He writes a popular column on fiction for the Guardian, and has served as a judge for the Man Booker Prize. ans will appreciate the clarity and perspective Mullan brings to a beloved authors works.Library JournalĪbout the AuthorJohn Mullan is a professor in the English department at University College London and the author of How Novels Work. Mullans intent is to reveal Austens cleverness and revolutionary approach, and he succeeds, deftly sharing with readers his enthusiasm and knowledge gleaned from Austen scholarship in this enjoyable read. Mullans close reading will provide serious fans with plenty of new insights for the next time they pick up one of Austens books.Booklist Publishers WeeklyA box of 20 literary chocolates for Austen fans to savor.-Kirkus What Matters in Jane Austen? is a model of clarity, verve, and perception"-Literary Reviewĭelightful Mullans humorous guidebook encourages first-time Austen readers to pick up her novels and lovers of Austen to re-read for new details. Such is the quality and incisiveness of Mullans critical engagement with Austen that the only thing to regret about his book is that there isnt more of it. His work is essayistic and briskly compendious, but as a whole the book also builds up to a satisfying conclusionone that acknowledges Austens capacity to bestow on her characters lives all of their own, as if she were observing. Whether the topic is age, sex, death, money, illness, holidays, accidents, the weather or marriage proposals, Austens reticence has seldom been handled with such delicate precision.
It uses telling passages from Austen's letters and details from her own life to explain episodes in her novels: readers will find out, for example, what novels she read, how much money she had to live on, and what she saw at the theater.Written with flair and based on a lifetime's study, What Matters in Jane Austen? will allow readers to appreciate Jane Austen's work in greater depth than ever before. What Matters in Jane Austen? illuminates the rituals and conventions of her fictional world in order to reveal her technical virtuosity and daring as a novelist. Readers will discover when Austen's characters had their meals and what shops they went to how vicars got good livings and how wealth was inherited. In twenty short chapters, each of which explores a question prompted by Austens novels, Mullan illuminates the themes that matter most in her beloved fiction. Asking and answering some very specific questions about what goes on in her novels, he reveals the inner workings of their greatness. “Which important Austen characters never speak? Is there any sex in Austen? What do the characters call one another, and why? What are the right and wrong ways to propose marriage? In What Matters in Jane Austen?, John Mullan shows that we can best appreciate Austen's brilliance by looking at the intriguing quirks and intricacies of her fiction.
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