Persuasion, by Jane Austen

I know I've mentioned this before, but aside from Pride & Prejudice, which I first read in 2004, I read all of Jane Austen's novels back to back in the space of a few weeks in the winter of 2005-2006. I enjoyed each one so much that I always wanted to keep going, but in retrospect, this was not a good way to go about it. The books blended together and didn't get the individual attention they deserved. I read Persuasion at the end of this streak and as the years passed I found it to be the one I least remembered, except maybe Lady Susan (which I read second from last). It may be that my memory fails most of them, because I have in the years between 2006 and today watched and rewatched several adaptations – mainly Pride and Prejudice, Emma, and Sense and Sensibility. Those stories and characters are all so intimately familiar to me now from the movies and miniseries, and eventually from having reread the first two more recently. I don't believe I've ever seen an adaptation of Northanger Abbey, but I think it's the book I remember most distinctly from that spree. I have bits of memories of Mansfield Park too. But Persuasion was a total blank. Apparently when I went back in 2009 and retroactively added and rated every book I'd read in Goodreads, I either didn't remember Persuasion at all, or remembered not liking it, because I gave it only 2 stars. I think by the time I got to it, I was done with Jane Austen.* I should have taken a breather. 

I've been intending to get back to Persuasion for years after seeing some people whose tastes I trust rank is as a favorite by Austen. I would see it mentioned admiringly, or see references to its characters, and strain and fail to remember a single thing about it. Clearly it deserved a reread. I won't list it as my new favorite Jane Austen book or anything, but I'm prepared to say I was very unfair to it the first time around. Perhaps I found Anne dull on my earlier reading? I still did; being about the only reasonable, level-headed character in the story makes her sympathetic, but not very interesting. But this time I enjoyed the story; I enjoyed portrayals of the unreasonable non-level-headed characters; I enjoyed the scenery. 

And while the story itself felt novel (because I remembered nothing of it), the book felt familiar because I'm so much more familiar with Jane Austen now than I was when I first read it. A few weeks ago I watched the recent Andrew Davies adaptation of Sanditon on Masterpiece. Davies is also responsible for the 1996 BBC Pride and Prejudice, and watching Sanditon I noticed him borrowing from himself. (I've seen that Pride and Prejudice enough times that every line is familiar.) What I noticed in reading Persuasion was that Jane Austen also borrows from herself. I saw reflections of so many of her other works in this one. 

* I used to have a rule, which I clearly broke for Jane Austen, about not reading books by the same author back to back. I created this rule some 25 years ago when, immediately after reading Beloved I started Sula and found it unreadable. A couple years later I went back and read Sula and loved it. I decided it was a mistake to immediately pick up another book by the author of a book you read and loved, because what you would really be looking for was a continuation of the earlier book. (Obviously, this rule didn't apply to sequels and series that were in fact continuations of the earlier books.)

Justine, by Iben Mondrup

I grabbed Justine out of the Little Free Library on my way to the airport a week ago Friday, even though I already had two books with me for the 3 night trip ahead. I'd never heard of it or its author; it was the publisher that caught my eye: Open Letter. They publish only books in translation, including some by authors I love (Mercè Rodoreda, most notably). I started reading it poolside at my hotel in Austin, but didn't get very far. It's not exactly poolside material, plus I didn't get enough sleep any of the nights I was away, so my reading energy was limited. When I took my seat for my flight home, I pulled it out to and put it in the seat pocked in front of me to potentially read en route, although I was still overtired. I was seated next to a flight attendant who must have recognized Iben Mondrup as a Danish name because she asked me about it. It turned out she was married to a Dane and spoke Danish. I told her what I wrote above: that I didn't know anything about the book or author, but had chosen it because of the publisher. This was a novel concept to her and she went on to look for other Open Letter books in her library app and asked me about other publishers I would recommend. In the moment, I could only think of New Directions, but I also recommended The Copenhagen Trilogy to her, which she immediately went and put on hold at the library. (I did warn her that it was a bit dark. Not as dark, it turns out, as Justine.)

Justine centers on a young woman artist (the eponymous Justine) who, as the book opens, has just lost her home – and with it all her work – to a fire. The home had belonged to her grandfather, a painter, and his work was also destroyed. For Justine, the fire represents the loss of her whole past – and then some. The story unfolds disjointedly, jumping in time to before the fire and back to the present. When the fire occurred, Justine was a short time away from staging an exhibit of her work at the National Gallery, and she has lost everything she prepared for it. So she must create a body of work to show (backing out isn't an option she's willing to consider), with no home, no studio, and no materials. She proceeds to get very drunk, frequently. She crashes at friends' houses, in a factory, in studios, borrows materials, charms and alienates the people around her who want to help. Even as Justine puts together a body of photographs and videos that will be her triumph, the reader is slowly made aware of a horrible, dark secret, the full effect of which is never seen in this book. (There is, evidently, a sequel.) 

I subscribe to Matt Bell's Writing Exercises (which I highly recommend to anyone who is at all interested in writing). This month's newsletter (The Novel-Shaped Story II) has stayed very much on my mind for some reason. Since reading it, I've found myself mentally applying the three-act framework retroactively to all kinds of books I've read, and it's been an eye-opening exercise. In Justine the inciting incident – the fire – is the first thing we know. It's happens before any exposition, and description of the characters, anything else in the book. And yet, even in that moment, there are clues to what we will later learn, and deceptions as well. The unclarity around time in the narrative slows the reader's comprehension of the central event of the book, even as it's there for us right on the first page. I didn't totally love this book, but its exposition is brilliant.

Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows, Balli Kaur Jaswal

The last month has been a lot. Work has been busy and I haven't had much mental energy outside of it. After finishing Loving Day, I started a long book I'd been intending to read for quite a while, but reading it was rarely what I wanted to do at the end of the day or in the morning. Instead, I watched Sanditon and Bridgerton and played Spelling Bee on my phone. And then I had some weekends away, so I did less reading then than I might have. Last Wednesday, after finishing a full rewatch of both seasons of Bridgerton, I decided maybe I should just start a new book. I mention Bridgerton only because I think it influenced my selection – I wanted to read something romantic. I didn't know much about Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows but the title at least suggested it might fit the bill. I picked it up a few years ago thinking it might represent Singapore in my world books project, because the author lives there, however the book is entirely about the Sikh community in London so I'm not sure that's fair. (Then again, my New Zealand book was entirely about a winemaker in nineteenth century France, so maybe it's ok? Or maybe I have to read a new book from New Zealand too.) In any case, I started Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows on Wednesday and finished it on a plane on Friday.  

At the center of the book is Nikki, a second generation Punjabi Londoner in her early 20s who signs up to teach what she believes will be a creative writing class for Sikh women. It turns out what was expected was a literacy class, but what the class in fact turns into is an erotic story-telling class filled with mostly older, widowed women, who most of society treats as invisible. Expected antics ensue, the women gain mutual respect, an unsolved murder is solved, and of course there is a love story for Nikki. This was a fun read that turned out to be just what I was looking for at the moment.