SOCIETY OF NORTH AMERICA GREATER CHICAGO REGION

Letter from ChicagoWinter 2008 Read One Read All Read None at all

Jane Jane Jane by by by Claire Jon Carol Tomalin Spence Shields

But come to our Winter Lunch and Discussion: Mix three books and a film, Becoming Jane, and garnish with Austen on Masterpiece Theatre Saturday, February 9, 2008 noon to 3:00 pm The Parthenon Restaurant 314 S. Halsted St. Chicago (free valet parking) ✁ LUNCH REGISTRATION FORM Members: $25; Guests: $30 Registration deadline: February 4 Member Name Guest(s) Name(s)

Address City State ZIP E-mail Phone Amount enclosed $ You can register by 1. Going online to www.jasnachicago.org or 2. Mailing your check—payable to JASNA-GCR—and and pay using your Visa or MasterCard. this form to Elsie Holzwarth, 1410 East 55th Street, Chicago, IL 60615-5409. From the RegionalCoordinator Natalie Goldberg

Our meeting February 9 continues our boil it clean. Fair enough, if you’re Jane celebration of Austen’s legacy—this time Austen, but supposing you were the with a focus on Jane Austen’s life. We maid?” An original biography is scheduled continue to be fascinated and curious for broadcast on Sunday, February 3, as about this woman who lived quietly in a part of the Masterpiece Theater four-month country village yet wrote profoundly about Austen marathon. What fortuitous timing— the human condition. Her biography has just one week before our meeting! In Miss become box office entertainment. This year Austen Regrets, an older Jane helps her alone we have two films to consider. In niece find a husband. But what does she September, many of us saw the romantic regret? Will we learn more about Harris Becoming Jane which includes an aborted Bigg? Or a new love at Lyme Regis? elopement with Tom Lefroy. Would Jane Austen have behaved like Julia Bertram or The PBS Masterpiece Theater marathon Lydia Bennet? Given her circumstances, will include all 6 of Jane Austen’s completed probably not. novels. Three new productions already seen in England open the series: January 13, Fay Weldon, after writing the screenplay for Persuasion; January 20, Northanger Abbey; the 1980 Pride and Prejudice, explored January 27, . Two Jane Austen’s life and work in a series of productions are familiar: February 10–24, letters to an imaginary niece Alice (Letters the 1995 Pride and Prejudice mini-series, to Alice on first reading Jane Austen, 1984). starring Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth, will Letter Two, “A Terrible Time to be Alive,” is be shown in 3 two-hour episodes. On most revealing about life in the 18th March 23, watch the 1996 Emma, starring century. “Seventy percent of English Kate Beckinsale. A new production of Sense women never married. . . The trouble was and Sensibility will be shown in 2 parts, that you had to afford to marry. You were March 30 and April 6. expected to have a dowry, provided by your parents or saved by yourself, to give to Outreach News your husband to offset your keep. . . It was We are sorry to lose Linda Relias as our no use waiting for your parents to die so Education Outreach Chair. Since her term that you could inherit their mansion, or as Regional Coordinator, Linda has cottage, or hovel, and so buy yourself a continued to serve on the board as an husband—your parents’ property went to invaluable advisor. She has promoted our your brothers. Women inherited only organization among Illinois high school through their husbands.” Lucky Lady teachers and overseen grants for books to Catherine de Bourgh! Weldon argues that needy schools. This year family requires fear of pregnancy was so great that half the more of her time. She is planning her women in England remained virgins all younger daughter’s wedding and looking their lives. Yet Jane Austen was fortunate forward to the birth of her first grandchild. to be part of the middle class. Consider Thank you, Linda, for your outstanding how Weldon explains the lives of ordinary contributions and best wishes for your women to her imaginary niece: “If you have happy celebrations. Thank you, also, a cold in the nose, you use a tissue and Corrinne McArdle, for your generous flush it down the W.C. Jane Austen used a contribution to our Outreach program in pocket handkerchief, and had a maid to memory of Ellie Punkay.

