27 March 1999: Austen Charlatans

After reading the two stupid Julia Barretts, I reread Persuasion. Altoids for the mind, very refreshing. I noticed for the first time that no mention of Anne Elliot's fortune is made until the final chapter, when Austen divulges that of course her father could give her only a fraction of what was her due. £10,000 for the second daughter of a downscale baronet seems right enough, when Georgiana Darcy's and Emma Woodhouse's fortunes were each £30,000. Still it's very interesting that in this, Austen's last and considered by some to be the most developed (i.e. best) novel, this fact is untouched for so long. We know about the Bennet girls' £1000 apiece immediately; the pittance of the Dashwoods takes up a whole chapter; we know Fanny Price has none and that Catherine Morland's is sufficient (actually I'm making that up--I don't remember), and Emma's is told soon enough.

I don't know what standards exist for fan or tribute fiction. I haven't read much, only a bit of Jean Auel-esque trash I found while searching for word of when the fifth book might be published. Those pieces were laughably bad, not only in mechanics (they appeared in personal sites) but in the wide variance from detail Auel herself establishes in her published books.

I guess that means that my first requirement of tribute fiction is faithfulness to the world the original author created. I read at Amazon about Pemberley, a sequel to Pride and Prejudice that features Miss Anne de Bourgh playing the pianoforte. So I didn't waste my time with that one.

No, I wasted my time with an author whom the majority of Amazon reviewers didn't despise, Julia Barrett (a pseudonym for two collaborators; a ghost author and an Austen scholar, maybe). Should I have known better? Probably, but I did want to try. My earlier attempts hadn't disgusted me.

In 1994 (I think) I read three other tribute novels, these by Joan Aiken. Aiken I love for her children's books (The Wolves of Willoughby Chase series and The Shadow Guests) so I trusted her for Mansfield Revisted, Jane Fairfax, and Eliza's Daughter. In Mansfield Revisited, we find out what happens to Susan Price after she's replaced sister Fanny at her aunt's side, and Fanny and Edmund are plausibly away somewhere during the course of the action so that neither do they compromise Susan's primacy nor can the author compromise Austen's original work. In Jane Fairfax, we see Emma Woodhouse through the eyes of a girl she should have befriended. I recall it as not as polished as Mansfield Revisisted. The last, Eliza's Daughter, has the least to do with its source, Sense and Sensibility. In Sense and Sensibility, neither gender nor name of the child Willoughby begat with Eliza's Eliza is divulged; here we learn it was a girl, and her story. Eliza's Daughter is merely set in the same period; it has nothing to do with Austen. It would have been unmarketable without the connection, but the connection is solely with the names.

Of the three, I thought that Mansfield Revisited was truest to Austen's style, theme, and characters. I liked Jane Fairfax because it was a contemporary but other perspective on Emma, like Gardner's Grendel. Eliza's Daughter has a forgettable story and no connection to Austen; as such it could not betray her but neither could it contribute to her legacy.

Anyway, remembering the two-thirds positive Aiken tribute and with the mostly positive Amazon reviews, I gave Julia Barrett a try. (I should have asked at Pemberley what the real Austen devotées think of Barrett.) Possibly in the intervening five years my knowledge and worship of Austen has increased; possibly I'm just harder to please; possibly Barrett completely dropped the ball. I read Presumption, a continuation of Pride and Prejudice, and The Third Sister, a continuation of Sense and Sensibility.

Presumption focuses on Georgiana Darcy and The Third Sister on Margaret Dashwood (obviously). The inevitable end of an Austen novel is marriage, and in this Barrett was faithful to Austen. Otherwise, Barrett failed to simulate Austen's language, wit, pacing, contemporary detail, characterization, and themes.

On Austen's world: On p. 64 of Presumption, Georgiana Darcy's father's name is given as Fitzwilliam. Ha! Once upon a time there were three siblings Fitzwilliam of a titled family. Brother Fitzwilliam became earl and had a second son who became Colonel Fitzwilliam. One Miss Fitzwilliam, Catherine, married Sir de Bourgh and the other (Anne?) had a son whom she named with her maiden name, a son who grew up to write a letter to Elizabeth Bennet signed "Fitzwilliam Darcy." Damn!

On language: these two books are Usan and I don't suppose could get away with the early 19^th century habit of apostrophes in possessive pronouns or spelling "dote" as "doat" or using "shew" for "showed." Those are elements of Austen, though, and when confronted with modern usage and "address" instead of "direction," the Austen mood is lost.

On wit: Barrett doesn't even try. Or if she did, it was so wooden I didn't notice.

On pacing: In no two Austen novels do the heroines meet their eventual mate in the same manner. In both the Barretts, in marked contrast, the girls meet someone they think is Just Right but in the last several pages realize that an Other person is actually Mr. Right. Neither eventual husband is developed enough into a character that deserves to be called "male lead," let alone "hero."
Barrett has no touch of the hinting without telling Austen had such a gift for. When Darcy and Wickham meet in the street, one went white, the other red. To indicate which went how would have told the reader who the villain was too early. In contrast, when Mrs. Smith's parallel in The Third Sister learns someone is in town, we learn immediately from her reaction that this is a Bad Fellow.

