Jane Made Me Do It

I just finished reading an anthology of short stories called Jane Austen Made Me Do It, edited by Laurel Ann Nattress and published back in 2011. The 22 short stories collected here share the premise of being about Jane Austen, or her works, or her family, or inspired by her somehow. Some succeed brilliantly. Some are merely good. Some are awful. All would benefit from a courtroom scene imagined in the final tale in the book, in which they are judged against a standard of “intolerable stupidity.” I’m putting myself in the position of the judge, and there is no jury here.

1. “Jane Austen’s Nightmare” by Syrie James is a fun imagining of a dream in which most of Jane Austen’s fictional characters are unhappy with her giving them all unpleasant character traits. Her only characters who are happy are the four main lovers from Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth and Darcy, and Jane and Bingley. That they overlook their character faults and that the story fails to plumb the issue of Jane Austen’s highly satiric view of the inconsistency and silliness of almost everybody is the only drawback to the story. 
2. Jane Odiwe’s “Waiting” continues the story of Persuasion through Capt. Wentworth’s interview with Anne’s father, informing the other members of the family and detailing their reactions, and a flashback to how the pair fell in love eight years before. The current scenes have little point to them; no further character developments occur, no new information is added to our understanding of anybody. The flashback has serious problems in that it is overly sentimental with almost cringe-making scenes, and it skips the details that would have added understanding to what sort of person Anne was in those days. 
3. “A Night at Northanger” by Lauren Willig is a modern tale with a wicked sense of humor as the ghost of Jane Austen firmly disapproves the antics of a television ghost-hunting crew who create all sorts of special effects but are totally unprepared for the real thing. The tone is pitch-perfect as the spectral author advises young Cate on romance. 
4. Stephanie Barron’s “Jane and the Gentleman Rogue” adds an episode to her series of Jane-as-sleuth novels, set between Jane and the Wandering Eye and Jane and the Genius of the Place. Lord Harold Trowbridge, secretly a government agent, is on the track of a beautiful opera singer who is working for the French. He enlists Jane to help him recover a crucial paper that must not fall into French hands. Stephanie Barron remains one of the few who can closely mimic the real Jane Austen’s voice in print. 
5. “Faux Jane” by F.J. Meier is a witty modern romp through Jane Austen forgeries and con artists, with the sly invoking of the Nick and Nora Charles Thin Man movies of the 1930s, using the names: Charles and Nicola, their dog Nora, and Charles’s restaurant, ASTA. Charles comes from a con artist family, so he’s in the position to spot the con and use his family contacts to put things right in a somewhat dubious but satisfying way. The naming fun extends to the targets of the con: famous Austen actress Anne Elliott and her English lover, Lord Pemberley (whose name at one point changes to Pemberton, I think accidentally). 
6. Monica Fairview’s “Nothing Less Than Fairy-land” might have a silly title, but the tone is spot on Emma, and Fairview provides intriguing possibilities for the development of Emma’s characters as this continuation of the story shows Mr. George Knightly in the process of moving into Hartfield. There are difficulties galore, all perfectly plausible and all providing intelligent development. 
7. “Love and Best Wishes, Aunt Jane” by Adriana Trigiani fails to achieve anything like Jane Austen’s voice in a letter to a niece who has just become engaged. It fails on two levels. The first is that it is supposed to be Jane Austen, but she is supposed to have lived 200 years later and yet be the same novelist. This leads to strange anachronisms. The second failure is that nothing here is witty or satirical; all is saccharine and insipid. 
8. “Jane Austen and the Mistletoe Kiss” by Jo Beverley is misleadingly titled. This is the romance of a fictional widow newly moved to Chawton about 1816, and when the protagonist briefly meets Jane and Cassandra Austen, Jane chances to remark on the Christmas tradition of kissing beneath a mistletoe bough to discover one’s true love. (Gag.) Hence the title. The story involves the widow and her 16-year-old daughter and which of the two will win the heart of the local fictional nobleman. Cringe making on several levels and especially in the details. Ick. (If only the author had chosen to channel Lady Susan and make the mother utterly wicked and charming!) 
9. “When Only a Darcy Will Do” by Beth Pattillo puts her heroine into Regency costume as a way of luring tourists to her “bootleg Jane Austen tour” in London so that she can earn money for her next college term. The appearance of a Regency-costumed gentleman to take her tour provides the intrigue, humor, and character unfolding. Good presentation of possible romance. 
10. Margaret C Sullivan’s “Heard of You” is framed as a continuation of the Persuasion story. It’s a flashback tale told by Frederick Wentworth to his new wife, Anne Elliott, about how he ended up introducing his sister, Sophie, to Admiral Croft, who was his Captain at the time. It’s done well even with the element of predestination that is always extremely tricky to pull off, not to mention that Wentworth is quoting his letters throughout the tale without it being obvious. 