WINTER 2008 L ETTER FROM C HICAGO 3 Reviews

Talk: Love and Jane Austen Just Jane: A Novel of Jane Austen’s Life Shirley Holbrook by Nancy Moser On November 2, Elisabeth Lenckos Lori Davis delivered the “First Friday Lecture” at the As JASNA National member Nancy Moser Chicago Cultural Center. While we may researched Just Jane, she found . . . a know her through participation in JASNA, friend. She met a fellow fiction author who she is an instructor in the Basic Program was “witty, wise, discerning, creative, and of the University of Chicago, which loyal” as well as “stubborn, judgmental, presents the lecture series. The rewards of insecure, and needy.” A Jane Austen who the talk began with its title: “‘You must is “a lot like us.” allow me to tell you how ardently I admire Just Jane is fictional biography. Moser and love you’: Love and Jane Austen.” worked hard to present Jane accurately, Lenckos began by tracing changes in how though warning readers she used creative Jane Austen is viewed. Where admirers guesswork to flesh out, explain, and add once praised her as a moralist, recent immediacy to the action. Moser, daringly, readers turn to her as an authority on writes in the first person. In its defense, love. Critics used to emphasize the the first-person present-tense approach elegance of her writing; now they discover confronted me with Jane’s emotions sexiness. Lenckos argued that newly during critical events in her life—being appreciated qualities were indeed always dispossessed of all that was “home” in there but were masked by attitudes of the Steventon; weathering painful courtships, Victorian era, especially by the ways living with guilt and disregard as an Austen’s family chose to depict her. unmarried dependent, enduring years of Lenckos went on to discuss Austen’s writer’s block and a manuscript notions of love, distinguishing her work languishing in a publisher’s storeroom. from the gothic novels of her time and I longed for some indication of direct quotes tracing the influences of Shakespeare, within the text. This distraction somewhat Choderlos le Laclos’s Dangerous Liaisons, abated as I joined Jane in her “lost years” and Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther. of exile in Bath and her final homegoing to She made a convincing case that Austen’s Chawton: “I opened the trunk and gazed depiction of love is complex and nuanced upon the work of my life; pages and pages and a major development in the history of words carefully chosen, drawing images of literature. of people who were as real to me as flesh The appreciative audience was delighted and blood, who lived lives that had been put to learn that Lenckos is planning a on hold while I muddled through my own summer course and can further look struggles and disappointments.” Though I forward to the book she hopes to write have enjoyed many more-informative on love and Jane Austen. “straight biographies” of Jane Austen, I (Lenckos is now teaching 2 courses at the have never before shared Jane’s delight in University of Chicago Graham School of her hard-won triumphs. It’s as if Nancy General Studies on Greed in literature Moser’s friend, Jane Austen, were now and on literary Cairo.) mine as well.

4 L ETTER FROM C HICAGO WINTER 2008 Programs William Phillips Saturday, February 9, Lunch In Chicago there is often good reason not “Jane Austen is recognized for her to get out much in winter. Nevertheless, moral sensibility, and for what is assumed to be her rare ability to the lure of good food, warm GCR expand insignificant material, fellowship and a spirited discussion will, I turning the doings of a few village trust, be motivation enough for you to families unto wide-screen drama.” bundle up and make your way once again —Carol Shields to The Parthenon on Halsted Street in “Although the plot and incidents Greektown. This is rapidly becoming one of [the film Becoming Jane] are of our most popular and enjoyable events fictional, the writers have striven of the Austen Year in Chicago. to give us a true picture of Jane My goal in this set of brief program notes Austen’s character, personal is to encourage you to register for the circumstances and social context: The story of Jane and Tom’s romance Winter Meeting. We might call the may not have played out the way the meeting “Three Bios and a Flick.” The writers have imagined, but the film is, focus will be biographies of Jane Austen, I believe, true to the point of Jane whether they come from a respected Austen’s character and to the forces biographer, an Austen scholar, a novel that came into play at that time in her life.” writer, or the imagination of Hollywood. —Jon Spence Four GCR stalwarts have each agreed to introduce one of the four featured works: “This is my favorite image of Jane Austen, laughing at the opinions of Elisabeth Lenckos on Claire Tomalin’s the world. It is lucky she had so Jane Austen: A Life; Natalie Goldberg on much laughter in her; today, the novelist Carol Shields’ Jane Austen; volume of opinions has swelled to William Phillips on Jon Spence’s something so huge that they could Becoming Jane Austen; and Jeff Nigro on be laughed at for ever.” director Julian Jarrold’s recent film —Claire Tomalin Becoming Jane, for which Spence was in the credits as “historical consultant.” Jane Davis will keep time and hold the Saturday, May 3, Gala presenters to brief opening remarks. Our Gala is also taking shape. We’ll Then, as moderator, she will open the congregate again at the Allerton Hotel floor to your questions and comments. (North Michigan at Huron) to celebrate the Although these are the featured works, if season and Austen as “International Icon.” you want to review them, perhaps you Just to tease your interest at this point, have your own favorite you’d like to bring our keynote speaker will be Dr. Joseph along, or mention, or fight for. (And don’t Wiesenfarth, whom we have enjoyed on forget, there will be Austen on previous occasions. Now retired from the Masterpiece Theatre to dissect.) You are University of Wisconsin, Madison, he is also welcome just to come along and busier than ever and very much engaged in enjoy the melee. I’m sure it will be a Austen scholarship. His topic as of this delicious lunch of Greek delicacies and a writing is “The Rebirth of the Juvenile rollicking discussion. Register now! Jane”. Save the date!

