Is it alright for men to read Jane Austen?

[hitmouse]

I suppose that I was just putting out feelers as to whether Jane Austen amongst others was suitable reading for men. Of course women do read military and thrillers, and I wouldn't stop them doing so.

My viewing is traversing in the same direction. I was watching films and found myself shaking and frightened, which seems not to be normal.

So I am now watching and reading gentle stuff and feel very much more relaxed.

Please feel free to comment and recommend other authors that may suit my current mind.

Ian,
To reassure you: if you read JA you are not going soft or lacking in the manliness department. JA is just great fiction. Despite appearances it is not soppy romances at all. This is witty, acerbic, and very clever social comedy. Despite its period setting and style it is surprisingly fresh

 

[Jo Zebedee]

But soppy romances are also okay to read, whatever gender you might be. Read what you want to read. Don’t read what you don’t. But none of this is about gender (although marketing plays its role)

In fact calling them ‘soppy’ does a great disservice to the romance genre and those who like to read it. Lots of great stories in there.

 

[nixie]

jeepers we have some wide interpretations of Austen. Mundane isn’t a word I would ever associate with her.
Ian, no reading order as her books are mostly standalone but Emma or Pride and Prejudice are both very accesssible.
as to your original question - I have been known to read (and Write elements of) military sci fi which is marketed at men. What would you advise me if it wondered if I should be?

I'd slap some sense into you.
You know my preferred reading material, the majority could be classed as being aimed at males.

 

[Toby Frost]

I had to read Persuasion at school and found it incredibly dull, but I'm very much a believer in "each to his own" so go ahead.

 

[Droflet]

I'd slap some sense into you.
You know my preferred reading material, the majority could be classed as being aimed at males.

I'd pay good money to see you try.

 

[nixie]

I'd pay good money to see you try.

Wouldn't be a problem, she knows it would be for her own good.

 

[Brian G Turner]

So I am now watching and reading gentle stuff and feel very much more relaxed.

When I needed to do that recently I re-read old favorites I knew I should be fine with.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I'd pay good money to see you try.

I have no doubt whatsoever that Nixie would be much scarier than me. Like, no doubt. I'm a pussy cat really.

 

[hitmouse]

But soppy romances are also okay to read, whatever gender you might be. Read what you want to read. Don’t read what you don’t. But none of this is about gender (although marketing plays its role)

In fact calling them ‘soppy’ does a great disservice to the romance genre and those who like to read it. Lots of great stories in there.

You are quite correct. Romances are not my thing in general but there is nothing at all wrong with them.

 

[Vladd67]

I recently read a western and it was only half way through that I twigged it was actually a romance story between the young struggling widow and the reserved sheriff.

 

[Phyrebrat]

I came here to say something colourful but Peat’s response upthread would make that redundant

I’ve sat on the tube everyday for ten years and seen adults reading that Potter brat, grown men with Star Wars books, Classic literature and whatnot.

It never occurred to me to do anything other than crane my neck at awkward angles so I could neb to see what they were reading. (I get obsessed with seeing what others are reading on the tube for some reason).

People with Kindles, however, are killjoys to this pastime. So if you’re worried, get an e-reader and no one but you and your inner judge will know what you’re reading...

pH

 

[Matteo]

That said, Wuthering Heights kicks Austen’s butt!

Err...I think that's a whole other kind of book!

 

[Extollager]

It's the mundane being confronted with the fantastic. Austen is associated with the mundane.

"Mundane"! This took me back 50 years to early faanish days, when my best friend, more experienced with fandom than I, introduced me to the fen vs. mundanes division of humanity. You could have friends whom you liked a lot and spent much time with, but, if they weren't sff fans, they were mundanes, though you wouldn't say so to their faces but only in communication with fen. Similarly, I suppose there was sff and there was "mundane" literature, which could include things as different as Pride and Prejudice and Don Quixote and The Bourne Identity and Under the Volcano, etc etc.

One had to navigate the faanish world and perhaps hold a job in mundanity.

.....Just now I checked my 1979 Mirage Press facsimile of the 1959 Fancyclopedia II. I found:

MUNDANE Non-fannish. Pertaining to the Outside World.

So that usage goes back at least to 1959!

 

[Randy M.]

