Monday, December 31, 2012

Book 36: A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, and the Things That Really Matter by William Deresiewicz


My sister and I are big Jane Austen fans, so when she ran across this she insisted that I would love it.  And she was right yet again; I tore through this book at record pace and enjoyed it much more that I though possible.

The author was in graduate school and thought he knew it all, in that way that only grad students can.  In one class, a professor that he respected immensely had them read Emma and Deresiewicz scoffed.  He believed that Austen’s novels were trivial, boring, useless pieces of literature, despite never having read a word of them.  But while reading Emma, he has a change of heart and starts to see the parallels between the book and his own life at the time.  He becomes hooked to Austen’s novels and finds lessons in them that help his through various stages of his life.

This was a much more interesting read than I expected.  Deresiewicz is very open about his life and the mistakes he has made.  It seems that the more he grows up, the more he understands the novels, and it was fun going along for the ride.

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for the review. This one's on my "to read" list, and it's good to hear that it's worth reading.

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