A Compromising Position

I have been compromised. Well not recently unless you count the number of times I'm alone in a room with a man. Normally all that's going on is talking and me giving orders since most of these men are in my employ, but nonetheless with all the Regencies I've been reading lately and all the girls I've seen running around camps in clothes that are more scandalous than Lady Caroline Lamb's wetting of her skirts I've been thinking about how many times women today would have been compromised and at what age. My first kiss occurred when I was thirteen and if I was forced to marry him because let's face it, there were witnesses, we were at the May Dance, I would be married to a professional wrestler. Ha! The mistakes we made when we were younger.

I have read that today the average woman kisses 75 men before she gets married. I must admit that I am far behind. I think I'm at 23. I look back at those kisses some innocent and some not and think "If I knew being seen kissing that man would mean I'd have to marry him would I have thought differently....would I have kissed him?" In most cases I'd have to say "No." There were two that I would have actually not minded marrying, but now that I look back at them I could never see myself married to them. Both of these men I knew for quite some time. I dated one for two years and the other for five. I knew them quite well. Can you imagine only knowing the man you would marry for a few weeks during the season? You couldn't really talk alone or just hang out. Everything was chaperoned. Isn't it amazing that there were love matches after all?

My parents have mentioned to me in the past that if arranged marriages between the upperclasses still existed that I would be engaged to a man that I grew up with. I was born exactly one week before he was. The kicker is that although we were friends growing up, we were more competitors and now barely talk. Although for some strange reason we are Facebook friends. Knowing who we would become I'm glad our parents didn't arrange that marriage, but it makes you think.

Teen Angst

I've been noticing a lot of teen or tween books coming out lately with a Jane Austen feel. At first I thought this a little odd, but then it struck me....most of my leading ladies were teens. So transporting my story lines to modern day teen angst do work in a way although teens are not expected to grow up and marry quite as quickly as they did in my day.

I will be posting about Rosie Rushton in the next few weeks. She has updated five of my novels. All of them except my favorite, Persuasion, which incidentally is the one novel of mine that won't fit into the teen angst genre. Even if the Anne character was on the older side of teen, 19, it would still seem odd that she would have found true love at age 12. Although I do know that happens. But would you feel the loss as much as 27-year-old Anne, who at the time was considered an old maid? Today's society doesn't really think of 19 as old maid material. So I will be interested to see what Miss Rushton does with Persuasion. Although I shouldn't talk about not feeling a lost love. I am crushing again on a guy I had a crush on 13 years ago! Ha! Who says your past doesn't come back to haunt you?

Prized Then?

I've been thinking about what people want in a woman today and what people wanted in a woman in Regency times.

Everyone loves Lizzie as a character. Girls want to be her. There are hats that say "Mrs. Darcy". I should know, I own one. The thing is, we love Lizzie now. She's what we like in a modern woman. She has wit and fine eyes. But was she prized in Regency times? We know Mr. Darcy prized her in the end, but not at the beginning. If we remember the movie at least we know Mr. Darcy didn't think her a beauty. Isn't there that line about "I'd as soon call her mother a wit." Very funny, Caroline.

So let's talk about me, Jane Austen. I was not pretty. I was pretty average at least from the one painting of me that still exists. But I do have wit and I wrote some lovely books and while I am prized now and people love me enough to dedicate blogs to me and to write fan fiction about my novels, was I prized in Regency times?

I think it must have been very hard for me. To fit into a world where I had little power as a woman. I had wit, but I was suppose to embroider and be a good housewife, which I never got to be. If my tongue hadn't been so sharp would I have had other offers? I know I turned one down.

Did Cassandra always understand me? Did I ever say sharp words that hurt her?

I wonder. I can't quite recall all of my time when I was writing my novels. I only know of what I read, but as a woman who now as wit and a pair of fine eyes, I wonder if I will be valued even though I'm not incredibly thin. On the Fourth of July I was mocked because I was the only one of my neighbors to own a bookcase. All night long I heard "Maybe we could say educated things if we bought a bookcase." Also one of my male friends just told me that a woman has to be hot in order to make the relationship last. She has to be thin and wit alone isn't going to make a relationship. His argument was I cared just as much since I wouldn't date Stephen Hawking. Joke's on him. I would date Stephen Hawking. Think of the great conversations you could have!

Maybe I haven't changed so much since Regency times and really maybe men's expectations haven't either.

Letters

In the first place I hope you will live twenty-three years longer. Mr. Tom LeFroy's birthday was yesterday, so that you are very near of an age.

After this necessary preamble I shall proceed to inform you that we had an exceedingly good ball last night, and that I was very much disappointed at not seeing Charles Fowle of the party, as I had previously heard of his being invited. In addition to our set at the Harwood's ball, we had the Grants, St. Johns, Lady Rivers, her three daughters and a son, Mr. and Miss Heathcote, Mrs. Lefevre, Two Miss Ledgers, and a tall clergyman who came with them, whose name Mary would never have guessed.

