Like many literature buffs, I’m a huge fan of Jane Austen — so I found it hard to believe I hadn’t picked up Karen Joy Fowler’s bestselling The Jane Austen Book Club yet. I grabbed it at work and set down to finish it — and I did devour it in just a few servings. But it didn’t exactly inspire me.
The Book Club centers around the complicated, often painful lives of its members — five women and one man living in California. While two of the women are lifelong friends, the rest all meet and convene by chance, taking turns sharing their love of Austen through the re-reading of her six famous novels.
Prudie is a high school French teacher trapped in her own lack of self-confidence. Sylvia is dealing with the sudden end of her complicated marriage, which ended in infidelity — as her daughter Allegra struggles to balance her need to take risks with finding stability in her relationship with her parents and girlfriend Corinne. Sylvia’s best friend Jocelyn, an avid dog and literature lover, has never been married — but hasn’t been too bothered by her singularity. Until the club’s only male member Grigg shows up, touting a tome of Austen’s works and a passion for science fiction the ladies don’t quite understand. Saucy Bernadette, the group’s oldest member, rounds out the piece-meal crowd.
My main trouble with The Jane Austen Book Club is that, despite my most valiant efforts, I really felt nothing for the characters. If they weren’t coming off as cold, abrasive and indifferent to the world around them, they were condescending, mean-spirited or lifeless. The stories weren’t exactly leaping off the page for me . . . they were more limping along than anything.
While I loved the integration of Jane Austen’s quotes and ideas through the entire book and enjoyed the brief discussions of her works during the club’s meetings, this pleasure wasn’t really enough to sustain me. Fowler’s writing style is understated and more than competent, but I still didn’t feel a pull for any of the women or Grigg — the closest I got was through Sylvia, who struggles with her estranged husband’s wanton entrances and exits. And I liked Prudie enough when she actually stood up for herself late in the novel — but absolutely despised her habit of interjecting little French phrases through the book. Pretentious much?
I’ve seen the movie adaptation of the Book Club, and I have to say that I enjoyed that experience far more than this one. The film seemed to dive much deeper into the actual feelings and thoughts behind the actions of these people — and showed with more clarity why they became who they are. And how they all found themselves together on one of their front porches, an open Austen in their laps. As it was, Fowler’s method of passing quickly back and forth between the past and the present was distracting. I couldn’t get into either portion of those stories.
If you need an Austen fix, I’d get the film instead — or check out Syrie James’ The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen, a satisfying novel based on Austen’s loves and losses.
3 out of 5!
ISBN: 0452289009 ♥ Purchase from Amazon ♥ Author Website
Personal copy purchased by Meg
