Customer Reviews

Jane Austen: A Life

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Carol Shields, one of my favourite contemporary authors, wrote a bio of Jane Austen, one of my favourite classic authors. What a find! Her book about Jane Austen is exquisite. She also inserts her own understanding of an author's struggle. My only disappointment was the fact I finished the short book far too soon!

This is the first "biography" I've read on Jane Austen but it is not not the first time I read somebody's biography. In general, I notice that biographies are subdued in subjective tone because they try to be objective so that they present the information the best it can so that we, the readers, can pass our own judgement. In this book, however, it is not the case.
I like that the author cross-references information between Jane's novels and Jane's life even though it is not how biographies are typically written. But I dislike author's personal remarks on how Jane was, what type of relationship she had with certain people, how she could have felt in certain situations,etc... it feels as if she is trying to reinforce her view than letting you make up your own mind. I think what annoys the most is that the book is presented as biography which is not and that I wasted my money on this. Don't get me wrong. It is an interesting read but it should not have been falsely classified as biography ( 50% is biographical and the rest belongs to personal reflection and criticism). It is more of the author's reflection on life and times of Jane Austen, Carol Shields' view of Jane Austen so to speak.

This biography is an enjoyable read for the lover of Jane Austen novels. Written by an accomplished novelist, it sidesteps the droning tone and monotonous succession of facts that characterize most biographies. Instead, its short chapters tell a story that is both interesting in its own right and a worthwhile companion to a study of Jane Austen's literature.

As a serious biography, however, this account seems to fall short. It's light on facts (partly due to the unrecorded nature of much of Jane Austen's life - still, there's little in the way of factual information that couldn't be summarized in a magazine article) and its information is not well-documented. There are certainly more thorough, factual accounts. Moreover, what Shields' book lacks in hard facts it makes up for in conjecture, the kind of soft-sided narrative that makes for interesting reading but spongy research material.

Still, to Jane Austen fans looking for context, this is a suitable resource. It's written with an eye to her novels and their interaction with her life as well as the emotional and practical trappings of authorship. It gives readers insight into the atmosphere of her life, the people she knew and the places she lived, what her days were like. It's interesting and well-written, and short, and sweet.

This is one of several volumes in the Penguin Lives Series, each of which written by a distinguished author in her or his own right. Each provides a concise but remarkably comprehensive biography of its subject in combination with a penetrating analysis of the significance of that subject's life and career. I think this is a brilliant concept. My only complaint (albeit a quibble) is that even an abbreviated index is not provided. Those who wish to learn more about the given subject are directed to other sources.

When preparing to review various volumes in this series, I have struggled with determining what would be of greatest interest and assistance to those who read my reviews. Finally I decided that a few brief excerpts and then some concluding comments of my own would be appropriate.

On Austen's focus: "Jane Austen chose to focus on daughters rather than mothers in her writing (with the exception of her short and curious novel Lady Susan), but nevertheless mothers are essential in her fiction. They are the engines that push the action forward, even when they fail to establish much in the way of maternal warmth. Daughters achieve their independence by working against the family constraints, their young spirits struck from the passive, lumpish postures of their ineffectual or distanced mothers." (page 15)

On one of her dominant themes: "Because of her bright splintery dialogue is so often interrupted by a sad, unanswerable tone of estranged sympathy, stirred by complacent acts of hypocrisy or injustice, the reader of Austen's novels comes again and again to the reality of a persistent moral anger. It is a manageable anger, and artfully concealed by the mechanism of an arch, incontrovertible amiability." (page 57)

Nephew James Edward Austen-Leigh on her "isolation": "Jane Austen lived in entire seclusion from the literary world; neither by correspondence, nor by personal intercourse was she known to any contemporary authors. It is probable that she never was in company with any contemporary authors. It is probable that she never was in company with persons whose talents or whose celebrity equaled her own; so that her powers never could have been sharpened by collision with superior intellects, nor her imagination aided by their casual suggestions. Whatever she produced was a home-made article." (Page 142)

These brief excerpts guide and inform a careful reader's understanding of Austen's artistic achievement. They also suggest all manner of correlations between her art and personal life. As is also true of the other volumes in the "Penguin Lives" series, this one provides all of the essential historical and biographical information but its greatest strength lies in the extended commentary, in this instance by Carol Shields. She also includes "A Few Words About Sources" for those who wish to learn more about Jane Austen. I hope these brief excerpts encourage those who read this review to read Shields' biography. It is indeed a brilliant achievement.

I found this useful for its biographical information, but I knew nothing of Austen's life going in, so it's very possible that there are better biographies on the market. At any rate, I was constantly frustrated by Shield's take on the novels. Emerson once famously complained that Austen writes only marriage novels. Shields, in effect, responds that the novels aren't just about marriage. Rather, they're also about the conditions of women -- in particular, women of the lesser gentry -- at the turn of the 19th century, and the manner in which marriage is their only means of escape from the drudgery of their prosaic lives. For what it's worth, this idea -- Austen is great because she holds a mirror up to the real conditions of women at the time -- threatens to make Austen look like the Edith Wharton of the early 19th century. What makes Austen great (and Wharton merely very good) is the fact that there's so much more to Austen's novels. Unfortunately, Shields doesn't take anything save Austen's "social commentary" (such as it is) into account. In particular, she completely misses the exceptional depth of Austen's attention to moral psychology. Shields at one point refers to Gilbert Ryle's (unfortunately neglected) study of Austen's novels. My sense is that this book suffers from it's author's failure to appreciate Ryle's main point. Anyone really interested in a sensitive account of what makes Austen's novels so great would be much better served by reading Ryle's essay and leaving this book to one side.

