What Would Jane Do?

Even though I joke around and refer to myself as The Girl from the Ghetto, I’m also a huge fan of Jane Austen.  I’m such a Jane Austen nerd that I even made a little picture of myself with Mr. Darcy.

I adore British literature, and I’ve been a fan of hers since 1985, when my crazy (and by crazy, I mean CRAZY) 9th grade English teacher got me into Ms. Austen.  My teacher was the known nutter of our school, as in she’d do things like give me the hall pass so I could go to 7-11 or out to breakfast, or she’d scream and yell and throw people out of class just because they coughed, and she’d do things like allow the kids who got caught cheating to stay in class.  I think my teacher had a nervous breakdown about ten years prior but still managed to hang on to her job and attempt to teach, bless her heart.  She once gave me and a friend some old moldy black licorice (which, of course, I’ve never been able to eat again) because she heard us mumble we were starving (we both were dirt poor, never got enough to eat), and our teacher offered to feed us because we were her best students.  She dug through her closet until she found something to eat, handed it over, and once we bit into the mold, we immediately started to gag and had a mini puke fest right outside our classroom.  It was disgusting, a little traumatic even, but we had to laugh, because even though my friend puked on my arm (I was hogging the drinking fountain), we could see our teacher felt bad since she nearly poisoned us.  You really had to know her and see her in action to understand the humor behind this situation.  She was running around, muttering “Oh dear” in one of her huge flowing skirts, and she was a large woman with a disheveled blondish-grey beehive even though it was the mid-eighties.  Some people thought she was a bitch, but if you focused in on what she was saying, you could learn a lot.  Most kids couldn’t stop laughing at her because of her ridiculous hair, or how she couldn’t barely run a classroom, or her silly sing-song voice, but I loved her because she gave me a pure love of Humanities and English, and brought me to such wonderful writers as Shakespeare, the Bronte sisters, and of course, my girl Jane Austen.  She even got me to write a sonnet once, even though poetry and I aren’t that good of friends.  So, I dedicate this post in memory to one of the (we did have some real stinkers in my school, like the one who drank oj and vodka openly all day long, and the one who sexually molested girls by grabbing their butts) worst teacher my high school had, but to me, she was the best teacher I had there, who opened my eyes and expanded my ghetto horizons.

Here I am in my Jane Austen t-shirt that I’ve coveted for years.  I finally bought it for myself a few months ago, and I am so happy I got it, as I love wearing it.  I cut off the bottom of the shirt, since this was me taking the picture on the sly in my gym’s bathroom, but I’m throwing in a picture of the original so you can see the t-shirt in all it’s glory below.

Reading is sexy, isn’t it?

But, back to Jane Austen.  I know some people (including my husband, but who did tell me maybe he’d check her out, after I told him that the Prince Regent “requested” she dedicate Emma to him, as he was a fan of hers) won’t read Austen, but I don’t understand this.  Who doesn’t like sarcasm, humor, wit, and the quest to find true love?  Sure, she uses some fancy words, but most of us are smart enough to comprehend her, aren’t we?  I wish people could break down their fear of reading Austen like this – If there was no Jane Austen, there would be no Bridget Jones Diary, no Clueless, and no Mr. Big from Sex and The City (Who some say resembles Mr. Darcy).  Nearly every chick on the planet loves BJD and SATC, so there you go.  Is is so hard to image then how good it would be to read an original Jane Austen novel, based on how beloved her modern-day translations have been?  Are any of you a friend of Jane?  Why do you like her and her books?  Or, have you read something of hers and simply hated it?  Be honest, tell me what you didn’t like, so I can understand why every person in the world doesn’t adore her like I do?

