[MJU]∎ Read Gratis The Jane Austen Book Club Karen Joy Fowler 9780141029344 Books

The Jane Austen Book Club Karen Joy Fowler 9780141029344 Books

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The Jane Austen Book Club Karen Joy Fowler 9780141029344 Books

Maybe I just have a short attention span, but I couldn't get interested in the characters in this book. Ironic, since the characters are exactly what's kept Jane Austen's novels in print lo these 200 or so years. I read about half the book, then skimmed the rest hoping to figure out who the narrator/observer was. The six members of the club are all discussed in third person, but the narrator, included in "the six of us," has "I" sections that didn't seem to relate to any of the six. Maybe the answer is in there, but I'm not intrigued enough to sift through the rest of the book to find out.

Never could figure out what's supposed to bind these people together. It felt like a bunch of vignettes culled from who-knows-where, sort of like random paper dolls propped in different rooms of a doll house.

So, one star for the characters and miniscule plot, and one more because the writing's quite decent and well-edited, and an occasional descriptive phrase struck me as interesting.

Wish I'd liked this one more, as I had great hopes for it, but what's a disappointed reader to say?


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The Jane Austen Book Club Karen Joy Fowler 9780141029344 Books Reviews

Too infrequently, a piece of contemporary American literary fiction comes along that blasts away the sameness of voice and humorlessness that has settled in on the genre. THE JANE AUSTEN BOOK CLUB is one of those books. Though I read it from the perspective of someone who has read the Austen novels, I'm not sure that it is a prerequisite to enjoying several of the many layers of experience this book dishes up.

In what is a both blindingly original move and yet one that in hindsight seems like such a good idea it is incredible no one has thought of it before, Fowler has organized a fiction, a comedy of manners, around the reading of Austen's six novels. There are six members of the book group, each will host a discussion on a different novel. Her characters are contemporary residents of California's Central Valley near Sacramento Jocelyn, 50-something, never married, a control freak; her best friend from childhood, Sylvia, devastated in the wake of her husband's departure for a younger woman; Allegra, Sylvia's 30-year-old lesbian daughter, an artist; Prudie, a 28-year-old married high school French teacher; Bernadette, an eccentric 70ish much married woman, currently single; and 40ish Grigg, the only male in the group, unmarried, something of an enigma at first. As the book moves through the conversations about Austen, it sorts out its character's histories and lives, and all the various relationships that shake out. Fowler has lots to say about love and sorrow, and about the culture of the world she portrays-our world--that is as airtight as that which Austen constructed in her books.

There are some genuinely funny moments in this book. A day in Prudie's life at the high school where she works is hilarious and very, very real. Fowler made me feel at home with topical references that I thought were remembered only to me. Austen is incomparable and Fowler knows it, so rather than trying to transplant the early 19th century England to 21st century California or to ghostwrite the 7th major Austen novel, she has taken some lessons and has delivered her own inventive piece of writing with a wonderful voice, in which everything eventually sorts out in a balance Austen would probably approve of (though probably would not be sweet enough to admit). A final bonus Fowler injects the narrative with fascinating quotes and facts on her muse.
Five women of various ages and sexual persuasion and a forty-something man meet every week to discuss the books of one of the most beloved authors of the English language Jane Austen. With each book (first Emma, then Sense & Sensibility, etc.), the members reminisce their own life stories. Two middle-aged women who had been best friends since childhood look back at how they had once been in love with each other's boyfriends. The characters are also experiencing problems such as divorce, homes that have disintegrated and if a woman in her fifties has the right to find a new love (a debate that started out when they were discussing Sense & Sensibility. They were discussing as to how the colonel, who was middle-aged, could go after someone as young as Marianne and how had never even considered Marianne and Elinor's mother, who was around his age). And this is all told in a language and narrative so beautiful and lyrical that I could not put this book down.

"Each of us has a private Austen." That has got to be one of the best book openings I have read, and it sets the perfect tone for The Jane Austen Book Club. The characters are all described afterwards, and I enjoyed getting to know them moments before we get into the action. I loved the characters! Bernadette, Jocelyn, Allegra, Prudie, Sylvia and Grigg have colorful, multi-dimensional personalities that shine through. There is a lot of humor here. Poor Grigg is the odd one there for being the only male in a Jane Austen discussion group, and so he is constantly picked on for having a male perception of the novels and its characters. Jane Austen is one of my favorite authors, and a novel centered on a book club devoted to her struck me as interesting, and I simply couldn't put this beautiful and literary offering down. Why did it take me so long to read this? It had been on my TBR pile for ages! Karen Joy Fowler is a wonderful author. This is my first Fowler book, and it won't be my last. I haven't seen the film adaptation, but I look forward to watching it, and I hope that the screenwriters and producers have done this beautiful book justice. I cannot recommend The Jane Austen Book Club enough.
After reading Karen Joy Fowler's engrossing novel, We Were all Completely Beside Ourselves, I was eager to read another of her works. Unfortunately, The Jane Austin Book Club fell far short of my expectations. I didn't find any of the characters particularly captivating or appealing and found a lot of the trivia written about them fairly pointless. Perhaps Jane Austin lovers would read more into the novel than I did.
I felt that this book lacked the warmth of the J M Barrie Book Club, to which I had hoped it might compare more favorably. I was tempted to abandon this book before I had finished, but persisted because it was my Book Club's latest read. Incidentally, my Book Club's consensus was much the same as my opinion.
Maybe I just have a short attention span, but I couldn't get interested in the characters in this book. Ironic, since the characters are exactly what's kept Jane Austen's novels in print lo these 200 or so years. I read about half the book, then skimmed the rest hoping to figure out who the narrator/observer was. The six members of the club are all discussed in third person, but the narrator, included in "the six of us," has "I" sections that didn't seem to relate to any of the six. Maybe the answer is in there, but I'm not intrigued enough to sift through the rest of the book to find out.

Never could figure out what's supposed to bind these people together. It felt like a bunch of vignettes culled from who-knows-where, sort of like random paper dolls propped in different rooms of a doll house.

So, one star for the characters and miniscule plot, and one more because the writing's quite decent and well-edited, and an occasional descriptive phrase struck me as interesting.

Wish I'd liked this one more, as I had great hopes for it, but what's a disappointed reader to say?