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Title: Jane Austen by Carol Shields, Donada Peters ISBN: 0-7366-6815-2 Publisher: Books on Tape Pub. Date: 01 April, 2001 Format: Audio Cassette Volumes: 4 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.45 (11 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Nice to meet you Ms. Austen
Comment: At the begining of this biography, Carol Shields warns us that not enought documents and recollections remain to paint a realistic picture of Jane Austen.
Ms. Shields employs her acute sense of empaphy-- gloriously exhibited in "The Stone Diaries"-- to imagine the author behind "Emma" and "Sense and Sensibility". There is no way to confirm the veracity of Ms. Shields meditation, but it doesn't matter.
If the "Jane Austen" exhibited, in this enthralling member of the Penguin-Lipper "Lives" series, is a character who is purely Carol Shields' creation, she is fascinating: ironic, observant, and razor sharp.
In most books from the "Lives" series, the reader acquires not only an appretiation of the subject matter, but becomes familiar with the personality, open-minded analysis, and ethusiasm of the author.
Carol Shields is a terrific guide through Jane Austen's sensibilities and accomplishments.
Rating: 5
Summary: Ms. Austen I Presume...
Comment: Jane Austen novels bring comfort. As full of issues as they are, there is a comfort in finding oneself immersed in the Romantic era, when securing a "situation" - if you were a woman, that is - was full-time work. Likewise, there is a comfort in reading about Jane Austen's life and work, especially when the author of such an exploration is Carol Shields, a writer who has a good idea of what the novel of manners is all about. Shields opens her work with a brief prologue describing a Jane Austen conference she attended in 1996 in Richmond, Virginia, with her daughter. The pair gave a joint paper on "the politics of the glance" in Austen novels. The preface is useful in clearly establishing Shields' sincere interest in her subject, which nicely frames the somewhat informal work that follows. I use the word informal because Shields writes a fastidious account of Austen's life but quotes no sources and offers no bibliography. Such a treatment is acceptable for the reader interested in gleaning a little more of Austen's life and work. For more demanding readers, there is a credibility issue: surely Shields didn't pull all of her conclusions from memory. Having said this, the account is meant to be largely interpretive. Shields offers her own lively responses to each novel, its characters and its issues, and attempts to tie the works with Austen's personal life. In some instances, these parallels are obvious: for example, the search for husbands for Elinor and Marianne in Sense and Sensibility mirrors her own and sister Cassandra's search. Other times, though, the parallel is lost: Pride and Prejudice, seen by many as Austen's "sunniest" novel, actually mirrors one of the unhappiest periods in her young life. In the end, Shields' analyses are both useful to the Austen scholar and a good introduction for the general reader, giving this volume a kind of easy appeal.
Rating: 3
Summary: Literary criticism and biography in one
Comment: Carol Shields has deftly woven together literary analysis with biography in her reconstruction of the life and times of Jane Austen. Unfortunately I am not familiar enough with her books to fully appreciate this book. A true fan of Austen's works will enjoy this book a great deal I'm sure.
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Title: Charles Dickens: A Penguin Life (Penguin Lives Series) by Jane Smiley ISBN: 0670030775 Publisher: Harry N. Abrams Pub. Date: 09 May, 2002 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Virginia Woolf (Penguin Lives Biographies) by Nigel Nicolson ISBN: 0670894435 Publisher: Viking Books Pub. Date: 01 October, 2000 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Simone Weil (Penguin Lives) by Francine Du Plessix Gray, Francis Du Plessix Gray ISBN: 0670899984 Publisher: Lipper Pub. Date: 25 June, 2001 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: James Joyce: A Penguin Life (Penguin Lives) by Edna O'Brien ISBN: 0670882305 Publisher: Viking Books Pub. Date: 01 November, 1999 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Napoleon: A Penguin Life (Penguin Lives Series.) by Paul Johnson ISBN: 0670030783 Publisher: Viking Books Pub. Date: 09 May, 2002 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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