Language & Grammar discussion

I read my first Austen book, P&P, after watching the BBC BC version of it (that is, Before Colin). I loved it and have read each one of her books repeatedly (except for Northanger Abbey - can't get into it). It was not chick lit when she wrote it. Austen was a sharp - if gentle - critic of laws of her times and of social issues.
The big problem I have with Austen is that one never sees in her books the hoards of people that work to provide the characters (yes, including men) with the leisure to read poetry, learn complicated dances, paint and sing. Women gave birth in the fields and continued working in order to allow her protagonists to spend their time in such refined ways.
And yet I know that I will read her again and enjoy people who are so alien and yet so much like us. (And her English is so delicious, I gain weight each time I read her.)
Which makes me wonder about the transition from Austen to Dickens, and how it came about. Any comments?

The Good Wyfe is a big fan of Jane's also. I'm with Mark Twain, who wished to dig Austen's body up and smack her skull a few times with her femur.

What do you mean by the transition from Austen to Dickens?

I mean the transition between writing about the "elite" of society, who consider themselves paupers when they can only afford a cottage and three servants, to heroes who are hungry for food, go to work when they are nine or ten years old and wind up in the prison for debters.

Forgot to mention - my husband is also allergic to Austen, and refuses to come within listening distance from a discussion about her or a movie based on a book written by sweet Jane.

It's practically a male-female thing. We have a thread somewhere on this site about that, but it's not polite to mention it because a lot of lefty sorts get upset when you say there are fundamental differences between wimmins and manunkinds.

Well I'm a wimman and not an Austen fan.
Much rather read McCarthy, McEwan, or McCann...
maybe I was exposed to too many MacDonald's burgers as a kid??? :-)

Sure, why not? MacDonald's is responsible for most everything else!

Their fries are to die for, but that is another story. Anyway, I borrowed 3 Austen videos, and my husband was telling me not again. I did see Pride and Prejudice, and thought what was up with Colin. He looked like he was very uneasy in those scenes. The two leading characters became an item for awhile, that's what Jane Austen does to people, I guess.

Drora wrote: "I read my first Austen book, P&P, after watching the BBC BC version of it (that is, Before Colin). I loved it and have read each one of her books repeatedly (except for Northanger Abbey - can't get..."
As to the difference between Austen and Dickens...different life experiences, Austen wrote about the world she knew, Dickens wrote about what he knew. But Dickens was restless, and strode the streets at night, and saw things that others didn't...extremes of poverty that had not previously been portrayed. Just think...we all live in the same world, but how varied are our experiences of it?

Too true,Jan, I guess that's why Dickens showed a seedier London and the extreme poverty, and Austen showed the genteel society, they surrounded themselves in different societies is what they would call it. Yes some see the rainbows and others see the rain.
'

Drora wrote: "...Which makes me wonder about the transition from Austen to Dickens, and how it came about."

As a man, around half a century later, Dickens was able to wander the dodgier streets in a way that would not have been possible for Austen.

Anyway, there are plenty of authors, ancient and modern, whose works focus on just one group in the social strata; Austen is not the only one.

I am sure, but there is such a wide diversity in their writings, and of course men can travel wherever they want. But a women needed to be escorted, and not many woman would be in the seedier parts of London, unless they lived there. I am watching Little Dorrit and the snobbery of one mother because her son loves the prisoner's daughter. Social classes didn't intermingle in those days.

a women needed to be escorted, and not many woman would

This in Language and Grammar? Hang your head, Robin. :)

Ruth did I write that. I may have not meant that. Even Wharton's work of Age and Innocence didn't that lady that was in love with Newland Archer, go across the room and introduce herself or some such without being formally introduced. I guess I lost my train of thought on the above. Get me back on the train.

Robin wrote: " Even Wharton's work of Age and Innocence didn't that lady that was in love with Newland Archer, go across the room and introduce herself or some ..."

I have no idea what you're talking about!

I'm puzzled.....

Don't be I was tired the other day and posted something on message 13 about being escorted, and I left the end without finishing the sentence. Forget about it, nothing important.

No...it was post #15 that had me (and Ruth) stumped.....

What is it about it that has you two stumped?

Even Wharton's work of Age and Innocence didn't that lady that was in love with Newland Archer, go across the room and introduce herself or some such without being formally introduced.
Apart from the poor grammar, I don't understand what relevance it had to you mixing up women and woman in post #12?

whatever, I said that I was tired, and hence the poor grammar I didn't think I was getting graded for making statements. Merely writing about escorts and being escorted. How is my sentence structure now?

Sorry....completely missed the escorting message due to the poor grammar taking up my attention.....it's the teacher in me!

Sorry, I didn't mean to leave you in the lurch, but I was just trying to follow Ruth's thread and probably went off on a tangent. Sorry about the poor grammar. No problem.