Fay Weldon on Jane Austen

Fay Weldon, I read with interest, was a copywriter or was in advertising, anyway. So was I but that was a long time back. Somehow I am attracted to books by writers who were once copywriters- Elmore Leonard and others. It makes me feel good for no reason.

So it is with a copywriter’s deep perception (?) that Fay Weldon writes about Jane Austen’s life and writing, in her book ‘Letters to Alice’ that I had picked up from Abids sometime last month. As the title suggests, the book is a sort of compilation of letters (sixteen of them) by the author to a fictional niece, in which Weldon writes about the life and times of Jane Austen. The sub-title of the book is ‘On First Reading Jane Austen.’ Her admiration for Jane Austen is very obvious in the way she persuades Alice to read Austen’s books.

In a couple of the letter-chapters Weldon writes about the period in England when Jane Austen lived. She wrote that it was a difficult time for people with medicine yet to advance, hunger and deprivation staring at the faces of the poor. It was in such trying times that Jane Austen wrote her perceptive novels. The descriptions in the book bring to life the England back in that period.

Jane Austen was born on December 16, by the way, in a family usually described as belonging to the gentry which is a class of people below the nobility but a little above the new professional classes like doctors, attorneys etc., who lived off inherited wealth, and had servants. It is an interesting as well as an entertaining book for everyone who loves Jane Austen’s writing. I guess there are many who love her books and I plan to join the gang by reading ‘Emma’ the day I find it.

Thrown in are many observations the pleasures of books, reading, about writing and the writing life:

For many, if life provides uninterrupted leisure for writing, the urge to write shrivels up. Writing, after all, is part of life, an overflow from it. Take away life and you take away writing.

Writers were never meant to be professionals. Writing is not a profession, it is an activity, an essentially amateur occupation. It is what you do when you are not living.
(This is food for thought for all those who call themselves ‘professional writers.’)

There are a couple of rules about writing Weldon writes about. One of them is: ‘Show your work to no one, not to friend, nor spouse, nor anyone.’

I guess this has me thinking about my own book. To show or not to show?