Jane Austen novels bring comfort. As full of issues as they are, there is a comfort in finding oneself immersed in the Romantic era, when securing a "situation" - if you were a woman, that is - was full-time work. Likewise, there is a comfort in reading about Jane Austen's life and work, especially when the author of such an exploration is Carol Shields, a writer who has a good idea of what the novel of manners is all about. Shields opens her work with a brief prologue describing a Jane Austen conference she attended in 1996 in Richmond, Virginia, with her daughter. The pair gave a joint paper on "the politics of the glance" in Austen novels. The preface is useful in clearly establishing Shields' sincere interest in her subject, which nicely frames the somewhat informal work that follows. I use the word informal because Shields writes a fastidious account of Austen's life but quotes no sources and offers no bibliography. Such a treatment is acceptable for the reader interested in gleaning a little more of Austen's life and work. For more demanding readers, there is a credibility issue: surely Shields didn't pull all of her conclusions from memory. Having said this, the account is meant to be largely interpretive. Shields offers her own lively responses to each novel, its characters and its issues, and attempts to tie the works with Austen's personal life. In some instances, these parallels are obvious: for example, the search for husbands for Elinor and Marianne in Sense and Sensibility mirrors her own and sister Cassandra's search. Other times, though, the parallel is lost: Pride and Prejudice, seen by many as Austen's "sunniest" novel, actually mirrors one of the unhappiest periods in her young life. In the end, Shields' analyses are both useful to the Austen scholar and a good introduction for the general reader, giving this volume a kind of easy appeal.

At the begining of this biography, Carol Shields warns us that not enought documents and recollections remain to paint a realistic picture of Jane Austen.

Ms. Shields employs her acute sense of empaphy-- gloriously exhibited in "The Stone Diaries"-- to imagine the author behind "Emma" and "Sense and Sensibility". There is no way to confirm the veracity of Ms. Shields meditation, but it doesn't matter.

If the "Jane Austen" exhibited, in this enthralling member of the Penguin-Lipper "Lives" series, is a character who is purely Carol Shields' creation, she is fascinating: ironic, observant, and razor sharp.

In most books from the "Lives" series, the reader acquires not only an appretiation of the subject matter, but becomes familiar with the personality, open-minded analysis, and ethusiasm of the author.

Carol Shields is a terrific guide through Jane Austen's sensibilities and accomplishments.

This is the second Penguin Lives biography I've read and it, like the other (Dante), whets the appetite for more. The point of the series seems to be compactness and the synergetic pairing up of author and subject. The result is a very readable product that emphasizes the life in terms of his/her times and work and the meaning it continues to offer. Those who prefer weighty doorstops that peruse every fiber of the life and every theory of it, in leaden prose, laying speed bumps of footnotes on every page, will not be as enthralled.

Carol Shields, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel THE STONE DIARIES, gracefully handles the problems of writing Jane Austen's life. Austen lived in obscurity, without celebrity, 1775 - 1817; after her death her family covered many of her tracks. What remains are some letters and family rememberances, most of the latter penned years after their spinster sister/aunt's death, darkly filtered through time and changing values. As she did in the STONE DIARIES, Shields seems at first to be holding her subject off at a respectful distance. She reminds us of how much has to be left to conjecture. And yet, you arrive at the end of JANE AUSTEN with a sense of truly understanding this woman both in terms of and apart from her novels. Somehow, Austen got past her family's ancient guard when Shields went looking for her. It is a portrait of an amazing artist, conveyed by an amazing artist.

Carole Shields' brief biography for the Penguin series is on two grounds a noteworthy achievement. Not only is it immensely readable, but its necessary speculations, never vulgar or demeaning, are strikingly insightful. Austen, after all, left no diary or memoir, and her life, owing to her sister Cassandra's vigilance in destroying letters, is filled with enough small gaps outside of one lengthy silent period to vex any inquisitive biographer. Shields overcomes these difficulties both to her own credit as well as to that of her great subject.

Carol Shields has written a wonderful biographical essay in the old style. It is careful, imaginative, honest and brave. Apparently, an impartial, ungrudging affection and respect for its subject prompted the urge to learn more and, fortunately for us, she tells us what she has learned. Like the best of anything human, its little flaws serve to authenticate and are to be cherished, rather than challenged, because the book as a whole is so well written that at times it is evocative of the work of Jane Austen herself. Its presentation is modest but its effect is powerful.

This biography is free of the modern practice of earnestly re-presenting every (usually already well known) fact of a subject's life as if new, supposedly in the name of scholarship. This technique usually results in almost nothing being learned about the subject as an individual, as any personal statement might be interpreted as "impressionistic". Impressions as carefully considered as Carol Shields' are here are something to be proud of. She has used facts to support her ideas rather than the other way around, so we end up with something like a new portrait of her subject, sketched carefully from both the facts and the cogent insights of the author.

In the first chapter, the author quotes George Gissing, who suggested that, "the only good biographies are to be found in novels", and suggests this is because, "fiction respects the human trajectory". Jane Austen, raised on the wryly honest literature of the 18th century, certainly might have agreed, and while Carol Shields has not written a work of fiction, she has written a book that anybody who cares about Jane Austen must read if they want to know her better.