Jane Austen in Scarsdale

I seem to get along well with contemporary, Austen-themed novels. I loved Austenland and The Jane Austen Book Club and liked Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict too, though not quite as much. The mini-series Lost in Austen was awesome. What I haven't tried is any of the 'sequels' to Pride and Prejudice and I'm still not convinced I want to.

I'd love it if anyone could recommend more books like these. :-)

I just finished Jane Austen in Scarsdale, or Love, Death, and the SATs by Paula Marantz Cohen and it was another hit. Cohen is a professor of English who has published scholarly works as well as two other novels. Jane Austen in Scarsdale is about a high school guidance counsellor, Anne, whose job is to steer her students through the college application process. That's the SATs part, which seemed to me to be the main focus of the book. The love part is a more-or-less a modern day version of Persuasion. The love of Anne's life, Ben, whom she dumped because her family didn't think he was good enough for her, arrives back in town with his new fiancé and stress/regret/tension ensues.

What else? It's very well written, very witty, and there are plenty of interesting supporting characters in the students, parents, and family Anne deals with. I liked Anne, especially how she stuck to her morals throughout all the sneaky business that goes on with the college applications and how she dealt with both obnoxious parents and confused teenagers. I laughed out loud a bunch of times. I would have preferred a little less of the college application stuff and a little more of the Persuasion plot personally. It was definitely interesting, and entertaining, reading about how getting into university works in the US, since it's very different from here, but sometimes all the detail was a bit too much for me.

My sympathies to American seniors (is that the right word? Even after all those Sweet Valley High books, I'm still confused about where juniors, freshmen and seniors fit in.) applying for college. This book made me appreciate how much simpler it is here, although I think the US system has some definite advantages (which I will not go into).

Here there isn't the different in quality or prestige that seems to be important in the US. Our universities have different strengths - you go to Otago to do medicine, Canterbury to do engineering, etc. - but none is considered better or more prestigious than the others overall. Entry is "open." Basically, if you pass high school you can go to any university. You also get in automatically if you're over 20. No application essay. No reference letters. No need for back-up options. Mostly, entry into first year isn't competitive.

High schools are a slightly different story, but one for another day. To get back to Austen and Scarsdale, here are a few quotes from the book that I liked enough to mark with scraps of torn up receipt (which I had to lean a good few feet forward to fish out of my wallet).

"Life isn't a Jane Austen novel. It's one thing to be long-suffering in a story, where the author can make it worth your while, but in real life, who's going to make sure it ends happily?" (p.154).

This is from a speech Anne's grandmother gives her, basically telling her to get over Ben and move on. The answer to her question being, presumably, you. I have plenty of faults that will stand in the way of a happily-ever-after but I don't think that being unnecessarily long-suffering is one of them. On the other hand, if the love of your life is out of your reach and no-one else ever measures up, maybe long suffering is what you're stuck with.

"All Jonathan ever does is read." "And what's wrong with that?" demanded Winnie. "Much better he should read for the first half of his life and then life for the next half. That's the proper sequence to know what you're doing. Nowadays, they start off by living and never get around to the reading--it explains the mess we're all in" (p.186).

Anne's grandmother again. I really hope this is true. I like the idea that reading lays the foundation for a more fulfilling life. It also makes me feel better about spending more time with stories than at parties.

Ben gave a short laugh. "She can't understand that books don't get used up. I've tried to explain that they aren't like clothes or furniture--that we keep them because we might want to read them again." "And because they remind us of how we felt when we read them," added Anne softly.

I can't believe this never occurred to me. That is why glancing at my books makes me smile.

People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading. Logan Pearsall Smith