That there might be a place where people were not constantly competing against each other for their very sustenance, but were instead helping each other survive through war and injury and poverty and pain, seemed as much something out of a Jane Austen novel as anything else she could have hoped to find.~from The Jane Austen Society by Natalie JennerNatalie Jenner's The Jane Austen Society delighted this Janite reader!
The village of Chawton after the war is filled with diverse, lonely individuals.
Frances Knight no longer leaves the grounds of the Knight estate. Her father is dying upstairs but still rules with an iron fist.
Adam Berwick's dream of university was ended with the deaths of his brothers during the war, leaving him his mother's soul support. She presses him to find a suitable wife, but love eludes him, and if found, would be dangerous.
Dr. Gray is not coping with the early loss of his beloved wife, even to the point of self-medicating. Adeline Lewis is pregnant and widowed, her childhood sweetheart killed in the war.
And even the visiting Hollywood star, a fading beauty, wonders about the unreliability of her fiance and the future of her career.
Bookended by the two worst wars the world had ever seen, they were ironically the survivors, yet it was beyond him what they were surviving for. ~from The Jane Austen Society by Natalie Jenner
A character talks to another about Jane Austen, and then another pair open up about the books that inspire them. Books and reading and Jane Austen feed their souls. Friendship--and love-- blossoms on what had been thought barren ground.
Their readings are insightful and deep, some even surprising this old reader of Austen. Huh. Why didn't I think of that? It's all delivered through the action and dialogue and a part of the characters opening up to each other.
The idea of saving Austen's legacy gives them a goal and brings something positive and hopeful into their lives. They become a community bound by a common love.
The love stories are inspired by Austen's novels, the quarreling pair who resist their mutual attraction, the couple past their prime rekindling a love squashed by their separation of class.
Reading this book during a COVID-19 lockdown was balm for the soul. These war-wounded people who discover reasons to go on are inspiring.
They turn to books for healing, to "disappear into fictional worlds of others' making," "hoping to find some answers." As we do today, isolated in our homes and searching for community, turn to books.
Books are bridges. In Jenner's story, they bring solace and community and wholeness.
I was given a free ebook by the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.
Learn about the Jane Austen Society UK here and its formation here
See items from the Chawton House collection here including Jane's ring and topaz cross, which appear in the novel
The Jane Austen Society
by Natalie Jenner
St. Martin's Press
Pub Date May 26, 2020
ISBN: 9781250248732
hardcover $26.99 (USD)
