I dream of Darcy

A new wave of Austen-mania revolves around ballgowns, romance and Colin Firth's sexy breeches. But what would Jane herself say about this fantasy of the perfect man?

By Rebecca Traister

Read more: Literature, Romance, Jane Austen, Rebecca Traister, Life

June 27, 2007 | It is a truth insufficiently absorbed that beginning a literary homage to Jane Austen with the words "It is a truth universally acknowledged" is not an original idea.

There is no better illustration of this truth than the stack of books, recently or just about to be published, that draw on the early 19th century novelist's work not simply as inspiration but as a fantasy ideal for 21st century women -- especially the single ones.

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single girl in possession of her right mind must be in want of a decent man" ... "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a 30-something woman in possession of a satisfying career and fabulous hairdo must be in want of very little" ... "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a young Austen heroine must be in want of a husband, and you are no exception."

A trail of Austen-related chick lit, instructional manuals and choose-your-own-adventure books -- all designed to imaginatively send modern women back two centuries -- leads up to the Aug. 3 release of Miramax's highly imaginative "biopic" about Austen, "Becoming Jane," and September's filmed adaptation of Karen Joy Fowler's "The Jane Austen Book Club." In January, PBS will air new British adaptations of "Persuasion," "Sense and Sensibility," "Mansfield Park," "Northanger Abbey" and "Miss Austen Regrets," yet another biopic, on Masterpiece Theatre.

Besides the Miramax movie's companion volume, "Becoming Jane: The Wit and Wisdom of Jane Austen," there is also "Dear Jane Austen: A Heroine's Guide to Life and Love," "The Jane Austen Handbook: A Sensible Yet Elegant Guide to Her World," "Lost in Austen: Create Your Own Austen Adventure," and the novels "Me and Mr. Darcy," "Austenland," "Just Jane: A Novel of Jane Austen's Life, "Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict," "Cassandra's Sister: Growing Up Jane Austen" and "The Rules of Gentility," which is somewhat redundantly billed as "'Pride and Prejudice' meets 'Bridget Jones's Diary.'"

In 2007, it's still Jane Austen's world (or some mangled approximation of it); we just live in it.

How many 200-year-old authors of just half a dozen novels get this much play outside the ivy-covered walls of the academy? For that matter, despite complaints about current celebrity culture, how many scantily-clad half-wits get this much play? You can buy Austen puppets, dolls and posters, along with bumper stickers and tote bags that read "What would Jane knit?" and "Prepare yourself for something very dreadful."

Part of what differentiates this round of Austen consumption from dozens of past infatuations is the degree to which the satiric acid of Austen's work seems to have been drained and replaced with 100-proof, widely accessible romance.

"It's all about the dresses," laughed Rachel Brownstein, professor of English at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center at CUNY, when I asked her about the current bout of Jane-itis. She was only half joking. "Everybody really wants to be Jane," she elaborated, meaning that they all want "to wear long ball gowns and go to dances and be genteel," not that they want to live in constant financial jeopardy and die single in their early 40s.

Brownstein suggested that in addition to a frock, readers may want to borrow some perceived strength from their favorite author. Reading Austen's books, in which bright, funny and not-always-beautiful women tend to win the day, "you get a sense that you can be sexy and self-expressive in a way that women feel they're not allowed to be," she said. "Jane Austen, in spite of all the constraints [of her era], is remembered as the greatest woman writer, who managed to be her unique and brilliant self. So whatever your obstacles, you can be unique and brilliant too."

This isn't the first time in recent memory that Austen-mania has gripped the lowlands of the pop-culture landscape. A little more than 10 years ago, the BBC production of "Pride and Prejudice," starring smoldering Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth as Elizabeth and Darcy, and Amy Heckerling's sparkly "Emma" update, "Clueless," together precipitated a torrent of adaptations, including Gwyneth Paltrow as "Emma," Ang Lee's "Sense and Sensibility" and a mournful "Persuasion." Helen Fielding published her genre-defining "Pride and Prejudice" riff, "Bridget Jones's Diary," in 1996. The cycle seemed sure to peter out after Patricia Rozema's 1999 "Mansfield Park" and 2001's "Bridget Jones" film -- starring Colin Firth. But two years ago, it rebounded, with a heaving new Keira Knightley version of "Pride and Prejudice" and the Bollywood musical "Bride & Prejudice."

"We can lay a lot of this at Colin Firth's door, for good and for bad," said Margaret C. Sullivan by phone. Sullivan is the author of "The Jane Austen Handbook," the editor of Austenblog and a member of the Jane Austen Society of North America. "He's pretty hot, let's face it," she continued, noting that membership in JASNA swelled after the 1995 "P&P" miniseries, and then declined again once hot-to-trot adherents realized that it was not the same thing as a Firth fan club. Indeed, in at least one of this summer's Austen-inspired novels, "Austenland," the heroine is besotted not by Austen's writing, exactly, but by the star of the BBC miniseries.

In truth, Austen adoration is not a modern invention masterminded by Mr. Firth's agent. Austen has been admired by critics, from Trollope to George Henry Lewes to F.R. Leavis to Lionel Trilling, very steadily for the past two centuries. Her work didn't have to be reclaimed by feminist scholars in the '70s, as it had never gone out of vogue. In addition to academic approbation, Austen has long attracted rowdier crowds of acolytes. The term "Janeite" was coined in 1894 in George Saintsbury's preface to "Pride and Prejudice," and Rudyard Kipling wrote a story called "The Janeites" in 1924, about World War I soldiers who get through the ugliness of trench warfare through their shared love of Austen's novels. "You take it from me, Brethren, there's no one to touch Jane when you're in a tight place," says one of the soldiers in the story. "Gawd bless 'er, whoever she was."

But this year's wave of books and biopics is tinged with something different. Instead of acknowledging the enduring pleasures of Austen's satire, or demonstrating how smoothly her centuries-old observations apply to contemporary society, this round of fanaticism is more interested in going back in time -- or perhaps simply backward -- to play dress-up in empire-waisted gowns with suitably dashing suitors to swoon over.

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