We were so terrible good as to take James in our carriage, though there were three of us before, but indeed he deserves encouragement for the very great improvement which has lately taken place in his dancing.

This is the beginning of a letter from me to my sister Cassandra. The book Cassandra and Jane makes me think about the letters Cassandra destroyed after I died. Wouldn't people like to know what was in those letters? What would they see? What would they read? What would they interpret?

Would they know more about Tom LeFroy? Would they know the story that starred Anne Hathaway and James McAvoy? Is that really what was between Tom and I? Would they know more about my brief engagement that I broke less than 24 hours after accepting? Would they understand my reasons? Would they mock me? Or even worse, would they pity me? Pity I don't think I could take.

Would my gentle readers (as I steal a line from Bronte) know me better if they had those missing letters? Would they love my characters more or would they see them in a different light? I am very curious, but as I did not want them read by anyone but Cassandra I will keep quiet on the subject.

But gentle reader, I would like to know what you think was in those letters? If you could go back in time and stop Cassandra from burning them, would you? Do you think the world today would want to know what Cassandra and I knew then?

Sisterly Bonds

I'm reading a new book: Cassandra and Jane by Jill Pitkeathley. I loved the prologue. It struck me right off. I will be blogging about this book several times in the next week.

I have two sisters and I am not as close to them as Cassandra was to Jane and I often wonder if we were born to a different time if we would be better friends. If we were Regency girls would we have been better companions because all we would have was each other? It's tough to tell.

My one sister would totally be Lady Caroline Lamb. Not that she'd trail after Byron, but she would be very shocking. I was reading a book about a female spy during World War II and the spy, Betty Pack, left her family and slept with men to get secrets to help the British. I don't think I could do this. I could not sleep around even if it meant I could save thousands of lives and Pack did save thousands of lives. I asked my sister if she could and she said yes without a doubt. She would not be the submissive miss that so many men wanted in a convenient marriage.

My other sister would probably be Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. She would be a great political hostess, but would get involved as well. I also think her marriage and love affairs would be quite tragic. She would, however, have her pet causes that would keep her going.

As for me, well it's a tough call. Obviously I am Jane Austen, but is that who I would be if I were born in Regency times? I think I'd be more likely to be Mary Nisbet. I would do something like save the Elgin Marbles and then I would ruin my marriage by writing letters to a close male friend. I would however rue the day by divorcing my husband and leaving him nothing, but I would lose my children. I would have left a great and controversial legacy though in the Marbles.

So there are my sisters and I if we were born in Regency times. Would we be any closer? Probably not. We'd have our own circles....our own scandals....our own heartaches. But each one of us will have left her mark on the time regardless of whether it was positive or negative. As it stands now we are not on any scandals sheets. One of us is a marketing manager for a whitewater rafting company. One of us is a project manager for an environmental company. One of us is a librarian/event coordinator hoping to start a Ph. D. in library science soon. As different now as we were then.....

So True

A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.

This is one Jane Austen quotation that has always stuck with me perhaps because it's so true. I know my mind jumps quickly. I meet a man; I think I like him and then I start to imagine. The thing is the imagination is always better than the real thing. Recently I have met several men and thought that maybe something could work out and yet the more I get to know them the less I think of them.

Maybe that's what we learn from Pride & Prejudice. First impressions are rarely accurate. Although in Lizzie and Darcy's case they find each other repulsive and then realize they were wrong. I think that's what I need. I need to Lizzie Darcy first impression instead of the ones that I'm starting with. Ha!

Although I guess I'm in good company. In my formal life I was single and did well for myself although I feel I was lonely then. Perhaps this time around things will turn out better.

Great Lines

As I continue to read Northanger Abbey I am amazed at how many great Jane Austen witticisms that I have always enjoyed belong to this book. It gives me a new appreciation for me. NA really does have this tongue in cheek charm about it that shows that Austen could poke fun at herself and society together.

Earlier this year I met a wonderful future librarian who loves Henry Tilney best out of all of my heroes and suddenly I am understanding why. He is a great person and doesn't have the dark brooding of Mr. Darcy...the hurt of Wentworth with Louisa...the stupidness of Edmund (let's face it, he doesn't appreciate Fanny at first so he is totally stupid)...the scolding of Mr. Knightly. He seems to be perfect from the get-go. And he is, it's his family that needs help. A little like Mr. F. Scott's Fitzgerald's family from Under the Biltmore Clock. The guy is great, but the family is a little nutty. I believe the family in The Diamond as Big as the Ritz was the same way. But enough of F. Scott.

The great thing is how perfectly NA can be rewritten to be reintroduced to today's society. Parts of it fit perfectly with today's society. Granted we can introduce ourselves to people now and don't need to wait for proper introductions, but still the lines could be easily transported to modern times.

Perhaps that's what's so great about me. I can transcend eras. Ha! I guess that makes me a transcendentalist ala Thoreau....although he might be a little tame for me!