WINTER 2008 L ETTER FROM C HICAGO 5 Review Elsie Holzwarth

Birthday Tea married, was domesticated and wrote for On December 8 we celebrated our annual her own amusement out of loneliness and Jane Austen Birthday Tea, including a sexual longing. She has been seen as champagne toast led by Lori Davis who “naïve, complacent and demure.” But reminded us of the many ways Austen has Virginia Woolf in Jane Austen and the contributed to our lives. Thanks to Jane Geese retorted, “We remember that Jane Hunt we were again able to visit the lovely Austen wrote novels. It might be worth facilities of The Fortnightly of Chicago, while for her critics to read them.” Fay beautifully decorated with wreaths and Weldon wrote of the importance of reading lights and a gorgeous Christmas tree, and Austen. “Elizabeth Bennet. . . listening to a table of delicious sandwiches and the beat of feeling. . . changed minds, and desserts. Duwanna Wall ably sold AGM tee with minds, lives. . . Fiction stretches our shirts and William Phillips was the sensibilities and our understanding, as program chair. He brought us a truly more information never can.” charming speaker, Emily Auerbach, What about Mark Twain who declared, professor at the University of Wisconsin, “Everytime I read ‘Pride and Prejudice’ I and author of Searching for Jane Austen. want to dig her up and beat her over the Auerbach was bemused by the cover of skull with her own shin-bone,” and Newsweek this summer on which Austen “Whenever I take up ‘Pride and Prejudice’ was pictured directly in the center below or ‘Sense and Sensibility,’ I feel like a Osama bin Laden and next to Barack barkeeper entering the Kingdom of Obama The accompanying article noted Heaven.” Auerbach proclaims, “Twain is that “Austen outsells Ann Coulter. . . actually a fake!” She imagines Austen Austen is now a brand. . . and if some and Twain like Hepburn and Bogart in pass up reading her, culture will ratch the movie The African Queen. “They down a notch.” would be a bit awkward at first. After a few weeks they would strip away the Austen has been viewed in many ways. layers of cultural difference to find the “Too ugly for a book cover” required zest for life of both of them. They both “removing her cap and adding make-up hated humbug.” and hair extensions.” Ang Lee, the director of the film Sense and Sensibility, “had Auerbach wishes for no more “dear Aunt never read Austen; he had seen her novels Janes” and for the end of “almost 2 as girlie books.” centuries of touch-ups and make-overs.” Her novels “represent hidden pictures; the “Male comedians have joked about being more you scratch, the more you see.” dragged to Austen movies.” Given a choice Rather than “Becoming Jane” we should Dave Barry would rather see “Arnold refer to “Remaining Jane” and celebrate Schwarzenegger crashing a helicopter.” “her integrity as a novelist.” Austen said it Andy Rooney said “What do I think of Jane best herself in her letter to James Clarke, Austen? Almost nothing. Pride and “I must keep to my own style and go on in Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility seem to my own way.” be the Bobbsey twins for grown-ups.” Critics have complained that Austen never