I write What Would Jane Do (WWJD) as the title of this post because I wanted to slip in some of Jane Austen quotes, to show some of you haters or non-believers how wonderful she is, and what a modern thinker she was, and how brave she was writing about theses things during a time when no one else was doing it.  Plus, throw in the fact that she was a woman.  I am no Jane Austen expert; I haven’t read much about her other than read her six novels and a few Janeite websites, such as JASNA and JANE AUSTEN.  I have also seen Becoming Jane and The Jane Austen Book Club, both great films, but I know I could learn more about here.  Pride and Prejudice is my favorite book of all time.  I can’t even explain why I love it, because I love it that much, if that makes any sense to you.  All I know is that I yearn for an English Bulldog someday, who I will name Elizabeth Bennet, despite what my husband thinks.  So, let us look over some great Jane Austen quotes and just revel in Ms. Austen and her mind.  And if you are ever in need of advice, and you can’t get a friend on the phone fast enough, just ask yourself What Would Jane Do?

“I do not want people to be agreeable, as it saves me that trouble of liking them.”

“For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?”

“One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other.”

“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”

“Everybody likes to go their own way–to choose their own time and manner of devotion.”

“There are people, who the more you do for them, the less they will do for themselves.”

“My sore throats are always worse than anyone’s.”

“Wisdom is better than wit, and in the long run will certainly have the laugh on her side.”

“Life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings.”

“How little of permanent happiness could belong to a couple who were only brought together because their passions were stronger than their virtue.”

“I cannot speak well enough to be unintelligible.”

“ Nothing is more deceitful than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast.”

“Silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way.”

“My idea of good company is the company of clever, well-informed people who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company.”

“Where so many hours have been spent in convincing myself that I am right, is there not some reason to fear I may be wrong?”

“Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery.”

“Give a girl an education and introduce her properly into the world, and ten to one but she has the means of settling well, without further expense to anybody.”

“Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously…. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us.”

“There will be little rubs and disappointments everywhere, and we are all apt to expect too much; but then, if one scheme of happiness fails, human nature turns to another; if the first calculation is wrong, we make a second better: we find comfort somewhere.”

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

“There is something so amiable in the prejudices of a young mind, that one is sorry to see them give way to the reception of more general opinions.”

 

I am a geek enough to consider joining the Jane Austen Society of North America.  They even have a Michigan chapter, and despite the fact that their Michigan president lives a few hours from me, I emailed her last night to ask about membership, and I’m pretty sure I’m joining.  Are any of you readers a proud member of JASNA?  Any Michigan members reading this blog?  I would love nothing more to sit in a Regency gown, (Although I don’t have the dainty shoulders for it, I’d look like a John Lithgow in The World According To Garp in a Regency-era gown) sipping tea, and talking about Jane Austen with other ladies.  I am that geeky, and proud of it.  This is why I don’t laugh at when my Trekkie friends wear their matching t-shirts and go to Star Trek events.  Heck, if you love something that much, you embrace it.  Aren’t they just adorable in all their glory?  These dudes would kill me if they saw this on here, but I am trying to prove a point.  The heart wants what the heart wants, and how can you make fun of that?

 

My Jane Austen t-shirt is the only Jane Austen (besides her books) item I own, but I want everything I can get my hands on.  I want a silly I heart Mr. Darcy t-shirt.  I want the Jane Austen caligraphy set, even though I haven’t done caligraphy since the 6th grade.  (Yes, an elementary school teacher gave this ghetto girl free lessons for two years.)  I want every bookmark, book bag, and piece of Jane Austen jewelry can get my hands on.  I spent hours looking at items at the The Jane Austen Centre last night, which is located in Bath, England.  Then, I got really sick to my stomach, because in 2007 I went to Bath, England on a tour of the church, and I seriously forgot Jane Austen not only lived in Bath, but that there was a museum and gift shop there.  I spent all my free time in Bath at the church and looking at glass jewelry in the shops nearby.  I’m so sad I could cry.  Especially since I remembered to go to Shakespeare’s house on the same trip.  But my mind loves to be forgetful these days due to my Fibro fog, and when I looked at the centre last night, I realized I was just down the street from them.  If I had made it in there, I would have bought this Pride and Prejudice charm, which opens to reveal the first line of the novel.  Isn’t it lovely?

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