Rating: 
Summary: Ms. Austen I Presume...
Review: Jane Austen novels bring comfort. As full of issues as they are, there is a comfort in finding oneself immersed in the Romantic era, when securing a "situation" - if you were a woman, that is - was full-time work. Likewise, there is a comfort in reading about Jane Austen's life and work, especially when the author of such an exploration is Carol Shields, a writer who has a good idea of what the novel of manners is all about. Shields opens her work with a brief prologue describing a Jane Austen conference she attended in 1996 in Richmond, Virginia, with her daughter. The pair gave a joint paper on "the politics of the glance" in Austen novels. The preface is useful in clearly establishing Shields' sincere interest in her subject, which nicely frames the somewhat informal work that follows. I use the word informal because Shields writes a fastidious account of Austen's life but quotes no sources and offers no bibliography. Such a treatment is acceptable for the reader interested in gleaning a little more of Austen's life and work. For more demanding readers, there is a credibility issue: surely Shields didn't pull all of her conclusions from memory. Having said this, the account is meant to be largely interpretive. Shields offers her own lively responses to each novel, its characters and its issues, and attempts to tie the works with Austen's personal life. In some instances, these parallels are obvious: for example, the search for husbands for Elinor and Marianne in Sense and Sensibility mirrors her own and sister Cassandra's search. Other times, though, the parallel is lost: Pride and Prejudice, seen by many as Austen's "sunniest" novel, actually mirrors one of the unhappiest periods in her young life. In the end, Shields' analyses are both useful to the Austen scholar and a good introduction for the general reader, giving this volume a kind of easy appeal.
Rating: 
Summary: a biography for the novel-reader
Review: This biography is an enjoyable read for the lover of Jane Austen novels. Written by an accomplished novelist, it sidesteps the droning tone and monotonous succession of facts that characterize most biographies. Instead, its short chapters tell a story that is both interesting in its own right and a worthwhile companion to a study of Jane Austen's literature.As a serious biography, however, this account seems to fall short. It's light on facts (partly due to the unrecorded nature of much of Jane Austen's life - still, there's little in the way of factual information that couldn't be summarized in a magazine article) and its information is not well-documented. There are certainly more thorough, factual accounts. Moreover, what Shields' book lacks in hard facts it makes up for in conjecture, the kind of soft-sided narrative that makes for interesting reading but spongy research material. Still, to Jane Austen fans looking for context, this is a suitable resource. It's written with an eye to her novels and their interaction with her life as well as the emotional and practical trappings of authorship. It gives readers insight into the atmosphere of her life, the people she knew and the places she lived, what her days were like. It's interesting and well-written, and short, and sweet.
Rating:
Summary: a biography for the novel-reader
Review: This biography is an enjoyable read for the lover of Jane Austen novels. Written by an accomplished novelist, it sidesteps the droning tone and monotonous succession of facts that characterize most biographies. Instead, its short chapters tell a story that is both interesting in its own right and a worthwhile companion to a study of Jane Austen's literature. As a serious biography, however, this account seems to fall short. It's light on facts (partly due to the unrecorded nature of much of Jane Austen's life - still, there's little in the way of factual information that couldn't be summarized in a magazine article) and its information is not well-documented. There are certainly more thorough, factual accounts. Moreover, what Shields' book lacks in hard facts it makes up for in conjecture, the kind of soft-sided narrative that makes for interesting reading but spongy research material. Still, to Jane Austen fans looking for context, this is a suitable resource. It's written with an eye to her novels and their interaction with her life as well as the emotional and practical trappings of authorship. It gives readers insight into the atmosphere of her life, the people she knew and the places she lived, what her days were like. It's interesting and well-written, and short, and sweet.