6 L ETTER FROM C HICAGO WINTER 2008 Photos

December Tea

Emma Richardson The Fortnightly of Chicago A holiday spread

Anne and Linda Relias ▼

Lori Davis

Emily Auerbach

▼ (l to r) Shirley Holbrook and Amy Feldman

Felica and Dyani Keelen Elizabeth Ireland Corinne McArdle Judith Mc Cull Natalie Goldberg

WINTER 2008 L ETTER FROM C HICAGO 7 AGM 2008 William Phillips Countdown to October 2, 2008 A daily ritual in newspapers and electronic news sources is a countdown. Here at AGM Central, we have started our own countdown. As you read this, there are fewer than 11 months before hoards of eager Janeites descend upon us. They will, understandably, be clamoring for the kind of unforgettable experience that everyone expects from Chicago, and that Austen enthusiasts expect from JASNA-GCR. We have a Midwestern “can-do” intention to Breaking News provide just the unforgettable experience Before this information hits the JASNA everyone expects. The extent and variety of Newsletter, I want to share the collection of the program elements have been discussed “Out and About” activities planned for the at length in these pages already. You can AGM. If you are a local (like me) who re-whet your appetite with a visit to doesn’t get to the wonderful attractions of www.jasnachicago.org. Breakout Chair our own region, you may want to sign up Elisabeth Lenckos and I are about to get for one or more when you register for the the array of quite wonderful Breakout and AGM. Here are the half-day offerings: Poster Sessions finalized. We’ll be letting 1. Architecture Cruise. If you haven’t ever you in on these soon. taken the Chicago River cruise organized It occurs to me that a goodly percentage of by the Chicago Architecture Foundation, the “they” who descend on us will also be it is high time. “us.” With the exception of nearby Milwaukee 2. Frank Lloyd Wright. Also on the in 2005, recent AGMs have not been so architectural front, a tour that features conveniently located for us Chicago folks. Wright and the Prairie School. Consequently, it adds to my personal pleasure to know that a lot of the work we 3. The Devil in the White City. Are Midway have been doing is for us. But wait a minute. and Highland Park “terra incognita” to We also need as many of you readers as you? If you enjoyed this thriller set at the possible to become part of the “we” doing the 1893 World’s Fair, try this tour. work. Those who have seen the recent film 4. Chicago’s Own Jane A. This visit to version of The Jane Austen Book Club will the Hull House Museum features the remember the delightful moment when enduring legacy of Jane Addams. Prudie avoided Maria Bertram-like behavior 5. Pullman Walking Tour. Visit a classic after she was confronted with a flashing walk neighborhood and recall the struggles of signal that asked “What Would Jane Do?” working people. Given the “Chicago Countdown,” I know what Jane would do: She would become an There are also two possible day-trips: AGM volunteer. 1. Springfield. Our state capital and the Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. If you haven’t already volunteered contact Rita Shafer, Natalie Goldberg or William 2. Galena. A beautifully preserved Victorian Phillips to sign on. gem with links to President U.S. Grant.

