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    A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, and the Things That Really Matter
    Unavailable
    A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, and the Things That Really Matter
    Unavailable
    A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, and the Things That Really Matter
    Audiobook7 hours

    A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, and the Things That Really Matter

    Written by William Deresiewicz

    Narrated by Sean Pratt

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    An eloquent memoir of a young man's life transformed by literature.

    In A Jane Austen Education, Austen scholar William Deresiewicz turns to the author's novels to reveal the remarkable life lessons hidden within. With humor and candor, Deresiewicz employs his own experiences to demonstrate the enduring power of Austen's teachings. Progressing from his days as an immature student to a happily married man, Deresiewicz's A Jane Austen Education is the story of one man's discovery of the world outside himself.

    A self-styled intellectual rebel dedicated to writers such as James Joyce and Joseph Conrad, Deresiewicz never thought Austen's novels would have anything to offer him. But when he was assigned to read Emma as a graduate student at Columbia, something extraordinary happened. Austen's devotion to the everyday, and her belief in the value of ordinary lives, ignited something in Deresiewicz. He began viewing the world through Austen's eyes and treating those around him as generously as Austen treated her characters. Along the way, Deresiewicz was amazed to discover that the people in his life developed the depth and richness of literary characters-that his own life had suddenly acquired all the fascination of a novel. His real education had finally begun.

    Weaving his own story-and Austen's-around the ones her novels tell, Deresiewicz shows how her books are both about education and themselves an education. Her heroines learn about friendship and feeling, staying young and being good, and, of course, love. As they grow up, they learn lessons that are imparted to Austen's reader, who learns and grows by their sides.

    A Jane Austen Education is a testament to the transformative power of literature, a celebration of Austen's mastery, and a joy to read. Whether for a newcomer to Austen or a lifelong devotee, Deresiewicz brings fresh insights to the novelist and her beloved works. Ultimately, Austen's world becomes indelibly entwined with our own, showing the relevance of her message and the triumph of her vision.

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    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateApr 28, 2011
    ISBN9781101483541
    Unavailable
    A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, and the Things That Really Matter
    Author

    William Deresiewicz

    William Deresiewicz was a professor at Yale until 2008. He is the author of the landmark essays “The Disadvantages of an Elite Education” and “Solitude and Leadership” and is a frequent speaker on campuses around the country. A contributing writer for The Nation and a contributing editor for The New Republic and The American Scholar, he is the author of A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, and the Things That Really Matter. Visit BillDeresiewicz.com.

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    Reviews for A Jane Austen Education

    4/5

    138 ratings24 reviews

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    • 4/5
      This author immediately confesses his dislike for Austen and his avoidance of her books. Then in graduate school he has to read Austen and finds, it's not the light fluffy chick lit he assumed. That in fact, there's a lot more to Austen's books than first meets the eye, or even the first read.
      The author is a self-proclaimed jerk and at first, I didn't think I'd like this book. However, the author matures and grows and shows his weaknesses and explains how each book taught him something about himself and something about life.

      It would have been better had the author left out the profanity, but it is a good book, and recommended.
    • 4/5
      The first thing I thought when I read this was "I wish my ex-boyfriend would read this". He used to make lots of cracks about Austen books, ("Is that the one about the sisters? Haw haw haw!") and worshiped at the Nabokov shrine.
      Anyway, the book itself was charming. I've never really read Austen with any kind of scholarly approach, and the criticism was interesting instead of boring. While he shapes it around his own life and "lessons" he's learned, that has very little to do with the book as a whole.
    • 4/5
      Deresiewicz begins reading Jane Austen as part of his college education, and in the process becomes endeared towards her works while also realizing Austen is informing him of his shortcomings and how he overcomes them. The author readily admits he was somewhat of a pompous ass while he was in his 20s and 30s, and I appreciated his honesty and his insights. Now I want to re-read my Austens soon!
    • 4/5
      A good read with insightful takes on Jane's novels and viewing our lives through their lens.
    • 3/5
      A memoir framed around Austen's six published novels, in which the author reflects on how reading Austen's novels during his graduate studies imparted larger wisdom to his life, relationships, and choices.I adored the concept of this memoir but the execution was less than I had hoped for. While Deresiewicz's insights into themes and concepts that are explored in Jane Austen's novels are wonderful and some are even ones I had not encountered before in my own studies of Jane Austen, the book is also a memoir. And unfortunately, I didn't find Deresiewicz's memories of his graduate studies particularly interesting nor was I particularly empathetic. While he comes with some family baggage, his reflections on those years of his life left me with an impression of a superficial and condescending man who has grown only slightly. While I'd be pleased to discuss Austen's novels with him in a classroom setting, I had very little interest in befriending him. I also was a bit skeptical of some of his arguments around the novels as he seemed to read Austen into her books a little too much. Tentatively recommended if you're interested in thematic discussions of Austen novels but lower your expectations if you're more interested in the memoir side of the book.
    • 4/5
      Reviewing for BlogHer.
      Some preliminary thoughts: I'm impressed because now I actually want to read Jane Austen. Specifically, Northanger Abbey.

