It's I Love Austen Week! Most of the festivities are over on my other blog, Hamlette's Soliloquy, so please check out all the fun stuff going on over there, like the blog tag and the giveaways.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that people look to famous persons for wisdom and advice. We ask actors and actresses for their opinions on every subject imaginable. We want to know what books and movies our political leaders like. We ask athletes for their tips on how to exercise or eat or face challenges. Something about their being famous and successful makes us think they must know a lot, maybe could help us with our own problems.
This probably explains why there are so many books available with titles like Jane Austen's Guide to Dating and Jane Austen's Guide to Good Manners and The Jane Austen Guide to Happily Ever After. I haven't read any of those. However, I *have* read The Jane Austen Guide to Life by Lori Smith, and overall, I quite liked it! I don't usually enjoy "self-help" books or books that try to give you advice on how to make your life better/easier/happier/more-Pinterest-worthy. But this book has no floofy advice about cleansing your inner cupboards or letting go of your fixations or whatever. This book, like Jane Austen herself, is very sensible, helpful, witty, and fun. I did not expect to like it as well as I did. I definitely didn't expect to want to keep it! But I do! I thought that I would quick read this and then give it away, but nope, gotta keep it. Happily, I found a second copy at the used book store, which I'm giving away here, among other things, but my own copy shall remain my own.
The book is broken up into chapters that each deal with a subject, such as "living your dreams" and "finding a good man" and "saving and spending." I really loved that this book delves into what Austen had to say (in fiction and letters) about every aspect of life, not just about love and marriage or becoming a nicer person. From "finding joy and laughter" to "enduring the hardest things," from "seeking fame and success" to "cherishing family and friends," it has something to apply to just about any life. And it does so from a gently Christian perspective, which I appreciated too.
Smith does assume that her readers will be female and unmarried, but I think that men and married people will find plenty to interest, amuse, and teach here. This is a small book, but it does not contain small thoughts.
Above all, I liked it as much for its insights into Austen's books as for the way it sought to apply her ideas to modern life.
Particularly Good Bits:
Austen makes it clear that the expectations of others are not necessarily the best guiding force for your life (p. 7).
...there's another subtler success story woven into the background of each Austen novel: that of a woman coming to know herself, being willing to admit some occasionally great failings, and setting them right (p. 21).
Austen wrote comparatively little about passion and sex, but what we hear from her over the space of the two hundred years separating us is largely a voice of caution and restraint -- perhaps unsurprisingly. We can't draw out any specific dos and don'ts that apply to modern life, but she urges us to use our minds even in this emotion-charged realm and not allow any form of desire to hold supremacy over careful thought (p. 68).
On the road to marriage, Austen's characters love, but they also think -- mainly about their suitor's character and how acceptable or unacceptable his manners and morals are (p. 111).
...she would tell us that embracing life is just that -- that living a joy-filled life alone doesn't mean you are closing yourself off to any possibilities, it simply means that you relish life and its goodness, regardless of marital status, which may or may not change (p. 170).
If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for some discussions of sexuality that are tasteful, but not something for kids.
This is also my second book read and reviewed for the Mount TBR Reading Challenge 2017.
Last month at the book store, I went looking for a book to give our oldest niece, who will turn 13 this summer. She likes to write, and I wanted something to encourage her in that pursuit. I thought this might be just the book, all bright and friendly and cheerful. So I bought it but, being a prudent aunt, I thought I'd better read through it first, to make sure it would be appropriate for her. Which, it turns out, it kind of isn't -- I may just hang onto this for her until she's like 16, if she's still into writing then.
Now, if you're a writer who isn't going to be shocked by the use of the word "vibrator" in the introduction (no descriptions of what it's used for) and the inclusion of an amateur drawing of a partially-topless woman much farther in (drawn by a guest contributor, not by SARK), then you might really like this book. It's vibrant and playful, and most definitely encouraging. I'm on the verge of beginning a new short story, and this helped me gain enthusiasm to be bold and truly begin it, not keep putting it off.
I really dug SARK's quirky, almost child-like style, with every page hand-written and hand-drawn. This is from my favorite page in this book:
I need to print that out and paste it above my writing space. Too often, I feel like I need to wait until everything is perfect before I write (I'm talking about fiction here, not blogging -- I blog in stolen moments throughout the day, which SARK calls "micro-movement"), but for first drafts especially, I need to concentrate on getting the story down on paper and not worry so much about whether I'm wasting time or doing "valuable" writing.
SARK's advice is a little more touchy-feely than some might appreciate, and gets a little humanistic in places ("good is within everyone," "everyone is capable of creativity," that sort of thing). But if you want a jolt of creative juiciness, you might want to try this out.
If This Was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for the aforementioned inclusion of the word "vibrator" and a non-salacious sketch of a semi-nude woman, and also for non-detailed references to a child being abused.
I would never have read The Happiness Project if it hadn't been for Danielle at the WXROZ blog. She picked it for her blog's book club, and I've never belonged to a book club, so I thought that might be a fun way to try one out, one where I didn't have to attend meetings, lol. So anyway, if you want to join us and discuss this book too, go here. You can read our chapter-by-chapter comments there, and respond yourself if you're reading this.
I'll just do a quick review here, then, and mention a few of the things I found helpful or enlightening.
Gretchen Rubin decided she wanted to be happier, and she set about learning about happiness and creating a detailed regimen for changing things in her life. She figured that, by being happier herself, she would boost the happiness of those around her, especially her husband and two young daughters. She admits that spending so much time on her own happiness felt a little selfish, and there were times when I did think she was kinda self-absorbed. But she seemed to spend a lot of time and energy sharing her findings to help others be happy too, so good for her.
I don't know that I've read any self-help books since my freshman year of college. I didn't care for the ones I read, and I'm not dissatisfied with anything to the extent that I'd seek the advice of strangers. I've read a couple books on parenting by Dr. James Dobson, but that's as close as I've come. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find some helpful ideas in this book.
One thing that she suggested was, when you find a little task that would take less than a minute, don't put it off. I've started doing that, saying to myself, "Will this take less than a minute? Then do it!" My house is less messy as a result. I put away the shoes on the floor or change out the dirty towel, rather than say, "Oh, I don't have time." She also suggested making an effort to smile more, especially when talking to people. I've tried that for three days now, particularly when interacting with my kids, and I feel like I've been nicer and less irritable.
Rubin also talked about her collection of True Rules -- an "idiosyncratic collection of principles" (pg. 241) -- that she has used all her life to respond to various situations. She realized some were more helpful than others, and tried to stop using unhelpful ones. I'm trying to figure out what my own True Rules are, and maybe I'll post them here some time, just for fun. Rubin's were things like, "I know as much as most people" and "Never eat hors d'oeuvres, and never eat anything at a children's party." (pg. 241) Mine are very different, but the idea is the same -- little sayings I use to respond to things, mentally, as ways to get through things.
So, anyway, I'm glad I read this book because it had some good ideas, but I'm not inspired to start my own Happiness Project.
Particularly Good Bits:
"Whatever love I might feel in my heart, others will see only my actions." (pg. 55)
"Although enthusiasm seems easy and undiscriminating, in fact, it's much harder to embrace something than to disdain it. It's riskier." (pg. 268)
"A willingness to be pleased requires modesty and even innocence -- easy to deride as mawkish and sentimental." (pg. 269)