8 L ETTER FROM C HICAGO WINTER 2008 Interview with William Phillips

William Phillips, as Springs, 1999) with my great friend Louise co-chair of our 2008 Heal-Kawai when we both lived in Japan. AGM committee, Since then, I get through all six major novels you’ve been working at least once a year. hard. How is the AGM What makes Austen special for you? coming along? No Something I really liked about Fowler’s doubt the membership Jane Austen Book Club was the way each of JASNA-GCR is getting of the characters had her own Austen (his pretty tired of hearing came later). For one it was romance. from me on that topic. Another thought of the Austen novels as I’ll simply say that the horror stories (given the precarious preparations are really nearing completion. economic status of women). I’m most like My Co-chair, Rita Shafer, and Treasurer, the one for whom Austen’s ironic humor is Jane Davis, almost have arrangements and tops. For me it is Austen’s irony as a part a budget sorted out. The main program of her keen observation of human foibles elements are all but complete as of this that really speaks to me. Once I got writing. I’ve written about them here and involved with JASNA, I got the opportunity elsewhere. With help from others, Breakout to read and hear lots of really smart people Chair, Elisabeth Lenckos, and I have been discussing Austen and I began to pouring over proposals. It looks like we’ll appreciate her incredible genius as an have 35 very interesting Breakout artist and her role in developing the Presentations and between 15 and 20 Poster modern form of the English novel. My Presentations. I can’t wait. Of course, we’re grandmother started teaching me to read going to need lots of help from GCR when I was four. I still have the first novel members with organizational matters during that ever belonged to me, Stuart Little, the countdown to next October. I hope given to me when I was five. I now realize everyone signs on. that a big part of more than 60 years of What got you interested in Jane Austen reading pleasure comes from the legacy of in the first place? I was past 50 when I Jane Austen. first read Austen. When I turned 50, I Do you have a favorite Austen novel? decided that I’d show a good attitude toward In the 1990s, I would have said Emma. entering my 2nd half-century if I took up That work still holds a special place in my some projects that would take more than the heart (and mind). I’ve now had the privilege rest of my life to get very good at. of making presentations related to Emma Understanding Austen became one of those at two AGMs (Colorado Springs and projects. From somewhere, I had acquired a Vancouver), both with my special VHS copy of the 1972 BBC Emma with collaborator Louise. I can no longer say Doran Godwin (longest neck I’ve ever seen that any one of the six is my favorite. I on a woman). I got a copy of the novel and re-read Northanger Abbey the least and it loved it. When the movies started appearing, probably finishes a fairly distant sixth for I read all six novels, plus the two unfinished me. However I’d rather not rank the others. pieces and some of the juvenile stuff. The The question, though, prompted me to try letters came only after I had already made to encapsulate a few favorite things. I love my first AGM presentation (Colorado Sense and Sensibility for its cast of truly

WINTER 2008 L ETTER FROM C HICAGO 9 Interview continued

awful characters. Mrs. Ferrars, John and have taught ESL/EFL for more than 30 Fanny Dashwood and Lucy Steele are years (almost 25 years abroad combining among the most mean- spirited, self- Saudi Arabia and then Japan). I taught serving characters I’ve ever read. Austen language and culture, but never really makes them such fun. I admire Elinor for a ‘literature’—have never taken a literature strength of character I’m pretty sure I’ll course myself. I just read and think and never achieve. I also like her for teaching enjoy talking with smart people. I believe me one of Austen’s ‘universal truths’, that my love of Austen is always somewhere many women are able to love men who hovering around whatever I teach, but I aren’t quite worthy of them—not bad wouldn’t begin to know how to ‘teach’ her. men—just not quite worthy of them. I love Discuss—you bet! Teach—hmmmmm!?! Pride and Prejudice for putting together a Any plans for the future, after the couple who will never stop learning from AGM? First, I’ll have several very large and surprising each other. In my life, that Martinis; then, of course, I’ll still be is what love has been all about. I’m very reading, thinking and writing about fond of the Gardiners, too. I have come to Austen. I have several Austen projects I appreciate Mansfield Park more than I ever want to work on. I already have a swell thought I would. I continue to find idea for a Breakout for ’09 if anyone from fascinating insights in a book populated Philadelphia happens to read this. with almost no characters that I like. I am really fond of only two characters, What do you think of the spate of William and Susan Price. We don’t learn Austen sequels, spin-offs and films? much about Susan, but I see a lot of I have almost never liked any of the myself in what I do learn. Emma is special sequels, but I’ve enjoyed the mysteries. I for dozens of reasons. My first awareness have really liked some of the contemporary of the brilliance of Austen’s irony is re-telling of the stories (e.g. Cohen and probably that early description of Mrs. Nathan). I will always go to Austen related Goddard’s school. I grew up in a mid-20th movies, own copies and watch all of them century American version of Highbury. I multiple times. Even when I don’t like a knew almost all those characters. Like movie very much, I find something to learn many readers, I appreciate the second from it, to raise new questions and to chance in Persuasion. I’ve been given more make me think more about Austen. I’m than my share of second chances, and like many of us; Clueless remains at the re-reading Persuasion always reminds me top of my list. to be grateful. I really like the Crofts, Do you think Austen will still be read particularly Mrs. Croft. in a hundred years? Tell us about your background. You’ve Sadly, I think the taught ‘round the world’. How have question may be your students responded to Austen? “Will anyone be Actually, I’ve never taught Austen—not reading (anything) directly anyway. I first taught in a in 100 years?” If Communication Department: Speech, so, people will be Debate, that sort of thing. Then I got more reading Austen. graduate work in Applied Linguistics and

