The Jane Austen Society: A Novel
By: Natalie Jenner / Narrated By: Richard Armitage
Length: 9 hrs and 55 mins
What can I say? I JOYfully deVOURed this in one sitting!!!
First lemme just say that I’d juuuust did a week devoted to All Things Death and Pandemic…
Depressed? Me? Despondent? Me? Curling up in the fetal position, not getting back on emails, feeding the cats late? Meeeee?
Oh holy cow, yes me! That listening had me completely and unutterably wretched and hopeless! Then the idea for an All Things Jane Austen week of listening came, and aaaahhhhh, let the balm sooooothe my soul! The first thing I grabbed was the recently released The Jane Austen Society, and I couldn’t have been more tickled had a feline brushed its whiskers against my armpits.
This audiobook was a delight, and I haaaate to say it, esPECially cuz other reviewers heard the like and were deeply disappointed, but no, reeeally: This totally reminded me of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society. Others could NOT see it, and I canNOT explain it, but both books had the sweetness of post WWII hope, and they both had losses suffered, and they both had healing through friendship. And maaaaybe that’s it, so if you listen to this and you’re disappointed, please accept my sincerest apologies, but I rather felt they both tackled the romance of disparate types of people coming together, blossoming, sharing, enjoying company, discovering solace, all while dealing with traumas that shaped who they thiiiiiink themselves to be.
And by the by? Don’t for even a second expect Jane Austen in the style of writing: This is inspired by those who are much taken by her work, but author Natalie Jenner doesn’t pretend to be writing in an Austenesque manner. This is the story of a few villagers in Chawton, Jane Austen’s last home, starting during WWII, and then taking place mainly after the War’s over.
A laborer who finds comfort from literature discovers the works of Jane Austen when he has a chance encounter with a movie star looking for Jane’s last abode. And then we’re off to the races with a lonely widower doctor who tries his best to take care of all in the village, particularly a young woman newly widowed and soon extra bereaved. There’s a descendant of Jane, living as a recluse and tormented by her ailing and tyrannical father. There’s a stickler of an attorney, charged with making sure all legal matters are handled to a T. There’s a dazzling American movie star, moving past her prime, no longer landing the roles of the ingenue.
These well fleshed-out characters come together by their desire to preserve Jane’s last home, wherein she lived, wrote, and p’raps kept many a personal/sentimental treasures. A young girl, yanked from school due to family misfortune, finds hope and inspiration from within Austen’s old walls, from within the library that she’s painstakingly been cataloguing for years.
What I liked was that there were good and strong male characters (To go with the few TOTAL toads… no offense to toads) who could talk Austen with the best of them. I looove Austen, and I feel greatly aggrieved that my husband has no patience for her works… not even for the dad-blasted movies! So it was a real treat to listen to men reading and re-reading her books, getting something new from each go, and then going on to seek to share.
Fiction? Undoubtedly, but oh how I loved it!
Now let’s get to Richard Armitage as the narrator. At first, upon Pre-Ordering the audiobook, I was just a triiiiifle hesitant. I mean, the man is a fanTAStic actor, and he performed The Chimes by Charles Dickens in a manner that had me engaged and not reeling with nightmares (I swear, you should hear: “Dickens on Dickens” audiobooks—scary!). No problem, right? Wellll, the most recent thing I’d listened to him narrate was The Tattooist of Auschwitz, and that, dear Accomplice, had me exasperated. He brought his acting chops to play with verrrrrry plodding and ponderous narration, the only inflections, really, coming from whenst the main characters scooted off for a furtive shag. Soooo, I was pretty danged unsure how he’d manage this bit of lighter and conceivably more fluffy fare…
NO PROBLEM!!! His narration was spot-on, and he carried women characters just as well as he did the men. And as this was a heartfelt story, he added wondrous and pure emotion, just a bit of zaniness. Really, just all-around a stellar performance. By the time I got to the end, with the many threads coming together, with the Happily Ever After here, the Grit Your Teeth But Live On there, I was feeling light and buoyant and just satisfied down to my toes.
Yeh yeh yeh! So I spent a couple o’ weeks in a Pandemic Head Under the Pillows condition.
It was nothing that a truly wonderful li’l Let’s Save Jane Austen story couldn’t cure!
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