This year marks the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth, an event that is being celebrated by so-called Jane-ites around the world. At the iconic Strand Book Store in New York City last week, authors Jennifer Egan, Brandon Taylor, and Adelle Waldman, along with publisher Vintage, gathered with 150 hardcore Austen fans to sip tea and exchange tidbits about their experiences reading and rereading Austen’s six major novels: Sense and Sensibility, Emma, Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion, Mansfield Park, and Northanger Abbey. There was a heated discussion among the writers on the stage as to which of the novels was their personal favorite and why, and a general feeling of camaraderie among those in the room, a community of Austen nerds brought together by their passion for an early-19th-century writer whose work often explores motifs related to love, but also disappointment, loneliness, and isolation.
Austen never married and spent many hours of her short life alone at her writing table, creating the indelible characters so many of us have fallen hard for. And yet by all accounts, Austen wasn’t lonely. She was part of a close-knit family, and her sister was her lifelong companion and confidante. Like many of her protagonists, she frequently attended balls, dinners, and other gatherings. Her wit is razor sharp. I can picture her quietly laughing while writing quips, while fashioning the social satires that entertain us still.
Since Anand and I spoke with Kiran Desai ten days or so ago about her brilliant novel, The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, I’ve thought a lot about how much time writers spend alone at their version of Austen’s writing table, crafting stories and conjuring heroes and heroines that bring us joy and fill us with empathy. Desai shared with us that her new novel was twenty years in the making. She began with loneliness as a theme, and journaled, took notes, stored memories and observations, wrote some 5,000 pages, and then pared down. Eventually, the book began to take shape. She spent many hours alone over the course of those years, often, she told us, as if on a magical desert island with her characters. Her characters kept her company, as if real.
So many writers I’ve had the chance to speak with over the years say something similar. In many cases, their protagonists come to them in a flash, as if through divine intervention, as happened when the titular character of Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge suddenly appeared over Strout’s shoulder while she was loading the dishwasher, “fully formed, a large older woman” waiting impatiently for people to leave her son’s wedding. Olive was thinking, Strout recalls, “It’s really high time everyone left.” Technically, Strout was alone in that kitchen, but in Olive she found a kind of writing partner. Like Desai, Strout drew her characters from her imagination, whereas Jane Austen’s seemed to have sprung from her social interactions and observations. However these literary miracles occur, let them reign!