10 L ETTER FROM C HICAGO WINTER 2008 Citings/Sightings Elsie Holzwarth

New Releases praise for characters brave enough to In Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters, embrace the possibilities of change. Just edited by Jon Lellenberg, Daniel as Elizabeth Bennet escapes her own Stashower and Charles Foley, we read prejudices, so does Dorothea recover from Conan Doyle’s letter of April 6, 1893: her early mistakes. As Eliot wrote, ‘we are “I am in the middle of the last [Sherlock] a process and an unfolding.’” Holmes story, after which the gentleman Linda Relias notes that Jonathan Gross, a vanishes, never to reappear. I am weary of past GCR speaker, is the editor of The his name. . . as I have a cold I have sat by Sylph (first published 1799) by Georgiana, the fire all day and read Miss Austen’s Duchess of Devonshire, now described as: ‘Pride & Prejudice.’ I like her easy prim “This ranging epistolary novel follows Julia subdued style. I had read nothing of her Grenville, a Welsh beauty who knows little before.” Easy, prim, subdued? Well, of the world until her perhaps, if compared with the hound of marriage to the older the Baskervilles. Lord Stanley. Through In the essay “A Voice from a Cloud” in Julia’s letters to her Portraits and Observations: The Essays of sister, readers learn Truman Capote, we are informed that when more of Julia’s new life Capote’s Other Voices, Other Rooms was in London—her published (1948) critics “remarked that unfaithful husband, obviously I was much influenced by such her miscarriage, her disillusionment with Southern literary artists as Faulkner and the city and its fashions. Other letters Welty and Mc Cullers.” The critics were reveal that Julia has a longtime admirer, “mistaken. The American writers who had Harry Woodley, from her former life, as well been most valuable to me were, in no as a mysterious guardian angel: her Sylph. particular order, James, Twain, Poe, Cather, This character guides Julia away from the Hawthorne, Sarah Orne Jewett, and, depravities of her life in London, including overseas, Flaubert, Jane Austen, Dickens, her gambling problem. The Sylph is also Proust, Chekhov, Katherine Mansfield, E.M. another sympathetic ear to Julia’s Forster, Turgenev, De Maupassant and increasing marital dissatisfaction and Emily Bronte.” Now Capote was 24 when growing affinity for another man, the Baron Other Voices, Other Rooms was published. Ton-hausen. As Julia nearly falls prey to One wonders, had he really already read all the overzealous admirations of one of her these literary giants? husband’s associates, her husband is consumed by gambling debts to that same Jonah Lehrer writes in Proust Was a associate. She is shocked to discover the Neuroscientist, “[George] Eliot believed that depths of her husband’s ruin and plans to the mind’s ability to alter itself was the flee to Wales before she too can be claimed source of our freedom. In Middlemarch, in payment. Her disgraced husband takes Dorothea. . .is reassured that the mind ‘is the ultimate way out and Julia goes home not cut in marble—it is not something solid to her father and sister in Wales. Her Sylph and unalterable. It is something living and is not far behind, however, and soon reveals changing.’ Like Jane Austen, a literary himself to Julia to be more than she could forebear (sic), Eliot reserved her highest have ever imagined.”

WINTER 2008 L ETTER FROM C HICAGO 11 LETTER FROM CHICAGO JASNA-GCR Elsie G. Holzwarth 1410 East 55th Street Chicago, IL 60615-5409

Saturday, February 9 Lunch and Book Discussion

Calendar

Past Due Membership Dues Renewal. Individual members, $25 Family members, $35 February 9, 2008 Luncheon. Parthenon Restaurant, 314 S. Halsted, Chicago. Discussion: Biographies of Jane Austen by Claire Tomalin, Carol Shields and Jon Spence, and film Becoming Jane Noon–3:00 pm May 3, 2008 GALA. Allerton Hotel, Chicago. 9:30 am–3:30 pm October 2–5, 2008 Annual General Meeting hosted by Greater Chicago Region. Austen’s Legacy: Life, Love & Laughter. Westin Michigan Avenue Hotel, Chicago, IL

Our website is www.jasnachicago.org