Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Happy Birthday, Jane Austen!

Yesterday my wonderful friend KG e-mailed early in the morning to inform me that it was Jane Austen's birthday. I immediately notified Dr. S and, to celebrate, she and I decided to watch "The Jane Austen Book Club" at her place that evening. We toasted Austen with a Beaujolais Nouveau that Dr. S selected for the occasion, and I contributed star-shaped sugar cookies that weren't half bad. Dr. S also served delicious chocolate-chip and chocolate-M&M cookies selected by her mom.

I know KG would've loved to join us, but she's now a brand new mom, and no longer mistress of her time, and she lives about an hour away so it was not to be this time. But it was she who inspired us.

Dr. S and I had both seen the movie before (I saw it a while back with KG at the dollar theater, I think), but it is a fitting tribute to Jane Austen, plus it was a treat for me because Dr. S is quite the Austen and film expert. Thus, I could clarify some of my own doubts about the meaning of some characters and the reason behind certain scenes. It's always a pleasure to be with someone who can enlighten you without making you feel ignorant or inadequate.

In the movie, the character who represents Emma, played by Maria Bello, starts off grieving the death of one of her dogs with a full funeral. To distract her from her depression, her friends come up with the idea of a book club, which then becomes even more important once another character (who represents Fanny Price) has her husband walk out on their 20-year marriage.

"Hey, you didn't start a book club to help me get me over Rusty's death!" I told Dr. S in a mockingly accusatory tone.

"Hey, I cooked for you and took care of you the best I could," she retorted with a smile.

Of course, it's preposterous that someone would come up with the idea of a book club to help someone else get over the death of an adored pet. But what's not preposterous is having a good friend, who did cook for and tend to me the evening that my husband drove to West Virginia to bury Rusty. That's as precious a gift from heaven as they come. For her part, and in her truly thoughtful way, KG sent me a heartfelt condolence card and she made a donation to the local animal shelter in Rusty's name.

Austen's novels are as concerned with marriage and families as they are with relationships between women, whether they are mothers and daughters, sisters or potential sisters-in-law, or friends. In high school, and through college, most of my best friends were men. I remember how my father quipped about the fact that, on most Friday nights, I left the house to hang out with a group of 4 boys, and I was the only girl. Back then, I didn't have the savvy to see why that might be perceived wrongly, and bless his soul, while my dad did, he didn't mind.

At this stage of my life, however, I'm blessed with strong and rewarding friendships with women, all of them younger than I am, but all of them special and wonderful and fun. It's as if I've gotten to have my own little Austen world, finally.

I guess the best thing about last night was that we had a very Austenesque evening. There we were, two smart, independent sister-friends, enjoying each other's company, doing something we both like to do, having a girly-girl evening in her honor. I'd like to think that Austen would've approved.

1 comment:

Dr. S said...

I think that--in true Austen style--you have made my response more artful (and more polite) than it actually was, no?

But more importantly, *you* are the gift--as is evidenced by more than just your extraordinary cookies.

One of my favorite parts of our screening was that every time you said, "Who's that?" I would reply in such a blankly literal way, with the name of the character in the film rather than with the Austen character to whom the Book Club character corresponded. Ah, exams.