The Antidote

Last night I pulled my favorite biography of Jane Austen down off the shelf.

That's how the Husband knows I'm really depressed. I start reading my way through Jane Austen.

For those curious, I have been reading Dr. Zhivago. But last night was one of those nights where I just couldn't face Yurii and Lara again.

Aside from not getting the Boston job and from having no current leads on future employment, we found out that a really close friend of ours has been diagnosed with lymphoma. His prognosis is pretty good, but still. He's one of the good guys. Not that there are people who deserve cancer, I don't think anyone deserves that--but it's always the really good ones who have to suffer more than seems just.

Anyway, so after the head shaking from the Husband over the rereading of this biography (it's my third or fourth time through, I can't remember), I started thinking about why it is that Jane Austen is the comfort to me that she is and here is what I came up with.


She had a decidedly unhappy life. Her family was poor, her brothers had all the time, attention and affection of their parents. She had a tense (at best) and competitive (at worst) relationship with her mother. She was subject to the whims of all the men in her life with very little or no say at all in her own comings and goings, and she was smart. A woman with a singularly gifted mind and yet, stuck--stuck in this powerless, rut of life from whence her only escape would have been a mediocre marriage.

And yet.

She didn't sit around a mope. (Well, she probably did at some times...but that's only human.) She picked up her pen and she beat back all of those injustices with humor and wit. She proved that she was more than the equal of her brothers (after all, who remembers any of them?) , she was their superior. And most of all, she proved her mother wrong. Her mother had no faith in her, thought that she was wasting her time on drivel. It was her father who knew her to be talented. Sadly, he didn't live to see her success. But her mother did--and I think she eventually became proud of her, in her way.

Aside from her literary success, she never failed at being a good sister, a good daughter, a good friend and a good aunt. She juggled those different roles and all that they entailed and she still managed to carve out a corner for herself and herself alone. I love that. I feel like so often, I let something fall--daughter, wife, mother, sister, aunt or friend, in accomplishing that corner for myself.

Critics disparage her because she "panders to the fairy tale motif" and all I can think of in response is, "So?" Honestly. So what? If your life was miserable and you had the ability to WRITE your own happy ending, wouldn't you? Would Pride and Prejudice be any more of a masterpiece if Darcy and Elizabeth continue to misunderstand each other and the Bennet girls end up impoverished and dependent on vile Mr. Collins for the rest of their natural lives? I doubt it. Her genius lies, not in her ENDINGS, but in her technique. Go back through all of the novels--her language is clear, concise and witty. It's nuanced and delicate. She wasn't being funny when she described her work as "a fine brush on a bit of ivory two inches wide..." that's exactly what it is. And to see the genius behind it, you have to look with better eyes.

I have gotten fantastically off topic. Where did I start? Honestly, it's like the Husband is writing this post...

Right! Jane Austen...balm of solace in times of depression. What I'm curious about is this...

Am I the odd duck here again? Do you all have favorites that you read when you get depressed? Does it translate to movies or music...are there certain things that you watch or listen to when you get depressed--either to cheer yourself up or to drown your sorrows? And the first person who tells me they work out gets to be held down and gnawed up by my son and his razor sharp teeth. I have been subjecting myself to that miserable 30 day shred and it's nothing short of a wonder I can even move to the bookshelf to get the book.