The Jane Flower: On Pianofortes and Bawling Our Eyes Out

People, Jane is following me into some weird places this week! For example:

1. I just finished the Penelope Fitzgerald novel The Blue Flower. We’ve—okay, I’ve—talked about Ms. Fitzgerald and her excellence before; she’s a wonderful writer who seems to get blank looks whenever I bring her up. Anyway, The Blue Flower is a strange little origins story concerning the German Romantic poet Novalis (né Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg, or “Fritz”) and his true and deep love for, and subsequent engagement to, the twelve-year-old Sophie von Kühn. And what does  young Fritz give his barely pubescent love as a token of his affection? You guessed it: A PIANOFORTE!

I was, as you can imagine, one excited Austen fan. I was also pretty confused: what did it mean? Was it a secret pianoforte? Was Fitzgerald weaving themes of deception and hidden love into her novel, encouraged by the shadow of Frank Churchill and Jane Fairfax? Was it all just one big secret message for the Jane-obsessed?

Upon further thought, here is what I believe it means: I think it means Fritz von Hardenberg, a real person who lived in real Germany and fell in love with a real seventh-grader, bought his fiancee a real pianoforte, and Fitzgerald included it in her novel. Which is a little disappointing from an interpretive perspective, but it made me pretty happy anyway.

2. I don’t know if you all listen to Pop Culture Happy Hour, the weekly NPR pop-culture podcast hosted by Linda Holmes ‘n Friends. If you don’t, not to worry: I’m making up for you. As a recent convert, I am systematically listening to ALL OF IT, in reverse order, and it is making my heart sing on a daily basis.

Today, I was listening to the PCHH episode from October 18, 2013, which includes a segment on pop culture that makes us cry, and why. And let me tell you: if you haven’t recently watched (or, in this case, listened to) the scene from the 1995 Sense and Sensibility where Emma Thompson completely loses her cool over Edward Ferrars’s apparent singleness, you should probably do that, possibly in the privacy of your own home, because it is GREAT and also completely deserves its reputation as a tearjerker. Podcast co-host Trey Graham cites it as Teary Moment Prototype #1: people doing the right thing, suffering for it, and later being rewarded for their actions, and if you saw a girl walking, teary-eyed and smiling, along the Embarcadero in San Francisco around lunchtime today, that was, uh, definitely not me. Nope.

Anyway, it’s lovely. (The relevant clip begins around the 30:00 mark in the link above, if you want to hear it.)

Has Jane been following you around this week, readers? Let’s hear it.

The Jane of Angels: Jane Austen and Penelope Fitzgerald

This is a public service announcement.

I know we just told you what you want this holiday season, but let’s just add one more thing to the list. You want a Penelope Fitzgerald novel. I haven’t read enough of her work to know which one yet, so I’ll let you choose. I’m nice like that.

Here’s what happened: I recently got my hands on a lovely Everyman’s Library volume of three Fitzgerald novels—The Bookshop, The Gate of Angels, and The Blue Flower. I blazed through The Bookshop and I’m halfway through The Gate of Angels, and I am on the brink of buying many many copies and forcing them into the hands of my book-loving friends. And maybe a few enemies.  Or…wait. Is it possible I’m behind the curve on this? Have you read her entire canon, and been talking about them, and not told me about it? Have you been holding out on me?

(Quick facts: Penelope Fitzgerald, 1916-2000, first novel published 1977. Shortlisted for the Booker Prize shortlist for The Bookshop, 1978; won for Offshore, 1979.)

I’ve been thinking about Fitzgerald and how she fits into the post-Austen world—not because I compare every writer to Austen, but because they share a certain scope and wryness, and because if you are writing small-town British romantic dramas and novels of ideas,  well, Austen is there. It’s all in the lack of sentimentality, I think; like Austen, Fitzgerald writes about people and relationships with grace and sometimes affection, but also with honesty and irony and a willingness to make fun. I suppose these aren’t strictly Austenian traits, but within the genre, the resemblance is noticeable—and I can’t help thinking there’s a literary inheritance there. She’s certainly more Austen than Bronte, or Waugh, or Wodehouse. (How she approaches romance, I can’t say: The Gate of Angels is shaping up to be a love story, but frankly, I’m not convinced that requited and realized true love is where this train is heading. Will report back.)

The other voice I hear echoed in Fitzgerald’s work is that of Margaret Atwood, which may be a function of time and age—middle-aged to older women writing in the last quarter of the twentieth century—or may simply be a massive compliment to both sides. I find in Fitzgerald’s writing a prickliness that is not unlike Atwood’s, and also a sense of realism when it comes to the inner lives of women. Both have a keen eye for struggle, particularly female struggle, though the fight to hang on to the tongue of an elderly English plow horse during a dental procedure (IT’S A METAPHOR, GUYS!) reads differently than, say, dystopian robot alien lady overlords disguised as everyday Canadian life. (I’ll let you guess who’s who in those scenarios.)

In any case, Austen Nation, can I recommend Penelope Fitzgerald to you? Her writing is lovely and sharp, sad and funny, atmospheric and pragmatic. What more can I say?

We now return to your regularly scheduled programming.