Review: Wild for Austen: A Rebellious, Subversive, and Untamed Jane (by Devoney Looser)

My Rating:  4 stars

My celebration of Jane Austen’s 250^th birthday continues with more Austen-centered books.  This time around, I chose to read the newest essay collection from Austen scholar Devoney Looser (whose Great Courses on Austen is also worth checking out).  Those of us who have studied Austen in any capacity are probably familiar with her family’s (specifically her brother Henry Austen and her nephew James Edward Austen Leigh) attempts to paint Austen as a quiet, timid, submissive woman who “never uttered either a hasty, a silly, or a severe expression” – a “myth” that many Austen scholars have “debunked” over the years through close study of Austen’s own words (as relayed through her surviving letters) as well as her various works of both fiction and nonfiction.  Looser’s latest book – also a tribute to Austen’s 250^th birthday -- is another worthwhile attempt to debunk the “Jane Austen as a quiet spinster” myth.  The title of Looser’s book says it all – through a deeply researched exploration of various aspects of Austen’s life (and writings), Looser sets out to show the “wild side” of the beloved author while at the same time, demonstrate why so many of us continue to be “wild for Austen” in a legacy that has lasted for more than two centuries.

The book is divided into 3 sections, with part I covering pretty much all of Austen’s writing, from the Juvenilia of her teenage years to her six completed novels, as well as her two uncompleted novels (fragments) and beyond – Looser even includes excerpts from Austen’s letters and some poems she wrote (the latter of which doesn’t get usually much coverage even among the most ardent of Austen aficionados).  Part II explores the Austen family’s “wild connections,” or what Looser states in her Introduction as “the relatives, neighbors, and friends who brought her close to wild adventures, experiences, fortunes, and misfortunes.”  Part III is perhaps the most interesting in that it explores Jane Austen’s legacy and fandom – the “people who’ve gone wild over her after her death, especially those who created new uses for and versions of her powerful stories.”  I found this last section quite fascinating, especially the chapter on the P&P adaptations that didn’t end up happening (not necessarily a bad thing, to be honest) as well as some of the stories about Austen’s various “afterlives” – the good, the bad, the ugly, and the weird(?) – several of which were truly “wild.”

As a Jane Austen fan, I definitely enjoyed this book.  Further though, I appreciate Devoney Looser’s take on Austen’s legacy and the necessity of finding the right balance in both how we approach her works and how we view Austen the author.  This quote from Looser’s concluding chapter I feel illustrates this point best: “By jettisoning the idea of [Austen] as perfect, timeless, or universal, we also allow ourselves to see the ways in which her outsized influence and popularity have done good for some but may also have caused harm to others…I believe those of us who say we love her owe it to her, to ourselves, and to those who say they’ve been harmed in some way by her books or their legacy to look more deeply at the full range of effects they’ve had, past and present.”  Sound advice that could apply not just to Austen, but also any other author or public figure essentially.