Reading Jane Austen, searching for mates, and overcoming grief
Whoever said ''You can't judge a book by its cover" must have been a reviewer. The first two of these three books didn't look promising, but the contents belied their presentations.
It's natural to approach a novel titled ''The Jane Austen Book Club" with caution, but Karen Joy Fowler's funny, erudite novel proved to be a surprise and a delight, a tribute to Austen that manages to capture her spirit.
The setting is northern California. Five women and one man meet each month to talk about Austen's novels, one at a time. As they discuss the books, it becomes clear that each has her or his own private Austen, a personal way of interpreting the novels. While they speculate about whether Charlotte Lucas was gay, or talk about what might have happened to the two youngest Bennet sisters, Mary and Kitty, the book club members' own stories unfold, complete with Austen-like misunderstandings and reversals.
To Jocelyn, the 50-ish founder of the book club and a breeder of Rhodesian Ridgebacks, Austen is all about matchmaking. For free spirit Bernadette, at 67 the oldest member, the author is a comic genius. Sylvia, Jocelyn's best friend, needs the book club for solace, since her husband of 32 years wants a divorce. To Allegra, Sylvia's beautiful lesbian daughter, Austen's books are nothing more than evidence of women's economic and social subjection. Prudie, at 28 the youngest member of the group, sees Austen as a master of irony. And there's the mysterious Grigg, a science fiction devotee who never read a word of Austen before he joined the group.
Fowler is obviously well versed in Austen's work. She's a fine storyteller with a subtle wit and an eye for foibles. I would guess, though, on the evidence of this novel, that she would never be so bold as to compare herself to the immortal Jane. Others will, though, including her publisher, who gushes, ''A sublime comedy of contemporary manners, this is the novel Jane Austen might well have written had she lived in twenty-first-century California." (Fowler, on the other hand, has one of her characters speculate that if Austen were alive today she'd be writing TV sitcoms.)
It remains to be seen what the members of the Jane Austen Society, the keepers of her literary reputation, will make of ''The Jane Austen Book Club." The novel will send many readers back to her work, and will inspire others to read Austen for the first time. No one can argue with that.
''Bergdorf Blondes" may be just the ticket for readers who found ''Sex and the City" too intellectually and emotionally taxing. The BB's of the title are young, rich, whippet-thin, carefully Botoxed, expensively highlighted, and ruthlessly waxed from eyebrows to toes. They're obsessed with style, shopping, sex, status, and self, not necessarily in that order. In Plum Sykes's frothy first novel the nameless narrator, an Anglo-American party girl vaguely employed by Vogue, and her best friend Julie Bergdorf, department store heiress and occasional shoplifter, hunt for PH (Prospective Husbands) in the wilds of New York society. In this crowd, the urge to snag a fianc appears to have something to do with the consuming quest for dermatological perfection. At a Park Avenue baby shower, the narrator notes that the girls (there are no women in this story, only girls) sporting giant Harry Winston engagement rings looked ''beyond radiant," more aglow even than those wearing coveted $325 Chloe jeans.
Love, it seems, does wonders for the skin, so naturally she and her friend Julie must have it. Sadly, they find that a good man is a lot harder to find than a good Brazilian wax. It all ends happily, though, and to Sykes's credit her characters don't ''grow." They're as shallow at the finish as they were at the start.
Sykes clearly doesn't take this seriously, and neither should anyone else. ''Bergdorf Blondes" is a satire, insofar as it is possible to satirize a milieu that is completely absurd. The author studied at Oxford, has worked for the British and American editions of Vogue and, according to a PR release from her publisher, is something of a party girl herself (''completely stylish, utterly charming, outlandishly social"). She has a breezy, insinuating style and an offhand wit. Most important, she knows her stuff, the minutiae of New York social status, and all the up-to-the-minute consumer details. ''Bergdorf Blondes" seems set to be one of the big mindless beach books of 2004, and to take its place high up on the official list of Great Sex and Shopping Novels.
In Lolly Winston's first novel, ''Good Grief," Sophie Stanton finds herself a widow at 36. Ethan, her husband of three years, has died of cancer, leaving Sophie baffled and numb. She impulsively gives away the living room furniture to Goodwill, breaks all the dishes, and holes up in her Silicon Valley house, eating fistfuls of Oreos, watching TV, and neglecting to shower. Her crisis comes to a head when she shows up for an important meeting at her public relations job in her bathrobe and bunny slippers. Her employer insists she take a leave of absence.
Sophie sells the house and moves to Ashland, Ore., a town with buckets of charm and a Shakespeare festival where she finds love, friendship, community, and a new career making cheesecakes. Somewhere between the Oreos and the cheesecakes I lost interest in Sophie. Her grieving was real, but her recovery seemed formulaic. Winston writes well. Sophie is an appealing character. But ''Good Grief" should be better.
Diane White writes every month about new light and popular fiction.
