Jane Austen, the Secret Radical

By: Helena Kelly

Narrated by: Emma Bering

A brilliant, illuminating reassessment of the life and work of Jane Austen that makes clear how Austen has been misread for the past two centuries and that shows us how she intended her books to be read, revealing, as well, how subversive and daring--how truly radical--a writer she was.

In this fascinating, revelatory work, Helena Kelly--dazzling Jane Austen authority--looks past the grand houses, the pretty young women, past the demure drawing room dramas and witty commentary on the narrow social worlds of her time that became the hallmark of Austen's work to bring to light the serious, ambitious, deeply subversive nature of this beloved writer. Kelly illuminates the radical subjects--slavery, poverty, feminism, the Church, evolution, among them--considered treasonous at the time, that Austen deftly explored in the six novels that have come to embody an age. The author reveals just how in the novels we find the real Jane Austen: a clever, clear-sighted woman "of information," fully aware of what was going on in the world and sure about what she thought of it. We see a writer who understood that the novel--until then seen as mindless "trash"--could be a great art form and who, perhaps more than any other writer up to that time, imbued it with its particular greatness.

Skeptical

This work is not a biography. It’s a mostly piece of critical literary theory. In order to understand her conjectures, one should have a detailed understanding and familiarity with Austin’s novels. While I found the book to be interesting and entertaining, I also found it to be bit far-fetched at times, as if the author was trying too hard to find radicalism in Jane when it might not have been. Additionally, the narrator is not good. I am not sure why an American voice actor was selected, but that may have been a poor choice. Aside from all of that, if you are as obsessed with Jane Austen and her novels as I am, then you might find this book worth your time. She poses very interesting and provoking theories by placing Austen’s novels in their relevant historical and cultural context.

Interesting, and yet . . .

This is not a new and improved biography, this is an argument that assumes you have read other "conventional" biographies. I hadn't. The author cares very, very much that you are persuaded by her, but is very, very sure that you will not be. She has a few good points, and some others. (E.g. while on the one hand admitting that Jane did not use a lot of symbolism, the author spends quite of bit of time unpacking alleged symbolism.) Her writing is not graceful. As someone who has written a lot of graceless prose in my life I know graceless writing when I hear it. But the worst of it is not necessarily the author's fault: much of the narration was just painful. The main text of the book is read in the reader's own voice which is serviceable. Had it been used throughout it would not have been painful. However, pretty much all of the many and extensive quoted passages from Austen books, letters, etc. are read in what seems to me--and admittedly I'm no expert-- an unfortunate faux generic British accent. Notwithstanding these drawbacks, most of the book held my interest. Which is not an insignificant achievement. My library is littered with books that are infinitely "better" but that I haven't come close to finishing. This, I nearly finished.

An interesting read with bad narration

Would you be willing to try another one of Emma Bering’s performances?

This is an interesting book that is almost ruined by the distractingly horrible narration. Why the reader feels compelled to adopt a bad and clearly fake British accent to read some passages, I have no idea. This is a book that should be read, not performed.

Fascinating- Not sure it's fact, but wow.

So this is an amazing book, but you have to have read - really read, Jane Austen. Movies won't do. Don't even bother- because Helena Kelly presents theory in this way: "then Emma, in Emma wore the pink sash to the ball, and danced this way, what Jane was writing, at this moment in history was incitive of xy an z, which compared to the blue sash Fanny wore in Persuasion, blah blah blah- it's THAT nuanced.

Who knows if this is hyperbole, fact, circumstance, or a combination of it all. But what is fact is the history around Jane Austen, the women and they way they lived and the questions spoken and unspoken in Jane's writing.

It's an excellent read it listen.

Fascinating

This book is wonderful. A great deep dive into the time and social context of Jane Austen herself, her family, and the readers she hoped to have.

I only with the performer hadn’t chosen to change accents during different parts. Otherwise a great read/listen.