regards, shares a feature with Mansfield Park in having two antagonists, brother and sister John and Isabelle Thorpe. John, a friend of the heroine's brother, is anything but the smooth weasel that George Wickham is; he is rough and unlikeable, suited to deceive heroine Catherine Morland, in view of her rather silly, uncritical nature. He is an irritating character, and the fact that he has a chance of winning Catherine's affection makes him more so.

Isabelle, on the other hand, is more subtle and sweet, and thus more poisonous in her influence on Catherine. She is also rather a crude, unladylike character, though, just as her brother is no gentleman. Despite how different they are from the villains of Austen's other works, they are still a thoroughly unlikeable a pair.

Mansfield Park: I left Mansfield Park for last, it having perhaps the most unique style of all of Austen's works, for all its being disliked by many fans of the other novels. It has the brother-sister pair of antagonists that posthumously-published Northanger Abbey does, but Henry and Mary Crawford are far more insidious than the Thorpes. Henry is gentlemanly, though he seems to be more of the Frank Churchill type than the dashing Wickham or Willoughby, and while heroine Fanny Price remains in the dark as to his nature, the reader is aware almost from his entrance into the story that he is unscrupulous. When bent on winning Fanny, Henry's pleasant nature is all the more nerve-wracking for the reader because of Fanny's usual submissiveness and how oblivious the man is whom she truly loves, Edmund Bertram.

But in reading Jane Austen's novels, I thought her best antagonist was Mary Crawford. Mary is everything that Fanny Price is not - charming, vivacious, witty, and also devious, selfish, and unkind - and that mix of charms and vices is one of the best things to have in any villain. She is intriguing in her vivacity, but also hateful in her cruelty; amusing in her wit, but worrisome in her scheming. I have heard others say that they actually liked her better than Fanny, but I found the makeup of her character only served to make her a more stunning antagonist and set her apart from the ranks of Austen's other "villains."

A Bit O' The Classics - Emma

Emma isn't my favorite Austen novel, nor my least favorite; it ranks somewhere in the ever-shifting middle, below Pride & Prejudice and Mansfield Park, and possibly below Sense & Sensibility. However, all of Austen's novels are enjoyable, each for different reasons - Pride & Prejudice for its vivacity and wit; Mansfield Park for the sweetness of its heroine and the story's mellow tone; Sense & Sensibility for the drama, theme, and contrasting characters of Elinor and Marianne; Persuasion for its touch of melancholy; Northanger Abbey for its sprightly, somewhat off-the-wall humor; and Emma for its own hilarity.

There are plenty of other things about Emma that make it enjoyable, such as Mr. Knightley's (pardon the pun) chivalrous character, the twist Austen gives to the romances, and the sheer number of errors that Emma Woodhouse brings about in her attempt to be a matchmaker for her friends. But one of the most interesting points about the novel, I found, was that Jane Austen managed to have such a bratty, spoiled character...and yet make her so likable as well. Surprisingly few people dislike the book, whereas one would think that Emma's inconsiderate nature and harebrained schemes would turn people off. Some modern authors have attempted to have such characters, either with the thought of redeeming them in the end, or merely with the hope of crafting something different from the usual sympathetic character; but generally speaking, these efforts fall flat where Austen's Emma Woodhouse did not.

Several reasons can be found for why Jane Austen succeeded where others cannot, the first and most broad-brush of which is that she was a classic writer and managed to get away with things that the little people cannot. However, not only is this a very depressing and irksome reason, but even if a book is a classic, readers are unlikely to enjoy a bratty main character unless the author does a remarkable job in pulling it off. (An example of this for Austen would be that, classic or no, most Austen fans put Mansfield Park at the bottom of their list because they feel that Fanny Price is a doormat.)

A better reason why readers like Emma Woodhouse is that Jane Austen did not make her wholly snobbish and selfish. Emma is shown as a generally kind and goodhearted young woman whose virtues are sometimes hidden under the fact that she is spoiled and that she has a somewhat wild streak of fun in her nature which often leads her to act before she thinks. Austen does not merely show her in her faults, such as ridiculing the interminable Miss Bates; she also shows Emma's gentler side as she regrets her harsh words, when she watches over her father, and in her affection for Mr. Knightley. An author simply cannot have a character with irritating faults without making amends in other places, or they will alienate readers.

Another, and perhaps greater, reason for Emma's likability is the way Austen contrasts her actions with Mr. Knightley's and has him play the role of guardian and corrector, rebuking Emma and showing her the errors of her ways. These reprimands are gentled by the revelation that Mr. Knightley is and has been in love with Emma, and their fruitfulness throughout reveals Emma's growing character. On the other hand, a last minute change of heart on the part of a character who has been annoying for the entirety of the novel does not work, as it is unbelievable and leaves no room for growth or time for the character to redeem himself.

Jane Austen's Manuscripts

Jane Austen (1775-1817) is perhaps one of the most popular of classic British authors today: her novels are nowhere near as difficult to get through as those of Charles Dickens, do not wade through moral and social problems like Elizabeth Gaskell's, and are, quite simply, light and enjoyable reads. Her classic novel Pride and Prejudice has been adapted as a movie or a television serial numerous times, and then there are all the spin-offs that line the shelves of Barnes & Noble (though how one fits zombies into Pride and Prejudice is beyond me, and I prefer not to find out).

For the past few years the University of Oxford and King's College London have been working together on making digital versions of Jane Austen's original manuscripts, spanning from the age of about 12 to her death in 1817. The collection includes the Juvenilia (short or unfinished stories written early in Austen's life), scraps of her more famous novel Persuasion, and other unfinished works like Sanditon and The Watsons. The manuscripts show an amusingly large amount of blotted words and scratched out lines, dashes all over the place, and randomly capitalized letters until the pages are all but illegible. In fact, modern researchers have concluded that, contrary to Austen's brother's claim, not everything "came finished from her pen" - in short, the editor had a lot to do with Austen's polished style.

Of course, in the late 1700s/early 1800s, spelling was not as strict as it is today and the English language was fairly fluid; also, writing by hand does not leave much room for neat edits and revisions, so Austen's blurred style is understandable. The manuscripts shown on the Jane Austen Fiction Manuscripts website are very similar to the Oxford Jane Austen Collection, where the idiosyncrasies in her style are preserved, and it is fascinating to see how Jane Austen wrote. It certainly does not detract from the charm of her writing, nor, I'll wager, does it do much to lower her in the opinions of her faithful fans. It just puts the editor in a more heroic light.