IT'S NOT JUST A NOVEL

 

From the Telegraph:

I can’t have been the only one taken aback to hear that the apparently cheerful and pragmatic Emma Thompson suffered severe depression after the break-up of her first marriage, and to such a debilitating extent that, in her own words, she “should have sought professional help”.

But her choice of self-medication drew a huge nod of recognition, in this house at least. For Thompson was “saved” not by Prozac, or Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, but by immersing herself in Sense and Sensibility, the Jane Austen novel she turned into an Oscar-winning screenplay. “I used to crawl from the bedroom to the computer and just sit and write, and then I was all right, because I was not present,” the actress and screenwriter said. “Sense and Sensibility really saved me from going under, I think, in a very nasty way.”

I would not disagree with the healing power of Jane Austen's novels. I've mentioned before my dysfunctional home life, and I don't bring the matter up again looking for sympathy but simply to put in context what reading meant to me in my childhood and youth. The very first books besides school readers that I remember reading on my own were the Raggedy Ann series of books. I still have the books, and the first is signed as a gift from my father when I was 7 years old. I remember the Peter Rabbit and Alice books. We had a large, beautifully illustrated book of nursery rhymes which I poured over. I read the rhymes, sometimes aloud, just for the sound of them, although I knew them from memory, and I loved looking at the illustrations.

I may have read other books before those mentioned above, because I learned to read at the age of 5 when I was in Primer, which in the ancient days was the equivalent of Kindergarten, except we plunged right into the three R's, reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic. I'm almost certain that we had Joe and Jane, rather than Dick and Jane in our reader. Their friends were Mary and Dan, and the dog was Spot. I believe there was a cat character named Muff.

Anyway, as conditions worsened in my home, reading became not only a pleasure, but an escape into another world. I know that I left my physical surroundings, because I did not hear people when they spoke to me. I was told that I had to be addressed three or four times before I would answer. "You're lost in your book again!" Louisa May Alcott's books were favorites along with Nancy Drew. I remember reading the Five Little Peppers and other children's series, Black Beauty and Hans Brinker, which I still have, along with my copy of Eight Cousins, In those days, the libraries would not stock Nancy Drew books because they were not "good literature", so a friend and I cooperated in buying different titles of the books and lending them to each other.

Nancy Drew books may have been formula books, but Nancy was not a bad role model for an impressionable young girl. Her mother had died; her father was a prominent attorney and quite busy; and the housekeeper, Hannah, had not much control over the headstrong Nancy in her sporty blue (or maroon) roadster. She was on her own, a strong-minded girl, who made her boy friend Ned Nickerson look like a wimp in comparison, always cautioning her to be careful, but she paid no mind to him. Nancy's best friends were two cousins, Bess and George, (a girl!).

When I reached high school age, keeping in mind that I had The Roman Catholic Index of Forbidden Books hanging over my head, I turned to the clean late 18th century and 19th century English novels, which I preferred to American novels, although I read Hawthorne, Twain, Poe, James Fennimore Cooper, (yes, I read all the Leatherstocking tales), Jack London, Melville. Gee, I read more American writers than I thought.

Mixed in were the English novelists, Defoe, Swift's Gulliver (although I did not really "get" the Swiftian satire back then. I read for the story.), Walter Scott, George Eliot, Arthur Conan Doyle, the Brontes, Dickens, Hardy, and others, and last but, most certainly not least, Jane Austen, who is my favorite fiction writer in all of English Literature. Henry James, whom I read in college, runs a close second to Austen.

As a 16 year old living in a tumultuous household, Jane was balm to my troubled soul. What sparkling wit! No fiction writer is Austen's equal in writing dialogue. What limpid prose! Reading Jane was sheer delight, not to mention that reading her books took me out of myself and out of my environment. After reading the first of her novels, which happened to be Pride and Prejudice, and which is still my favorite although I dearly love them all, I rushed to read the other five. I wanted to be Elizabeth Bennet. I read Jane's novels, and I read them again, and again, and again, up until now, and when I need cleansing and freshening from the load of drivel in print and on the tee-vee, I plunge into the novels and come away refreshed and renewed.

Jane's gift for irony is, to me, unsurpassed. Disclosure: my alcoholic and verbally abusive father had a gift for irony which was not always inflicted on his wife and daughters, and I learned from him to view our mad world through ironic eyes. I owe him for his gifts of books from an early age and for encouraging me to read by always having books and magazines around the house, even when my mother had to borrow grocery money from extended family. We never lacked for music, either. There's irony for you. To this day, I feel sorry for my poor mother's plight, but, in my heart of hearts, I can't regret that the books and music were present.

Well, I've indulged myself and run on here and strayed away from Jane Austen's part in healing Emma Thompson's depression, but the piece inspired my verbosity here, for good, or for ill. One last thing: I believe that reading Jane Austen's novels in my impressionable teen years contributed for the good to the formation of my moral center, which should give pause to anyone who says, "It's just a novel."

Note: The picture above is of P&P from my favorite of the editions of Austen's novels that I own. I purchased the set new some years ago for the modest price of $55.00 for all six books in the set, which includes her minor works.

Thanks to Lapin for the link to the article.

UPDATE: While I'm on the subject of Jane Austen, I'll give a nod to another new blogger, Penelopepiscopal, who is an admirer and who chose as her blog name (or header?) a quote from Austen's Emma. She is, as you may gather from her name, a fellow member of the Episcopal tribe.