      Also- reading anything set in the 19th century makes me say things like "Oh My Goodness" and wish I could go to balls and learn to waltz.
      This usually passes quickly.
    • 5/5
      The author moves through Austen's books while giving commentary on what they mean as well as highlighting with his own experiences and how the novels helped him.

      I will read this book again after I've read all six Austen novels.
    • 4/5
      Deresiewicz devotes a chapter to each of Austen's six novels, discussing what he discovered about life in that novel (often after reading it several times). His discussion is part literary criticism and part memoir. He illuminates Austen's work but also illustrates how reading her has changed the way he sees the world and how he moves through it. His discussion is always interesting (though, for me, most so when he was talking about the books I know and like best myself), and the whole book is a lovely testament to the ways in which literature can have real affects on people's lives. Recommended to Austen fans, lovers of books about books, and readers looking for a nudge into Austen's work (Deresiewicz will make you want to read her).
    • 5/5
      I prefer older novels to modern works, and I knew it was partly because the characters are more sympatico, but I hadn’t been able to analyze in depth. Deresiewicz achieves this for me, taking me on his journey of discovery as it related to his own maturation process and life values. There is good meat to chew on here.
    • 3/5
      I only read about half the book, the chapters on the Austen novels I've read. Deresiewicz has some insightful things to say, and his love for & appreciation of Austen seems genuine, but the book is a bit pat and formulaic, the way he shoe-horns these insights into a light memoir of his graduate studies. Like one of those "My Year of..." books, a subgenre that's readable but leaves you feeling a little empty. I kept feeling like I was both rushing the book and spending way too much time with it.
    • 3/5
      I was a little disappointed because I had read some hype about this book. Being an Austen lover, I had to read it. Unfortunately, I didn't find Dereseiwicz's life all that interesting. Maybe it was because he wrote a lot about his adolescent and college years during which we all have a lot of suffering, real or imagined. (I read a lot of Kierkegaard back then.) It was interesting how he took the Austen novels and drew life lessons for himself as an Austen character and I did like his analysis of Northanger Abbey in particular. Recommended for people like me who can't get enough Austen.
    • 5/5
      Insightful analysis of Austen's novels. I did not realize that literary criticism could be a page-turner! Many thanks for providing me a fresh approach to rereading these much-loved books.
    • 3/5
      This was a cute little book but it was like Chinese food - I enjoyed it while I was listening to it but it was so insubstantial that I hardly remember anything about it.
    • 4/5
      Nice addition to the Janeite book list. Deresiewicz mixes his bio with Austen history in a thoughtful mix of stories that iterate how timeless Austen continues to be.
    • 3/5
      Strong writing with a style that keeps the reader engaged, but I was slightly disappointed with content. He associates each book with a general life lesson and how that impacted his life, but overall it just wasn't what I was looking for, or what I expected of the book. Good, just wasn't for me.
    • 3/5
      This book is mixed-genre: autobiography as both bildungsroman and sermons, as seen through the lens of Jane Austen's novels and letters. It's openly didactic (as sermons, of course, always are) and at times verges on the sententious, as well as on the sentimental. Although I enjoyed parts of it-- particularly the author's grappling with his initial dislike of Mansfield Park-- the book left me with the uneasy feeling that it was written with an awareness or wish that it might be movie material. Hmm. Maybe what I mean is that the last couple of chapters felt as though they'd been based on a movie. I don't mean to suggest that the author wrote the book with an eye to a movie to follow. Despite its shrewd comments on film adaptations of Austen's novels, it sometimes adopts (and even directly invokes) narrative conventions found in films.
    • 3/5
      This is a decent, if not very profound, look at the impact of Jane Austen’s novels on one man. It’s kind of a memoir, kind of a literary analysis. I appreciated some of his insights into the texts, but the sections where he connected his analysis back to his own life were often clunky and riddled with cliché. It’s an interesting premise for a book – especially having a male perspective on an author and novels usually more identified with women, but the superficiality and rather banal conclusions ended up making it more of a boring read than anything else. Eh.
    • 3/5
      This is a light, academic/memoir type read about how one young man went from scoffing at Jane Austen to loving her, and how each of her books taught him something about how to understand and improve his own life. Deresiewicz combines just the right amount of personal narrative, Austen lore, and literary criticism to make this book appropriate for both the serious Austen-ite and someone who is simply passingly curious. The order in which he chooses to discuss each of Austen's books is interesting, and the parallels he draws to his own life are insightful and touching (even if they do seem a bit forced at times.) I believe that Austen, like Shakespeare, writes about timeless issues, and will never cease to be relevant; Deresiewicz obviously agrees, and succeeds admirably at proving this in his book.
    • 5/5
      This was a truly delightful book! Mr. Deresiewicz's observations of each Jane Austen novel were interesting and the way he tied his understanding of each novel into the personal story of his own emotional growth was an effective way of pulling me into the book and of making Ms. Austen's novel relevant in a modern world (not that I needed any convincing on that score)! For Ms. Austen fans this is a book worth reading and savoring.
    • 2/5
