Re: Jerome & Jane

Brendan McKennedy (suburbantourist@hotmail.com)
Thu, 26 Mar 1998 00:56:06 -0800 (PST) 

The indomitable Scottie posteth:

>       I belong to 
>	the Austen list mainly because they make even easier 
>	tease bait than bananafish - 
>


I'm tempted, Scottie, to ignore this remark.  Tempted.  


>	What's the problem, Brendan ?  Is it the hats ?
>
>	Scottie B.
>


Ah, the hats...yes...No.  Or perhaps; I hadn't thought if it.  I do have 
a problem with literary hats in general...I don't know what it 
is--particularly being someone who is incessantly seeking symbolism 
where it may or may not be--but the discussion of hats just bugs me.  
I'm sorry, folks--I know you are hat-o-philes, some of you, and you can 
just ignore me here as usual.

It may have something to do, Scottie, with the great Atlantic rift.  
While I do enjoy Mary Shelley, and some of the other more tolerable of 
the Great Romantics--Poe and Hawthorne (both American, having no place 
in the continuation of this sentence)--I find Jane Austen--forgive 
me--far too much of a snotty Brit.  I feel I must qualify this by saying 
that I in no way find British people inherently snotty--but Jane Austen, 
to me, perpetuates the stereotype.  (Realizing it's been years since 
I've read her, and I never could bring myself to watch any of her films, 
I'm worried now that she was an American.)  I realize that I'm inviting 
all sorts of wonderful responses in the eternal tone of Dry Wit, dealing 
with the great uncouth Colonials (eh?  Dry Wit?), but the fact is, I 
have finally come to terms with my desire to not only be enlightened by 
books, but be entertained by them as well, on my own level, however base 
it may seem to others.  I went through far too many adolescent years 
with the silly Brontes and Sartres of the world (my god, how many 
bananafish feet can I step on tonight?  I'm feeling saucy, if you 
couldn't tell by my copious, Buddy-esque asides), pretending I enjoyed 
them because I'm expected to, meanwhile missing out on all the Tom 
Robbinses and Garrison Keillors and Kurt Vonneguts and Douglas Adamses 
of the world, because they were--with the exception, somehow, of 
Vonnegut in all his seedy sci-fi wonder--simply too entertaining to be 
considered Great Literature.  I smile when I read Austen--she does have 
a command of the language--but I fooled myself into thinking that 
smiling humor was somehow more acceptable than laugh-out-loud humor.  
I've grown up, I think, which means that I ceased worrying about being 
grown-up.

As for the similarities you mention between Austen and Salinger--your 
comparison is sort of like comparing Christianity to Islam:  certainly 
they share some basic tenants, and some odd idiosyncracies of theory, 
but in application and practice, they are phenomenally different.  This 
does not make one better than the other, of course; people follow one or 
the other either because--ideally--that is the faith that brings them 
spiritual fulfillment, but more likely because that is the faith that 
they have been taught to follow.  I love Salinger and dislike Austen 
because, to me, Salinger is more accessible and ultimately more 
enjoyable, even exponentially.  It is only my personal aesthetic sense 
(or senselessness, if you like); please do not feel obligated to strike 
me down for it.

I feel my soap box collapsing.  It is old and ragged from too much use 
in too few years.  I wouldn't rise to it, but Scottie invited me, or 
rather provoked me :), and, like any mail-order minister, I never skip 
an opportunity to preach when invited.

Brendan


By the way, Scottie, I hate responding to your posts because you've 
taken such care to keep them tidy and geometrical, and my email Response 
mechanism invariably smears your words all over the screen.  Sorry about 
it.   

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