Afternoons with Jane Austen

“Ah, there's nothing like staying at home for real comfort!”

So says Jane Austen - a writer who dismembered the domestic scene in her works, excavating the beauty, the peculairy, and the exhilaration embedded in the everyday.

“People’s lives (are)...simple, amazing, and unfathomable - deep caves paved with kitchen linoleum.” - Alice Munro

I imagine that people, at present, are getting especially acquainted with the intricacies of their home.

For my birthday, I received a nineteenth century set of Jane Austen novels - and proceeded (as the original proprietor put it) to ‘resurrect’ them - cracking open the spines, reading words that sat stagnant for decades. (Before I am accused of defouling “antiques,” let me declare that I believe all books should be read - and loved, no matter their age.)

I started with Northanger Abbey. A novel centered, as one might expect, around a young, moderately well off lady encountering love. In general terms - sweeping plot summaries, major themes - Jane Austen is predictable. Mundane. But her novels swarm with details - with idiosyncrasies, and infinitesimal moments, quotes, unique to each book.

I listed to a podcast entitled ‘Jane Ausen: a life in small things” exploring trinkets and vignettes that together, stitched together a portrait of the author. As remarked by Walter Scott, she indeed worked small; gracefully, carefully, crafting moments that offer a glimpse into the “unfathomable caves” of her character’s life. She reveals the immensity of nooks and crannies - the sensations, changes, and experiences that can occur in a single day, within a single household. She protracts these moments - revelling in the details - working with a precision I equate to a brain surgeon. Her words probe somewhere deep within her readers - cultivating emotion. My heart sped up reading Northanger Abbey - my palms become clammy, concerned for a misunderstanding undergone by the protagonist, Catharine.

This afternoon, I attempted to immerse myself in Jane Austen’s life. I listened to her favourite composer (Ignaz Pleyel) whilst baking. Recipes have enabled access into the minds of various authors - such as Emily Dickinson, or the Brontes - all of whom created not only on paper, but in the kitchen, as was expected. However, I bid you not to grumble about women being “chained to the stove’ in such a time - as these kitchens were not prisons, but rather another canvas for creativity. Emily Dickinson, in particular, was an avid baker - Emily Bronte, further, learnt German whilst kneading dough . I am not quite sure what Jane Austen’s participation in cooking equated too - however, I examined some popular regency era recipes. Tea cakes, infused with tea and slathered with jam, seemed to abound. Further, I noted an abundance of citrus and spices that infiltrated traditional english baking - an exotic twist reflecting increasing globalization. I decided, therefore, to bake “spices lemon poppyseed cakes,” served with rose tea. The result was somewhat dense - due, perhaps, to the fact I beat by hand, rather than with a mixer. I imagine most eighteenth/nineteenth century cooks must have had significant arm muscles.

Jane Austen wrote her first drafts into tiny booklets she sewed by hand - and added to periodically, to feel her novel growing beneath her fingertips. Thus, I attempted bookbinding - carefully measuring, cutting, piercing, taping, and another such endless string of ‘ings”

With my journal, and rose tea, and seed-cakes - I retire to my room, revelling in the fact that I possess “a room of my own.” Like Jane Austen, our experiences, at present, our limited - our surroundings shrunk. However, also like Miss Austen, I intend to luxuriate in this small canvas I have access to - to breed the extraordinary from the everyday.

I read a critic of Jane Austen by Virginia Woolf - who focused, instead, on the 6 novels Jane Austen didn’t write - for want of time. This lit a fire beneath me. Through mischance, I have been bequeathed glutenous masses of time - of which I would prefer not to fill with silence. Hence, this blog post.