On characterization: Barrett does stick Kitty with the curate that Austen told her family Kitty would marry. Mrs. Bennett is even more of a cariacature. Barrett feels compelled to update us on every character, as of course Austen didn't need to do, and this leads to awkward tangents of plot. "Young olive branch" was Mr. Bennet's term for the Collins' child; Mr. Collins would never address his sonnheir so. Barrett attempts Lady Catherine de Bourgh with the ol' college try and, of course, fails. I don't see how anyone could reproduce her.

On detail: Barrett does try. Cowper quotes, Stubbs the horse painter, fashions, music. Every inclusion has a carefully studied air, though, like Mr. Collins's compliments. There are more errors than this, but an example of not sticking to Austen-dictated detail is that the Bingley's estate is only ten miles from Pemberley. Austen says that the sisters are within thirty miles of each other; if she meant ten she'd've said ten.

On themes: Austen would never have had truck with Mrs. Phillips's Presumption mishap. Lydia Bennet lowered the bar, but her commonplace commonness at least bore a resemblance to marriage.
And while friends of the first Eliza might have wanted to help the younger Eliza, they pro'ly would have done so without having her in their own house: the neighbors would have found out. (And the younger Eliza would have told Colonel Brandon about the other set of friends, so the estrangement between the two benefactors was unrealistic.)
Barrett makes servants more prominent. There are two instances of a servant's initiating speech in Austen: when Mr. Bennett ignores his two elder daughters and not he but the housekeeper--the only one high enough to presume--alerts them of news; and when John tells the distaff Dashwoods what no Ferrars yet has been brave enough to do. That style of class-bound servitude is perhaps alien to Barrett's audience, but it wasn't to Austen's and that's whom Barrett writes as.

Unless she doesn't. Nowhere in the book's matter does Barrett state "this is tribute fiction that I hope is as good as Austen's next novel would have been." The jacket material, which Barrett didn't write, calls Austen a Victorian novelist. Did no one at the publishing house check a calendar?

Unless she tries but fails, because there are nods to Austen everywhere: A gentleman offers to fetch a glass of wine for a distraught woman; there is a widow in poor health and reduced circumstances--who here does speak, as Mrs. Smith was not going to--to protect a young friend from an imprudent match. Barret puts Jane Bennet's words in Margaret Dashwood's mouth: she actually calls someone "the most amiable man of my acquaintance." Also there are three people "charmingly grouped" and a "mahogany complexion." There is someone grateful for a leg of pork, although not as effusively as Miss Bates and we are spared the word "porker." Clearly meant to be tribute, and clearly bad.

When I was at the Mac last night, RDC came into the study bringing Blake. Actually Blake was steering. He spreads his wings and leans in the direction he wants to go. Anyway, RDC came walking in, wearing wool socks and scuffling over the carpet. When RDC touched my shoulder to transfer our little buddy thither, Blake got the full force of the static charge.

We watched, horrified. Was this strong enough to hurt him, to injure him, to kill him? He didn't yelp, the way he yelps when an emerging feather is bent the wrong way; he didn't even whine, the way he whines when he thinks supper is inexcusably three or four minutes late. I think this wasn't because he wasn't hurt but because he was so surprised. Surprised, and afraid: he flew away, away from us and toward his playstation.

That was reassuring, anyway. He was angry at us for cruelly paining him but the pain hadn't injured him. He perched on his playstation shaking his head, trying to rid himself of the tingling sensation. Not convulsing, we saw gratefully, just trying to get free of the effect, shaking his head the same way he does when he's taken a bite of something we've told him he won't like. Finally he leaned down his head and began to feak, stropping his beak as the feeling dissipated.

RDC went to pick him up, and Blake stepped up immediately. They came over to me, and RDC grounded himself on me with one hand and offered Blake with the other. I held out my own forefinger under Blake's belly, over his feet, the irresistible step-up gesture. He leaned way back on RDC, shrinking and resisting his mean mommy. "Step up, Blake," I commanded sternly, pressing my finger firmly into his belly feathers. He did step up but then leaped immediately off my offending limb, onto my chest, and up to my shoulder where he'd be safe.

He needed a lot of gentle head-petting before he decided to trust me again. Just wait until I give him his next manicure to see how much angrier at me he can get.

Right now Blake is in a large paper bag--somewhere between a lunch and a grocery bag--on the ottoman next to my feet. A ready-made cave with its mouth opening toward me so I can watch him. He's got a seedball and a blowcard in with him and he's spelunking or nesting and defending his territory with his terrorizing huffs and puffs. At first the bag lay along one short side, but as Blake jostled it and body-slammed its sides as he pushed himself cloaca first against the walls, in a while the bag simply tipped over onto its longer side. Blake raced out of his unpredictable fortress onto my reassuring knee, then timidly reentered the bag. Now on its long side, it can't tip onto a short side, and I think it would take a lot to tip it onto the bottom panel, but Blake's thrusting and nesting is driving it to the edge of the futon. Occasionally I'll pull it an inch closer to me, away from the edge.