"Mundane"! This took me back 50 years to early faanish days, when my best friend, more experienced with fandom than I, introduced me to the fen vs. mundanes division of humanity. You could have friends whom you liked a lot and spent much time with, but, if they weren't sff fans, they were mundanes, though you wouldn't say so to their faces but only in communication with fen. Similarly, I suppose there was sff and there was "mundane" literature, which could include things as different as Pride and Prejudice and Don Quixote and The Bourne Identity and Under the Volcano, etc etc.
[...]

Kirk: Oh the collected works of Jacqueline Susann. The novels of Harold Robbins...
Spock: Ah, the "Giants".

 

[Randy M.]

As I get older I realise that thrillers and action paced books don't interest me anymore. That is why I seem to like Jane Austen novels, however is it really okay for men to read what is potentially a female type of book.

I would love to know what you think whether you are male or female.

I'm also considering reading the Bronte sisters and other female writers.

A somewhat more serious reply:

I've only read Emma. I found it boring and too long, but then I was only in my late teens and the more I think about it, not especially bright about literature. I might get on with it better today.

Place Austen in context, though, and she did something remarkable. Somewhat after Austen came Hawthorne's contemptuous and probably envious remarks about "damned scribbling women", but that pretty much reflects the views of literary establishment of the 19th century to the writings of women. Austen, in spite of a strongly patriarchal society in which the accomplishments of women were ignored when not belittled, produced several novels that became deemed "classic." And at least some of that renown and respect was at the time she was writing. Think about how good at your art you have to be when the entire cultural and social establishment is stacked against you.

So, yes, if you want to read Austen by all means do. And I highly recommend Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre, and if you're a sucker for Gothic like I am, try Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier. And if that's not enough, I would vouch for Adam Bede by George Eliot as a kind of palate cleanser for the Gothic.

 

[AE35Unit]

Of course it is, but I wouldn't want to

 

[KGeo777]

MUNDANE Non-fannish. Pertaining to the Outside World.

So that usage goes back at least to 1959!

I know it has been associated with fandom terminology (and used as some kind of insult?) but I wasn't using it in that way. I am pretty sure most people don't associate her with fantasy or adventure. If they did, there would be no humor in the mashup title.

 

[Extollager]

---Somewhat after Austen came Hawthorne's contemptuous and probably envious remarks about "damned scribbling women", but that pretty much reflects the views of literary establishment of the 19th century to the writings of women. Austen, in spite of a strongly patriarchal society in which the accomplishments of women were ignored when not belittled, produced several novels that became deemed "classic." And at least some of that renown and respect was at the time she was writing. Think about how good at your art you have to be when the entire cultural and social establishment is stacked against you.---

That's the received wisdom about the situation of women then, but from my reading of contemporary sources I think it's dubious, though not as false as the "fact" that everyone "knows" about how Scholastic theologians debated the number of angels that could dance on the head of a pin, or the "nine million" witches burnt at the stake, etc etc. I'm sure there were men who didn't think it was really women's business to write books (the worst example I know is Robert Southey's letter to Charlotte Bronte -- and yet Southey was not a horrible man; I've actually read a thick selection of his letters...). But the generalization here seems to me likely to be serving the purposes of 20th- and 21st-century folks rather than objectively stating the facts. After all, women were published, they could become literary celebrities, and so on. I hope I haven't violated Chrons policy by mentioning a matter of controversy, and that's as far as I will take this.

Reception history of Jane Austen - Wikipedia

 

[Ian Fortytwo]

In under 24 hours I have learnt quite a lot about woman authors especially Jane Austen, and quite a few more. Once again thank you.

Jane Austen.
Bronte sisters.
George Eliot.
Georgette Heyer.

Another author I discovered is,

Katherine Mansfield.

 

[Extollager]

Ian, your last message reminds me of an anecdote I like to tell against myself. I was teaching a course on British novels and one of the assigned books was Elizabeth Gaskell's Wives and Daughters. One of the students was a gruff-voiced, husky fellow, a bit older than the average student, who worked, I knew, at a dusty, rodent-beset seed plant downtown. He was a likeable guy but I supposed he might find Gaskell's long domestic story unappealing. In fact, the way I remember it these years later is that he loved it! So I got caught with my Assumptions showing.