11. Elizabeth Aston’s modern tale “The Ghostwriter” is hugely fun and witty. A young author’s lover has just left her, fed up with her Mr. Darcy obsession, and to make matters worse, the author’s last three novels have been rejected and her agent is threatening to drop her. Enter the ghost of Jane Austen at her most acerbic to set this young woman straight. The solution is problematic, which mars an otherwise excellent setup. 
12. In Amanda Grange’s “Mr Bennet Meets His Match,” the author has set herself the most delicate of tasks, of rendering a plausible explanation of how silly, shallow, but pretty Miss Gardiner succeeded in getting shy, serious, bookish young Mr Bennet to propose to her. It almost works, but Miss Gardiner does not seem quite the same character as Mrs Bennet of Pride and Prejudice. The parents of Mr William Collins appear and are wonderfully terrible. 
13. In Janet Mullany’s “Jane Austen, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah!” a young teacher in the 1960s reaches three students in her detention class by comparing Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility characters to each of the Beatles. It’s an offbeat, but successful tactic. There are plenty of amusing lines in this story. 
14. Maya Slater adopts Maria Lucas’s voice in “Letters to Lydia,” in order to tell certain events of Pride and Prejudice from that young lady’s viewpoint. It’s amusing and effective. 
15. “The Mysterious Closet: A Tale” by Myretta Robens draws on both Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey and The Mysteries of Udolfo by Mrs Radcliffe for the setup of the mysterious room and its contents and the hero/ghost, but it fails to deliver either the fright or the fun of either original, and it does nothing to skewer the genre like Jane Austen’s story does. It included too many ick-factors to work. 
16. In Diana Birchall’s “Jane Austen’s Cat,” the setting is Chawton Cottage, and Jane Austen herself entertains her young niece Caroline by retelling her tales with the characters as cats. The Austen nieces Fanny and Anna also feature, and Jane herself has a strong allergy to cats that adds to the fun. This all provides the author with the chance to offer interesting interpretations of Jane Austen’s work. The characters are realistic and well done. 
17. Alexandra Potter’s “Me and Mr. Darcy, Again . . .” is a sequel to Potter’s own novel in which the supernatural apparition of Mr. Darcy helps a young American woman resolve romantic issues. This short story has the heroine back, having had a major fight with the hero of the novel. She’s with a very funny sidekick who provides a lot of the humor and entertainment in this story. Otherwise, it’s a little too weird and too smarmy for me. Exhibit A, this quote: “I feel as if I’ve been dipped in melted happiness.” Ick. 
18. “What Would Austen Do?” by Jane Rubino and Caitlen Rubino-Bradway has 14-year-old James Austen solve high-school identity politics by becoming a major Janeite after being tricked into a summer Regency Dance class. While the premise is cute and the hero engaging, his heavy use of 2010-era slang is already making the story feel curiously dated. But I liked it very much. 
19. “The Riding Habit” by Pamela Aiden is almost mean. It’s a sequel to Pride and Prejudice in which a fearful Elizabeth Darcy is pressured into learning to ride a horse in Hyde Park. She’s meant to be courageous and overcome all obstacles, figurative and literal, but I didn’t like it. That plot is set against Elizabeth’s fears about planning Georgiana’s coming-out ball; Elizabeth has had time to realize the truth of Lady Catherine de Bourgh’s warnings about how ill-fitted Elizabeth was for taking a place in snobby London society. Darcy’s solution is that Elizabeth should consult another of his aunts, Aunt Matlock, who is supposed to be an expert at these things. And that is the end. Not a real resolution at all. 
20. “The Love Letter” by Brenna Aubrey is an inventive use of Persuasion in a modern setting. The page with Captain Wentworth’s letter to Anne Elliott is torn out of the book and sent anonymously to the hero of this story in order to get him to look again at an old romance he thinks is dead. Of course it isn’t after all. Well done, and deserving of the contest prize of being included in this anthology.
21. “The Chase” by Carrie Bebris is one of the most skillful stories in this book. She tells the true-life tale of how Captain Frank Austen, one of Jane’s brothers, captured no fewer than five French warships in one day of patrolling the Mediterranean Sea in 1800. This is written in limited 3rd-person from Frank’s point of view, and it is a great story. 
22. “Intolerable Stupidity” by Laurie Viera Rigler is the final entry, and its premise is a hoot. In a mysterious courtroom presided over by Judge Lady Catherine de Bourgh, the literary trial of a certain segment of Jane Austen Fan Fiction is about to begin. The opposing counsel are secretly attracted to one another, the judge is far from impartial, and the chief witness, Mr. Darcy, is difficult to see because his features are in constant flux due to different descriptions and actors, and he is constantly being doused by female fans with buckets of water that soak his thin white shirt and leave him shivering. Should fan fiction be allowed to thus tamper with the original characters? This is either an indictment or an endorsement of the stories in this collection. I disagreed with the final verdict. It needed more nuance, which I shall provide myself! 

“Intolerable stupidity!”
(Photo Credit: PBS)

My verdict: Eight stories are good, five are very good, and two are brilliant. This anthology is worth keeping if one avoids the five not-so-very-good stories and glues together the pages of the two that are awful.