This had quite a bit more literary criticism than I was expecting, but Deresiewicz's perspective on Austen's insights and wisdom was just as interesting as how he brought her ideals into his life. I'm not sure if I would've enjoyed this quite as much if I'd read it by myself, but because I read it slowly, discussing each chapter with a few of my friends---who were only slightly familiar with Austen's books---I had the opportunity to really consider the ideas and life lessons Deresiewicz introduces. ( )

I wanted to like this book because I really enjoy Jane Austen's books and would love to read other people's take on her novels. But this book didn't work for me. He wanted to convey the life lessons he learned from Jane Austen's novels, so he spent a lot of time writing about his life trajectory, his relationship with his father, people he dated, his work.....And his life just doesn't capture my attention all that much; I was not invested in rooting for him to overcome his troubles. He lived a pretty privileged life, which was largely due to his father's successful career, but he finds a lot of faults in his father and doesn't appreciate him. As someone who grew up in East Asian culture, I have very little patience for this. As someone with conservative values, I also have very little patience for the ups and downs of his love life.

In terms of his analysis of the novels, he usually picks a theme, identifies main turning points in the novel that espouses this theme, and examines Austen's own life and how her letters or behaviors demonstrated this theme. I would have liked the book a lot better if the explication of the theme was a lot shorter -- I feel I'm reading the same thing over and over. And I would have preferred the description of Austen's life and letters was a lot shorter, because her books are more interesting than her life. We can only know very little of Austen's private life, since her sister burned most of her letters. Poring over the same little details we have over and over, and trying to piece minute information together to make a case for how Austen's life reflected humility, or growth, or learning, or wisdom in romantic choices.....the arguments that were made just seemed like a stretch to me.

Then there's the content of the analysis itself, which I often don't agree with. I don't see Marianne as Jane Austen's favorite character in Sense and Sensibility. I think Austen presented her as ridiculous and annoying. She spent a lot of time showing how Elinor talked to other people, to demonstrate the importance of respect, civility and virtues. I don't see the Tilneys as much better teachers to Catherine as compared to the Thorpes. The Thorpes conceal their faults with lies, and the Tilneys conceal their faults with silence and humor. Catherine had to learn to navigate both types of mismatch between words and conduct. The discussion about Catherine learning how to love a hyacinth, I thought is a wonderful parallel to how Henry learned to love Catherine (as touched on at the end of the book,) and I was sad this was never brought up. ( )

This book starts out with one of the oddest openers for a book about Jane Austen — “I was twenty-six, and about as dumb, in all human things, as any twenty-six-year-old has a right to be, when I met the woman who would change my life. That she’d been dead for a couple of hundred years made not the slightest difference whatsoever” (1). The words themselves are not terribly surprising, but the fact that a man wrote them is. And indeed, in the following pages, Deresiewicz himself confesses to an initial bias against Austen, eschewing her as a writer of “silly romantic fairy tales,” and grudgingly reading “Emma” for a class while pursuing a graduate degree in English. He finds the story and its characters dull and boring, then discovers to his surprise that the narrator, the title character, agrees with his assessment of her situation. Examining some of his own preconceived ideas of Austen’s works, he compares it to numerous historical and modern critiques of her writing. Deresiewicz continues chronologically through his graduate student years, aligning the stories of his life with episodes and lessons from Austen’s works, each of the major six novels.

It is rather unusual to see a man writing about his love of Austen’s works, but that is no reason to shun this particular work. Both a memoir and an exploration of fiction, I found this to be pleasant and easy to read; certainly lighter than the previously reviewed memoir involving Laura Ingalls Wilder’s works. Deresiewicz does try a little too hard to connect real life to fiction in some chapters, drawing out some conclusions which are merely conjectures. Still, worth a read, if nothing more than for the aforementioned oddity of a man delving so deeply and personally into Austenian fiction. ( )

William Deresiewicz is shocked to learn that the descriptions by Jane Austen are of him and the people around him. From each of the books he learned something. I wonder if the order in the book is the order he learned them.

Chapter 1: emma: everyday matters
Stop and smell the roses - everyday life matters.

Chapter 2: pride and prejudice: growing up
When we are totally humiliated is when we learn how wrong we were - it is when we change.

Chapter 3: northanger abbey: learning to learn
(The professor asked questioned that) "seemed absurdly simple - silly, really, almost stupid, too basic and obvious to ask a class of resident, let alone a graduate seminar."
" But when we tried to answer them, we discovered that they were not simple in the least. They were profound because they were about all the things we had come to take for granted - " (Page 79)
"Feelings are also the primary way we know about novels -- which, after all, are training grounds for responding to the world," (Page 99)
"...in graduate school...you end up ...with a very elaborate theory that bears no relationship to what's actually going on in front of you. (Page 102-103)

Chapter 4: Mansfield park: being good
Speaking of the people the author knew, he said: Many rich kids "were chronically aimless, and some were downright miserable, psychologically crushed by the fact that nothing was ever going to be expected of them." (Page 147)
"People's stories are the most personal thing they have, and paying attention to those stories is just about the most important thing you can do for them." (Page 163)

Chapter 5: persuasion: true friends
"True friendship, like true love, was pretty rare in Austen's view." (Page 192)

Chapter 6: sense and sensibility: falling in love
Love at first sight makes great fiction, but is not enough to make an enduring relationship.

Chapter 7: the end of the story
The end of this story. ( )

I may try it again at a t later date but I kept nodding off so I decided to move on to something else.