Video Killed the Jane Austen Star

We talked last week about my recent passion for the Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast and my ongoing trip through its back catalog (Today: Ari Shapiro on Miley Cyrus at the VMAs! Relatedly, I would like to register my love for the giant picture of Mr. Shapiro on the NPR Careers website. Work at NPR: We don’t all have faces for radio!). And I got to thinking.

You could say I’m a bit of a podcast junkie. I’ve got your This American Life; I’ve got your RadioLab; I’ve got your Splendid Table; I used to have your Fresh Air, until they changed the format and I fell behind and iTunes gave up. I’ve cried over many episodes of The Tobolowsky Files, with Stephen Tobolowsky, and I’m well-versed in the entire back catalog of the excellent Official LOST Podcast. I regularly listen to a number of podcasts where people discuss knitting for an hour or more, and then I listen to them again, because they’re just that interesting.

What kind of podcast do I NOT listen to? Jane Austen podcasts. That’s because, as far as I can tell, there are none.

Really. I looked. There are podcast episodes about Jane, and versions of her works read aloud, but I didn’t find a single instance of a serial podcast covering all things Jane.

HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE? A complete lack of Jane-oriented podcasts seems implausible to me from any direction.

First of all, we Janeites have a lot to say. Have you seen how many websites we’re able to keep populated? (The Jane-adjacent book review sites alone!) We’re a large community with diverse views on a lot of topics, and it’s not like don’t want to talk about it. It’s completely strange to me that nobody’s regularly switching on the mic to talk Jane, if only to drunkenly MST3K all the movie adaptations. (…Mrs. F and Miss O, I believe I hear our calling calling.)

Second of all, there are podcasts about everything. Did I tell you about the multiple knitting podcasts? There are so many general literary podcasts out there, and so many other podcasts about seemingly un-podcastable topics, that I just can’t believe that Janeites have decided to sit this one out.

So, tell me, readers: Are Google and iTunes lying to me? Do you all know of any Jane Austen podcasts, and do you have any favorites? Hook your Janeite sisters and brothers up!

 

Brief Interviews with Hideous Janes*

Apparently this is the week to talk about Austen in public, if you are a famous writer beloved by lots of people. Jane on the radio! Jane on the internet, by which I don’t actually mean our site! So it seems like this “Jane” person is could really, you know, go somewhere. Or whatever.

First of all, I have an assignment for the community: let’s all go to our local bookstores or libraries, get our hands on Jeffrey Eugenides‘s new novel The Marriage Plot, read it, and meet back here for chatter and cookies. Ready? Break!

No?

Well, we probably should–it is, after all, Austen-related. And probably great. I know. I KNOW! Also, he talked to Terry Gross about it here.

Look, I know how I can be about post-Austen Austen lit—which is to say, unwilling to read it and yet NOT unwilling to speak ill of it. But this is Jeffrey Eugenides, considering the life and death of the 19th-century novel in the wake of 20th-century cultural developments! Am I not supposed to love a book that reflects Austen and Henry James in a fictional format that also includes references to semiotics and possibly a true-love ending (one hopes)? You don’t know me at all, do you?

Additionally: isn’t The Marriage Plot such a great, ambiguous title? Before I read the flap, I thought it was about some kind of scheme. Which I guess it still could be. OOH, WORDPLAY.

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In other news of excellent famous people talking Austen (etc.), we have life heroine Mindy Kaling—her spectacular shopping blog is back, so you should probably go read that—talking to EW about her reading habits. By which I don’t mean Jane, actually, but favored bitter literary spinster-cousin Edith Wharton—for reasons that reference Jane and the marriage plot (the concept, not the novel) directly. And it’s great. And I think we should hang out and braid each other’s hair and drink wine and talk about our favorite lady authors. That’s not too much to ask, is it?

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*Hint.