      A memoir need not be completely truthful for me to enjoy it, but it does have to offer some insight into a life that I would not otherwise have been afforded. Lies themselves can often offer that insight. One point with which I agree in A Jane Austen Education is that sharing personal stories can be a gift to others, a sign of trust, a peek into an extended view of humanity. The share need not be large. Tell me about your crazy dream life or what you wanted to be as a child. Just don't manipulate your rather ordinary rites of passage through life to correspond with your reading schedule through Jane Austen. It will not sit well with me.Former literature professor, William Deresiewicz, breaks his memoir into seven sections - one for each of Jane Austen's novels plus a conclusion. The premise is that he learned an important life lesson from each of Austen's novels at just the right time in his life. The portions that discuss just Austen's books were of some interest to me, but without much depth or anything I did not already know about Austen. Just a pleasant reminder of why Austen still sits atop the canon despite an occasionally underestimated simplicity to her work. But the rest of the book annoyed me. More than a little in parts.Is a man reading Austen such a rarity that we celebrate it in entire books? Does an appreciation of modernism automatically exclude an appreciation of Austen? Are life lessons like "Pay attention to the everyday things" and "Be honest with your friends" only learned through Austen? The author would have come around to these things eventually with or without her. We can only hope. This book strikes me as an attempt to capitalize on the popularity of Austen, and as obvious pandering to legions of her fans. Nicely packaged, well-written, but perhaps he should have utilized his obviously extensive knowledge of Jane to better end.
    • 5/5
      The subtitle of this book is "How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, and the Things That Really Matter." William Deresiewicz is a testament to how reading can change your life. Having read "Emma" as an assignment, he begins to learn that Jane Austen has a lot to say about the best ways to find love while just living your life. He takes six novels of Austen, and spends each chapter discussing one book and how it related to his life at that particular time. I found it absolutely fascinating. I felt an undercurrent throughout the book that "Everything has a happy ending if you only follow the steps" that I found mildly irritating, but that is probably based on my own prejudices, and doesn't make his insights any less interesting.
    • 4/5
      A nice hybrid of memoir and literary criticism that describes how a young man reaches self-awareness and maturity while (not necessarily through, or at least not entirely) reading the works of Jane Austen. I liked the literary analysis better than the memoir part, if only because each life lesson or value taught by the six different novels felt a bit pat. And I would have to disagree on friendship being the primary importance of "Persuasion," my favorite Austen -- how about constancy? But these are quibbles, it was an enjoyable and quick read and it made me realize how, for far too long, my Austen intake has been all on screen. It's long past time to revisit the original works.
    • 4/5
      A man? Writing about Jane Austen? Really?Those were the first thoughts through my head when I took this book out of the shipping envelope it came in. Then I remembered why I requested it - because I loved the cover and for that cover alone I was willing to give it a shot.And as I began reading I began to really understand just why it's a bit significant that a man wrote this book.If you are anything like me, you've attempted to get at least one boyfriend to read Jane Austen. And then you have heard them scoff at the suggestion. William Deresiewicz did the same - he thought of Jane Austen as inane, dull, she just didn't match up to the other great writers. He had pretentious thoughts based on his reading of Russian literature, of James Joyce and more. And then he was faced with the prospect of reading Emma.And so his love of Jane Austen began - but not at first. Oh no, first he needed to be taught a lesson, he needed to learn that life is to be enjoyed for the little things that happen every day and for the relationships we form about us. This is just the first lesson.This book wasn't so much a memoir of Deresiewicz's life as much as a lecture on Austen, I felt. And I enjoyed it for being just that. I found it smartly written, thought-provoking and filled with new insights (at least for me) on Austen's works. I really enjoyed my time reading this book and plan to recommend it!
    • 4/5
      I don't normally review memoirs. They just don't appeal to me, and I have a hard time being "captured" by the memoirs. However, there are rare occasions, such as this one, that I find I become engrossed in the life of the author, and I find myself finished with the book before I ever really got started! Those are the kinds of memoirs I enjoy...the ones that really capture and aren't too boring, yet aren't over the top. A Jane Austen Education is one such memoir, and I am pleased to have had the chance to review it! There are some folks out there who may think about buying this book because of Austen alone. She is a great story teller of all time, and I truly enjoy her work. But this isn't strictly about Austen. Yes, it's about Austen but it's not ABOUT Austen. Deresiewicz is a man who creates this enjoyable memoir about his life after reading 6 of Austen's novels. He was a man who laughed at Jane Austen's work. A man who takes each chapter, breaks them down by specific books of Austen, and tells of how each book changed his life in some form or other.Through each chapter, Deresiewicz tells of the meaning of each of these "romantic" novels, as they have so often been dubbed. After reading the novels, he was able to see through "romance" to the meaning and life lessons among each one. He took those messages/lessons and filed them away, learning from them and seeing what would make his life different....make his life better. This is a four star memoir that I highly recommend you read. If you are an Austen fan, then take a moment or two to read this novel. You will see her stories in a whole new light! High praises to the author of this enjoyable memoir.