Forget coffee, JABC talk...
It occurs to me that many people may just have read or be reading THE JANE AUSTEN BOOK CLUB (back to 19 at Amazon) and I've been waiting for this moment for months.
A sidenote: Jennifer Weiner floated a guess -- I'm hoping tongue in cheek -- that Karen is Jane Austen Doe, which is just wrong on so many levels. Not only does it not match the details, but it doesn't take into account the fact that Karen is a genius who's never been one to complain about her career! (Via Old Hag.)
Anyway, those of you who've just finished reading JABC -- let's talk about it. Kind of inconvenient-but-workable blogger comment or send me email (in inconvenient-but-workable profile).
Also, wouldn't MY LIFE by Bill Clinton be better if it was MY SO-CALLED LIFE by Bill Clinton? He could be hyperaware in a charming way and dye his hair odd teenage girl colors and be betrayed by his best friend and finally choose between Jordon Catalono and Brian Krakow. A girl can dream. Sigh.
Night for real this time. (But seriously, post your thoughts about JABC.)
A sidenote: Jennifer Weiner floated a guess -- I'm hoping tongue in cheek -- that Karen is Jane Austen Doe, which is just wrong on so many levels. Not only does it not match the details, but it doesn't take into account the fact that Karen is a genius who's never been one to complain about her career! (Via Old Hag.)
Anyway, those of you who've just finished reading JABC -- let's talk about it. Kind of inconvenient-but-workable blogger comment or send me email (in inconvenient-but-workable profile).
Also, wouldn't MY LIFE by Bill Clinton be better if it was MY SO-CALLED LIFE by Bill Clinton? He could be hyperaware in a charming way and dye his hair odd teenage girl colors and be betrayed by his best friend and finally choose between Jordon Catalono and Brian Krakow. A girl can dream. Sigh.
Night for real this time. (But seriously, post your thoughts about JABC.)
posted by Gwenda @ 5/12/2004 08:54:00 PM
6 Comments:
At 2:10 AM ,
Anonymous said...
It's SO not Karen Joy Fowler. Her first advance for Sarah Canary was not $150,000. She writes WAY better than the piece by Jane Austen Doe. And she's never done any ghostwriting.
Try again, people
At 9:38 AM ,
Jason Erik Lundberg said...
I very much agree that Karen could not be Jane Austen Doe, unless she was playing a joke on all of us, which I might be able to see.
I finished JABC two nights ago, staying up until about 2 a.m. to read the last fifty pages in one gulp. She's done such a fantastic job with this novel, and I hope it gets her the recognition she deserves.
One of the things I noticed was her use of the pluralized first-person narrator, as in "we were happy for her, of course." This pops up almost so subtly that you wouldn't notice, with the rest of the book in third person omnicient. And the only reason it stood out for me is that Kelly Link does the same thing in "Lull," which I just analyzed for a research paper. It's an interesting tactic to get the reader more involved in the story.
At 11:55 AM ,
Anonymous said...
I just downloaded JABC from Audible.com last night. I'm going to listen to it on long flight to Bali - actually makes me look forward to the flight. Of course I'm going to buy it in hardcover, too. :-)
Jenn Reese
At 2:49 PM ,
Christopher Barzak said...
I finished JABC last week and loved it. I especially liked the omniscient narrator with a personality, the invisible member of the book club. I really liked what she did with all of the relationships and mirroring them with the relationships Austen imagined her characters having. It's a quick read, the quickest Fowler book I've ever read. Often Karen's other books go through sections that are heavily meditative, and this one zipped along at high speed. I do wish Allegra wouldn't have gone back to Corinne though. Corrine seemed nice enough, but also just too weak for Allegra in some ways. But how funny, because no one else in the book club thought well of that decision either, so that makes it really work. I was also a bit in a twist about Sylvia's husband coming back with his letter of recommendation from the psychologist sort of thing, but oh well, it was inevitable from the beginning that Sylvia would wait it out for him to come to his senses and return. She was a passive sort of character that way, even when she was young. I love love Allegra, have a total crush on her. And Jocelyn was a favorite too. She's so damned bossy, but funny and vunerable. I found her story in the beginning of the book to be so compelling, and a wonderful way to enter the book as a whole. Okay, I'm going on. We'll have to start a discussion group somewhere, just for the book.
At 3:08 PM ,
Dave said...
So is this the Karen Joy Fowler Book Club?
I have to admit, I was reading all the raves and thinking, "Well, I know Karen's good, but these people have to be overstating a bit." I was wrong. Very quick, very witty, and very thoughtful.
I was at Karen's reading here in Chicago on Tuesday, and one woman in the audience seemed to take exception to the narrative "we." She asked about it and didn't seem very happy with Karen's explanation, that it was the voice of the club. For me, the book was structured such that not only did it work, it was necessary. So many of the most insightful (and hilarious) asides wouldn't have worked as well had the story been told by just one of the characters.
I also loved that Karen anticipated and answered the clueless comments on her weakness with plot; I read the scenes at the library dinner with the insufferable mystery writer and was amazed at how her reviewers had all missed the point she'd stabbed them with.
At 8:44 AM ,
Gwenda said...
The thing I liked best about the book, I think, is that in some way it seems more like Karen herself -- especially her own habit of making quick, hilarious or devastating observations that are, in my experience, not often wrong. But then on top of that is this beautifully crafted artifice (in the good way) where all the pieces fit together perfectly. Every time I try to pick a favorite character, I start thinking of another little moment with a different character. JABC has some of the most fully developed characters I've ever seen in a work of fiction, period. And the way the conversations ebb and flow just like they do in real life but without the dull bits (or during the lulls the dogs or a perfect little description of the room). The way each person has a defined and realistic relationship to each other person. It's a marvel of personal dynamics.
No one else mentioned Bernadette, but I think she -- or Jocelyn -- may be the character that always surprises me in excellent ways.
This _is_ the Karen Joy Fowler book club.
Honestly, I've loved every single word I've ever read by Karen. She's one of the very best writers working today (what range, what precision!) and my favorite. SISTER NOON blew me away when I read it. Ditto SARAH CANARY and SWEETHEART SEASON. And every single short story in the collections. JABC did too, but in a lot of ways I think it may be my favorite of the novels because there's so much quiet wisdom and hope in it. Hope without smarm is something more books could use and incredibly hard to pull off.
Anyway... rambling. Jenn, let us know how the audio book is.
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