Austen Power

Ginsulat ko dya way back in the 2000s.. nabalung ako guro pagkatapos ko basa nga nakatigayon ako kuris. Waay gid ako maglaum nga manami-an ako kay Jane Austen after almost giving up on her. Kinanlan ko lang gid guro mag "mature" bag-o ko tana ma appreciate. And that time I have questionable bias against petticoats and Regency women... My excuse: I was young and foolish and didn't know any better.

Pride and Prejudice (1995)

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife."

So opens the delightful Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Delightful?? The image of an 18th century English miss in her stiff petticoats and equally starched manners is hardly delightful in today's age where hemline and neckline practically meet. But strangely, I find myself engrossed in the lives and loves of the Bennets and the Dashwoods, that I can afford to skip meals. Of which I often do, anyway, whenever I come across a book I consider worth my health.

I confess, I was prejudiced to Austen novels when I tried reading Sense and Sensibility when I was a college sophomore, and insensible. The novel worked like a paracetamol with a nasty narcotic side-effect. I never reached Chapter 5 when I threw the book (literally) away and gave up on Austen. For me, she was just another prude who got her kicks that way.

But it was not until my senior year that I had a pretty good dose of Kate Winslet (as Marianne Dashwood), Hugh Grant (Edward Ferrars), Gwenyth Paltrow (Emma Woodhouse) and a great deal of Zenaida French, PhD that I reconsidered. By that time, I'm an impassionate literary enthusiast that anything with "classic" signed on it is enough to incense my bowels. But I never opened another Austen book till I bummed around after graduation.

It was late in August of 1999 when I started reading Emma. As I went from chapter after chapter, I found myself more and more convinced that Austen is too uptight for me. Finishing the book was quite taxing to my disposition. If not for the actor who played Mr. Knightly (Jeremy Northam) in the movie, I would have left the book to rot. But then, I bought that book with my savings so I have to, at least, scan its pages. Plus, I already have Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice among my collection. So what the heck, I'll read them all even if it kills me!

And Jane Austen did kill me! I was reduced to being one of her fans -- nameless and faceless amidst the sea of other nameless and faceless fans all over the world and of different age and time.

After re-reading Sense, this time to the last chapter, I was surprised to discover that it wasn't so bad after all. It's not that her novels are difficult, it's just that I wasn't born in her time and milieu. How was I to accept the idea that a woman past her twenties was considered an old maid without breaking into cold sweats? I'm 22 and I never had a boyfriend since birth! What does that make me? A hag? If I were born then, I would have strangled well-meaning aunts with their bonnets. Or worse, I could be fishing for a husband myself!

It is quite disconcerting the way Jane Austen of the 18th century evoke reactions best reserved for the Jude-Judy-Judith romances and their contemporaries. You know, the kind that doesn't require a Lit. 121 (Literary Criticism) to enjoy its full pleasures, as long as you know your XYZs and have a fervent belief in fairy tales.

Don't get me wrong, comparing Jane Austen with the likes of Deveraux, Garwood and McNaught doesn't mean that I'm reducing centuries of literary acclaim to what Dr. French calls "pseudo literature". I just call them feel-good "trashy" novels. My CL professors would take turns crushing my bones to make their bread if they only knew. There are trashy books that you can forget with an "ahaay". But then there are others, trashy they may be, but their effect lingers on.. longer.. sweeter. (Manami sulit-suliton!)

Although Austen novels share the same stuff trashy and soap operas are made of -- that usual Cerio-meets-Marimar ending in grand weddings that set everything straight -- she was able to bridge time to reach out and grab me, Me! of the cellphone generation. (Emphasis on cell and not smart phone!)

Trashy or not, but to be able to transcend time, that is the power of a classic. Austen Power!

---

Ang akon "reaction paper" is surely dated.. I was 22! Balung gani ako kato. Kun waay mo pa nabasahan ang mga Austen novels, I'm sharing summaries with analyses of Emma & Pride and Prejudice by ole gangster Sparky Sweets PhD sa ana Thug Notes. Sadya!!

Kanugon nga urihi ko dlang tana nasalapu-an sa YouTube...