Harriet

Posts Tagged ‘jane austen’

Rebecca Wolff

Austen, Marvin, Homeopathy, L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E

On my way to work this morn listening to local NPR interviewing the woman who wrote this book called Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict (and maybe now its sequel). She was rattling on in a very professional way and then she described a doctor’s approach in her novel as very “homeopathic,” in that he/she wasn’t just totally committed to prescribing meds for everything right away. This reminded me right away of this review of Cate Marvin’s book Fragment of the Head of a Queen that I saw a while ago in the Women’s Review of Books (which, amazingly, doesn’t seem to have a website) that just astonished me. Here’s the passage that astonished me:

Rebecca Wolff

This is about Jane Austen

I thought I’d share some mature thoughts on Lisa Robertson’s magic powers but instead I’m thinking about Jane Austen. She’s really come down in the world. My parents were watching some PBS bodice-ripper a few months ago, and it took me several minutes to discern that it was a hotted-up Pride & Prejudice. Lots of longing and heavy breathing in between those elegant sentences. (I know I sound Puritanical but I’ve recently realized I am a Puritan.)

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Thom Donovan
Bhanu Kapil
Fred Moten
Craig Santos Perez
Sina Queyras
Sotère Torregian

STAFF WRITERS

Cathy Halley
Michael Marcinkowski
Travis Nichols
Fred Sasaki
Don Share

About Harriet

RECENT COMMENTS

  • Very cool. I had not heard of Piet Hein, and will look him up. A ... MORE »
    LH | 03.21.10
  • Definitely very cool, Craig. Very much liked kari edwards' book and will put this on ... MORE »
    Sina Queyras | 03.21.10
  • Yay, Janet! MORE »
    Mary Meriam | 03.20.10
  • @Sina: I have not heard of an opera singing poet, ... MORE »
    Colin Ward | 03.20.10
  • Mr. Robbins! You're back. That was my exclamation mark quota for the year. MORE »
    Sina Queyras | 03.20.10

Beyond Careerism? (Redistributing Poetic... (31)
On the matter of career (40)
To Sonnet, to Son-net, Tuscon Net (55)
All sides now: a correspondence with Lisa... (4)
Women’s History Month: A Salute (3)

RECENT POSTS

MONTHLY ARCHIVE

CATEGORY ARCHIVE

PREVIOUS WRITERS

Subscribe to the RSS feed.
What is RSS?

IN THIS ISSUE: March 2010

Poetry Magazine

A selection of new work from Dorothea Grossman; new poems by Lavinia Greenlaw, David Yezzi, A.E. Stallings, Gerald Stern, and Dan Gerber; translations of Carlo Betocchi, and Mahmoud Darwish; an Editorial on Ruth Lilly; an exchange between Ilya Kaminsky and Adam Kirsch; an essay by Chen Li; and a review by Daisy Fried.

Chicago Poetry Tour

CHICAGO EVENTS

Poetry Off the Shelf: David Baker

Poetry Off the Shelf: David Baker Fri, March 26th, 6:00 PM
Open Books
213 West Institute Place
Free admission

MORE EVENTS »