Letters to Alice: On First Reading Jane AustenAn aunt imparts wisdom to her teenage niece, inspired by the works of Jane Austen, in this novel from the Man Booker Prize–nominated author. Alice is an aspiring novelist with green hair and zero interest in reading Jane Austen for her college English class. However, her Aunt Fay, a novelist herself, isn’t about to let Alice stick her nose up at Austen or other enduring authors. “You find her boring, petty and irrelevant, and, that as the world is in crisis, and the future catastrophic, you cannot imagine what purpose there can be in reading her,” Fay writes her. “My dear pretty little Alice, now with black and green hair . . . How can I hope to explain Literature to you, with its capital ‘L’?” Alternating between passages from Jane Austen’s novels and accounts of her own career, Aunt Fay pays tribute to a great author, explores the craft of fiction, and charts her niece’s development as a writer in this unique book that reveals how Austen—and great literature—is truly, wonderfully timeless. |
Contents
LETTER | |
LETTER THREE | |
The mantle of the Muse | |
LETTER FIVE | |
Letter to a sister | |
Oh Its only a novel | |
I never read much | |
Are you sure they are all horrid? | |
LETTER ELEVEN | |
Let others deal with misery | |
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admire audience baby believe Bennet BOOKER PRIZE boring born bread rolls build builders Canberra Cassandra characters Chawton child City of Invention course critics Darcy DEAR ALICE death ebook Elizabeth Bennet Emma English Literature Fanny fantasy father FAY WELDON FAY feel female fiction Frank Churchill friends gentry girls happy Harriet Henry heroine human husband imagine Jane Austen Jude the Obscure kind Knightley Lady Susan Lesley Castle literary live look Mansfield Park marriage married mind Miss Bates Miss Crawford moral mother never Northanger Abbey novel novelist perhaps person pleasure pretty Pride and Prejudice published Qantas reader real world reason remember seems sense Sense and Sensibility Sensibility simply sister social society someone Steventon suppose tell There’s things thought understand visitors WELDON FAY WELDON woman women wonder writer wrong young