Rating:
Summary: "...a wise and compelling exploration of human nature"
Review: This is one of several volumes in the Penguin Lives Series, each of which written by a distinguished author in her or his own right. Each provides a concise but remarkably comprehensive biography of its subject in combination with a penetrating analysis of the significance of that subject's life and career. I think this is a brilliant concept. My only complaint (albeit a quibble) is that even an abbreviated index is not provided. Those who wish to learn more about the given subject are directed to other sources. When preparing to review various volumes in this series, I have struggled with determining what would be of greatest interest and assistance to those who read my reviews. Finally I decided that a few brief excerpts and then some concluding comments of my own would be appropriate. On Austen's focus: "Jane Austen chose to focus on daughters rather than mothers in her writing (with the exception of her short and curious novel Lady Susan), but nevertheless mothers are essential in her fiction. They are the engines that push the action forward, even when they fail to establish much in the way of maternal warmth. Daughters achieve their independence by working against the family constraints, their young spirits struck from the passive, lumpish postures of their ineffectual or distanced mothers." (page 15) On one of her dominant themes: "Because of her bright splintery dialogue is so often interrupted by a sad, unanswerable tone of estranged sympathy, stirred by complacent acts of hypocrisy or injustice, the reader of Austen's novels comes again and again to the reality of a persistent moral anger. It is a manageable anger, and artfully concealed by the mechanism of an arch, incontrovertible amiability." (page 57) Nephew James Edward Austen-Leigh on her "isolation": "Jane Austen lived in entire seclusion from the literary world; neither by correspondence, nor by personal intercourse was she known to any contemporary authors. It is probable that she never was in company with any contemporary authors. It is probable that she never was in company with persons whose talents or whose celebrity equaled her own; so that her powers never could have been sharpened by collision with superior intellects, nor her imagination aided by their casual suggestions. Whatever she produced was a home-made article." (Page 142) These brief excerpts guide and inform a careful reader's understanding of Austen's artistic achievement. They also suggest all manner of correlations between her art and personal life. As is also true of the other volumes in the "Penguin Lives" series, this one provides all of the essential historical and biographical information but its greatest strength lies in the extended commentary, in this instance by Carol Shields. She also includes "A Few Words About Sources" for those who wish to learn more about Jane Austen. I hope these brief excerpts encourage those who read this review to read Shields' biography. It is indeed a brilliant achievement.
Rating:
Summary: Quite Readable
Review: This is the second Penguin Lives biography I've read and it, like the other (Dante), whets the appetite for more. The point of the series seems to be compactness and the synergetic pairing up of author and subject. The result is a very readable product that emphasizes the life in terms of his/her times and work and the meaning it continues to offer. Those who prefer weighty doorstops that peruse every fiber of the life and every theory of it, in leaden prose, laying speed bumps of footnotes on every page, will not be as enthralled. Carol Shields, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel THE STONE DIARIES, gracefully handles the problems of writing Jane Austen's life. Austen lived in obscurity, without celebrity, 1775 - 1817; after her death her family covered many of her tracks. What remains are some letters and family rememberances, most of the latter penned years after their spinster sister/aunt's death, darkly filtered through time and changing values. As she did in the STONE DIARIES, Shields seems at first to be holding her subject off at a respectful distance. She reminds us of how much has to be left to conjecture. And yet, you arrive at the end of JANE AUSTEN with a sense of truly understanding this woman both in terms of and apart from her novels. Somehow, Austen got past her family's ancient guard when Shields went looking for her. It is a portrait of an amazing artist, conveyed by an amazing artist.
Rating:
Summary: Quite Readable
Review: This is the second Penguin Lives biography I've read and it, like the other (Dante), whets the appetite for more. The point of the series seems to be compactness and the synergetic pairing up of author and subject. The result is a very readable product that emphasizes the life in terms of his/her times and work and the meaning it continues to offer. Those who prefer weighty doorstops that peruse every fiber of the life and every theory of it, in leaden prose, laying speed bumps of footnotes on every page, will not be as enthralled. Carol Shields, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel THE STONE DIARIES, gracefully handles the problems of writing Jane Austen's life. Austen lived in obscurity, without celebrity, 1775 - 1817; after her death her family covered many of her tracks. What remains are some letters and family rememberances, most of the latter penned years after their spinster sister/aunt's death, darkly filtered through time and changing values. As she did in the STONE DIARIES, Shields seems at first to be holding her subject off at a respectful distance. She reminds us of how much has to be left to conjecture. And yet, you arrive at the end of JANE AUSTEN with a sense of truly understanding this woman both in terms of and apart from her novels. Somehow, Austen got past her family's ancient guard when Shields went looking for her. It is a portrait of an amazing artist, conveyed by an amazing artist.
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