Tag: literary criticism

Bitch In A Bonnet: Reclaiming Jane Austen From The Stiffs, The Snobs, The Simps And The Saps, Vol. 1

Bitch In A Bonnet Reclaiming Jane Austen From The Stiffs, The Snobs, The Simps And The Saps, Vol. 1Bitch In A Bonnet Reclaiming Jane Austen From The Stiffs, The Snobs, The Simps And The Saps, Vol. 1
by Robert Rodi
Rating: ★★★½
isbn: 9781469922652
Publication Date: January 1, 2011
Pages: 409
Genre: Books and Reading
Publisher: Createspace

Novelist Rodi launches a broadside against the depiction of Jane Austen as a “a woman’s writer…quaint and darling, doe-eyed and demure, parochial if not pastoral, and dizzily, swooningly romantic — the inventor and mother goddess of ‘chick lit.’”

Instead he sees her as “a sly subversive, a clear-eyed social Darwinist, and the most unsparing satirist of her century… She takes sharp, swift swipes at the social structure and leaves it, not lethally wounded, but shorn of it prettifying garb, its flabby flesh exposed in all its naked grossness. And then she laughs.”

In this volume, which collects and amplifies two-and-a-half years’ worth of blog entries, he combs through the first three novels in Austen’s canon — Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, and Mansfield Park — with the aim of charting her growth as both a novelist and a humorist, and of shattering the notion that she’s a romantic of any kind (“Weddings bore her, and the unrelenting vulgarity of our modern wedding industry — which strives to turn each marriage ceremony into the kind of blockbuster apotheosis that makes grand opera look like a campfire sing along — would appall her into derisive laughter”).


Volume 1 gets 1 star less than volume 2. The entertainment is no less raucous, and wit no less scathing, it just comes down to my thoughts about his analysis. I’m with him on Sense and Sensibility, but I felt like his analysis/thoughts about Jane in Pride and Prejudice rather shallow, although the rest was spot-on.

Where he lost me completely was Mansfield Park. I recognise that Fanny is a problematic heroine, and that MP is not revered by most, but his scorched earth analysis suffered from a too-narrow, current century cultural bias and an assumption of Austen’s motives that nobody but nobody can possibly know. I know that these entires are based on his personal readings, interpretations, feelings, etc. but his use of plurality (‘we’, etc.) throughout the text assumes his reader is going to agree with him, and I don’t. Mansfield Park isn’t my favourite, but it’s not my least favourite either (It ranks 4th, if you’re curious).

Still a very worthy read, and an excellent exercise in getting back to the core of Austen’s writing.

Bitch in a Bonnet: Reclaiming Jane Austen from the Stiffs, the Snobs, the Simps and the Saps (Volume 2)

Bitch in a BonnetBitch in a Bonnet
by Robert Rodi
Rating: ★★★★½
isbn: 9781499133769
Publication Date: August 10, 2014
Pages: 514
Genre: Books and Reading
Publisher: Createspace

Novelist Rodi continues his broadside against the depiction of Jane Austen as a “a woman’s writer … quaint and darling, doe-eyed and demure, parochial if not pastoral, and dizzily, swooningly romantic — the inventor and mother goddess of ‘chick lit.’” Instead he sees her as “a sly subversive, a clear-eyed social Darwinist, and the most unsparing satirist of her century.”

In this volume, which collects and amplifies three years’ worth of blog entries, he combs through the final three novels in Austen’s canon — Emma, Northanger Abbey, and Persuasion — with the aim of charting her growth as both a novelist and a humorist, and of shattering the notion that she’s a romantic of any kind.


I’m probably ruined for any further literary criticism at this point.  This book was so much fun, and Rodi’s analysis laced with so many quips and jokes and sass, I doubt I’ll ever have any patience for staid, thoughtful, academically minded critiques.

I say “Rodi’s analysis” but that’s probably building the lily a bit.  Rodi is an author (whose work I’ve never read), and a man who loves Jane Austen’s work.  Not because it’s romantic, but because it is absolutely everything but romantic.  He’s a true fan of her writing, her satire, her wit, her ability to create characters that are deeply flawed and darkly funny.  He maintains that the prevailing viewpoint that Austen is a writer of romances is the fault of Hollywood and the BBC, who don’t know who to treat her books as the dark comedies they are, and fall back, instead, on the relationships.

Volume 2 covers Emma, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, and he goes through each book in detail, using a lot of quotes and discussing, in detail, what’s going on in the stories, as if he’s sitting with friends in a version of a bitch and stitch gathering.  Only without the swooning over Colin Firth’s wet t-shirt contest of one.  There’s no academic speak here and quite a few moments where I laughed out loud.

The thing is, Rodi’s correct: when you really, deeply read Austen, she’s not even a little bit romantic.  She has no patience for sentiment, or affection, or weddings.  I knew there was a reason I adored her books.  For Austen, the more romantic a character, the bigger fool she made of them, and even her heroines aren’t allowed to be great.  Good, but not great; not flawless in the least, just the least flawed in a cast of fools, villains and cads.

I fully recognise that I enjoy Rodi’s take on things because it’s a form of confirmation bias, but I don’t care.  I’ve ordered the first volume, covering S&S, P&P and Mansfield Park, and I look forward to delving into those with him.