An Entertaining Novel

Having not read the Jane Austen books for many years and (OK, I'll admit it) paying very little attention to the movies, recent and otherwise, I wondered if one could read The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler and enjoy it without rereading the Austen books. In my opinion - well - yes. First of all, it's an entertaining read. Secondly, you don't have to know the Austen books inside out as Fowler constantly draws parallels and provides a reference section.

There's not a great deal of plot in this novel; it's more about the characters. The structure of the book is interesting. Each of the six chapters in the novel parallels one of Austen's six novels and each chapter is loosely, although not exclusively, about one of the six members of the Jane Austen Book Club. The six members of the club are all connected in some way to Jocelyn. Sylvia has been Jocelyn's friend since childhood; Allegra is Sylvia's daughter; Prudie met Jocelyn at a screening of the movie Pride and Prejudice; Bernadette was married to Jocelyn's godfather; and Grigg, the only male in the group, met Jocelyn in a hotel where he was attending a sci-fi convention and she a Hound Roundup. Jocelyn breeds dogs, is unmarried, and is the instigator of the club.

Fowler uses a number of different writing techniques throughout the book. There is on-going narration interspersed with flashbacks as key events in the lives of the six characters are revealed. Some of the most entertaining parts of the book are those in which the group speaks collectively. These are written in a breezy, slightly gossipy, but chatty rather than catty manner. For example, in one part we learn that Bernadette doesn't much care how she dresses in public - "Prudie had once seen Bernadette in the supermarket...". Oh? Did Prudie report that to everyone? Or, we might be told "her eyebrows had grown in and that was a relief." Oh? To whom? "The group" observes and picks one another apart, but they care for one another. The only character "on the outside" in these bits is Grigg - the five women don't want to concede that he might have as valid opinions of Austen as they do. There's a slight snootiness when Grigg serves a cheesecake with a "store bought crust" but then they concede "we'd all bought store bought on occasion." The group of women is quite of one mind in many of their opinions and they are all very literate and passionate about the Austen books. In one of the most hilarious scenes at a library benefit dinner Prudie and Bernadette have a go at making a mockery of a rather pompous mystery writer who is seated at their table who doesn't have time for "women's books."

What is the book really about? I think probably it is best said by Allegra when she notes that in Jane Austen's books "virtue will be rewarded" and "love will prevail." In The Jane Austen Book Club we have six people who are in various stages of relationships (or none) and who, by the end of the book, all have someone in their lives. Bernadette has no one at the beginning and at the end she has met a man in Costa Rico; Jocelyn and Grigg are not involved with anyone at the beginning but at the end they are a dating pair; Sylvia at the beginning is breaking up her 30 year marriage to Daniel but at the end they are being reconciled; Allegra is probably going back to her lesbian lover Corinne. The only "unchanged" relationship is Prudie and Dean's. They are married at the beginning and they are still married as the book ends.

This is a novel about relationships, how they are formed and how they endure. Just as "a dance is about its enormous potential for joy or disaster," so, too, is any relationship. And sometimes you just have to take a chance: as Bernadette observes "you can't possibly know all your husband's failings until you've been married awhile." Some of us love more and some are more loved. In Prudie's take on it "you can marry someone you're lucky to get or you can marry someone who's lucky to get you." And Jane Austen gets the final word: "The mere habit of learning to love is the thing."