http://booksquare.com/jane-now-more-than-ever/ Dissecting the publishing industry with love and skepticism Thu, 09 Feb 2012 10:02:30 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 http://booksquare.com/jane-now-more-than-ever/comment-page-1/#comment-166641 Brenda Babich Fri, 14 Sep 2007 21:29:47 +0000 http://www.booksquare.com/jane-now-more-than-ever/#comment-166641 Austen is about self-knowledge as a foundation for moral growth. Yes, the plots have to do with courtship and marriage, but ultimately the stories are about recognizing our own propensities to “wilfully misunderstand” ourselves and others. The stories involve the human challenge to connect, not writ large in outer space, or on battlefields between nations, classes, and religious groups, but writ small, within the couple, the family and the neighbourhood. Our moral ineptitude is fleshed out quite adequately in these settings, …and perhaps if we come to understand ourselves in these contexts, we stand a half chance of human understanding on a larger scale. Austen makes us laugh at our foibles, but in such a way that we want to be less blind to what really needs to be done. She gives us hope…and we need hope. So my smart answer to “Why Jane Austen?” is “She gives me hope….not that I’ll find a husband, but that I’ll get better at understanding what it means to be human.” Austen is about self-knowledge as a foundation for moral growth. Yes, the plots have to do with courtship and marriage, but ultimately the stories are about recognizing our own propensities to “wilfully misunderstand” ourselves and others. The stories involve the human challenge to connect, not writ large in outer space, or on battlefields between nations, classes, and religious groups, but writ small, within the couple, the family and the neighbourhood. Our moral ineptitude is fleshed out quite adequately in these settings, …and perhaps if we come to understand ourselves in these contexts, we stand a half chance of human understanding on a larger scale. Austen makes us laugh at our foibles, but in such a way that we want to be less blind to what really needs to be done. She gives us hope…and we need hope. So my smart answer to “Why Jane Austen?” is “She gives me hope….not that I’ll find a husband, but that I’ll get better at understanding what it means to be human.”

]]> http://booksquare.com/jane-now-more-than-ever/comment-page-1/#comment-166630 AustenBlog . . . she’s everywhere » Friday Bookblogging: Harvest Edition Fri, 14 Sep 2007 06:09:57 +0000 http://www.booksquare.com/jane-now-more-than-ever/#comment-166630 [...] Viera Rigler, author of Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict, guest-blogged on Booksquare about the perennial question: why Jane, why now? There is another question I keep hearing, and it concerns the current spike in [...] [...] Viera Rigler, author of Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict, guest-blogged on Booksquare about the perennial question: why Jane, why now? There is another question I keep hearing, and it concerns the current spike in [...]

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