"THE JANE AUSTEN BOOK CLUB" by Karen Joy Fowler (B-)

Karen Joy Fowler has achieved considerable success with this novel about five women and a lone male who meet at a book club in California's Central Valley. This group is organized solely around the discussion of the six Jane Austen novels, and Fowler constructs the story so that each of the six match up with a different Austen novel.

This book has now been made into a movie which will be released during the third week of September, 2007. There is an old Hollywood aphorism that says that while great books rarely make great movies, mediocre books can often be improved upon when placed on the silver screen. This novel may be a sterling example of that old saw.

In spite of its critical acclaim, I am considerably less entranced by Fowler's "novel," since for me it fails the very definition of being one. The cover can state that it is a novel, but that doesn't make it so. What it really is is a series of vignettes, a series of biographical short stories. Each of the six characters is presented in considerable detail by Fowler through Jocelyn, her literary alter ego, who offers extended commentary about their childhood and high school years. They are each then analyzed as adults in their turn, which raises the expectation that all of this analysis will come to something.

To give Fowler her due, she is a talented writer who makes witty, trenchant observations about her characters. They are usually entertaining, especially when they verge on being catty. This book started out as a very fine read until I grew more and more frustrated when I began to suspect and then despair of the fact that it was ever going to go anywhere.

My personal definition of a novel is that it must be a story that starts somewhere and goes someplace involving the characters as it moves through time. The characters must interact more than just existing together in the same place at the same time. There has to be a purpose to it all other than the static concept of a book club just for the sake of having a book club discussion.

My wife, an inveterate reader, refuses to read this book due to my lackluster recommendation. However, she and I have had an animated discussion, perhaps even an argument, about what constitutes a novel. She maintains that this is an acceptable literary structure, and mentions that "The Joy Luck Club" (also made into a movie) follows a similar literary style.

However, I strongly disagree with her. Fowler's book utterly fails at meeting my definition of a novel. Yes, the six all meet at the book club, but other than minor interactions, little happens. Old friends remain old friends and new friends remain new friends. There is little or no change in the dynamics of their relationships.

I am a confirmed "Janeite," which is to say that I consider Jane Austen to be one of the finest novelists of our Western civilization. Her perceptions are razor sharp and her analysis of the foibles of human nature are right on. How else can we explain the fact that her writings never go out of style? Her novels are as relevant today as they were 200 years ago. Quote me if you can one other author besides Shakespeare who exists in this same league.

This book is mainly a Jane Austen love fest, which is fine by me, but it reads more like a master's dissertation on Austen. To buttress this point I need merely mention the fact that the final 35 or so pages of this book quote criticism of Austen's works by other personages, many of them famous authors, which have come out in the two centuries since her books were published.

Many authors of note have been called upon to critique Austen as a writer. Most of these criticisms have been duly admiring, but others less so. The oddest of these quotes comes from Mark Twain in a violent little diatribe that possibly displays marks of misogyny and chauvinism. Loving Austen as I do, I found these 35 pages to be the most interesting part of Fowler's book. It is a deeply appreciated research project, but it adds nothing to the story and it will no doubt be left out of the movie.

Jocelyn is the Alpha Female of the book club as its organizer and the one who has sole discretion to select the other members. Never married, she is now a woman of an uncertain age who devotes her life to raising Rhodesian Ridgebacks for love and for show. She personifies Austen's "Emma" as an unmarried woman of some means who delights in setting others up.

Bernadette is the oldest woman in the group at sixty-seven. She has just reached that point in her life where she is content with her body as it is and is now "officially letting herself go." The other women envy her for this. She is a kindhearted person who will express her views in private, but will never offer a cross word to anyone to their face. Her favorite Austen book is "Pride and Prejudice."

Jocelyn's oldest friend is Sylvia, who she had first met at a summer camp and later the two were delighted to find themselves together in the same high school. They were inseparable throughout school even after Sylvia ended up stealing Daniel, Jocelyn's boyfriend at the time. Sylvia and Daniel later married and became the parents of three children. Now Sylvia is miserable because Daniel has left her and Jocelyn wonders what the meaning of it all is after winning only to lose the man you love. This only confirms the wisdom of her decision to go through life alone. "Persuasion" ends up being the appropriate selection for discussion when Sylvia hosts the book club.

Allegra is one of Sylvia's children and her only daughter. Now 30 years of age, Allegra had been the long time focal point of Jocelyn's misguided attentions to fix her up with a suitable young man until it was pointed out to her that everyone else had known for years that Allegra is a lesbian. In spite of her sexual orientation, Allegra is no better than the others with her relationships. She is suffering through a rough spot with her partner, Corinne, a writer who is experiencing writer's block and maybe other problems. Allegra is a woman of some passion, so she settles on "Sense and Sensibility" as her Austen selection.

Prudie is the intellect and the other true Austen devotee besides Jocelyn. A high school teacher, she is fluent in French and occasionally resorts to using French phrases in her conversations. The others could find this pretentious, but they forgive her because she is otherwise so genuine. She is the youngest of the group at age 28 and she is the only one in a stable relationship with her husband, Dean. Prudie's favorite novel is "Persuasion," the darkest of the Austen novels with its themes of love long delayed, perhaps even lost, as well as the loss of life. However, she settles on "Mansfield Park" as her book club selection.

Much to the shock and consternation of the others, Jocelyn invites a male, Grigg, to join the group. Grigg is a 40 year old unmarried man who works in the software industry, and everyone else wonders if Jocelyn has ulterior motives. She had met him at a dog show convention, but it turned out that he was merely in the same hotel attending a convention of science fiction fanatics. Grigg is somewhat shy and socially backward, but he has two loving sisters who are devoted to his interests.

Grigg has never read Austen and he shows up with a brand new compendium of Austen's complete works. The others mark him down as a literary troglodyte for not having aged copies of Austen novels with suitably dog-eared pages and loose bindings. His reading proclivities lead him to select "Northanger Abbey" as his Austen book for discussion with its Gothic themes and over the top story.

In a final epilogue after the epilogue after a story where nothing happens, Fowler offers a small synopsis of each novel along with discussion points that each of us might bring up should we wish to form Austen book clubs on our own. Nice, but hardly necessary for those of us who have already read all of her books and can think for ourselves.

The movie for this novel will doubtless be a weepy chick flick which will send most men screaming out of the theater. 2004, G. Putnam's Sons, 288 pages.