April Blogging Challenge: A is for Austen

Jane Austen, that is. As I've posted before regarding my obsession with Pride & Prejudice, I've become a huge fan of Jane Austen.

Although it took me a little while to get used to the way of writing, I couldn't put her books down. She held you at bay until the very end. Something always happened, some little twist you didn't expect. And sometimes you just don't know if what she wrote was meant to be taken seriously or as a joke.

Some of her characters, or heroines, are quite annoying, really. Emma drove me crazy by meddling constantly in everyone's affairs, thinking she was completely right her match-making abilities. And she stunk. I wanted to smack Lydia until a light finally came on inside her extremely dark head. Fanny just took all the abuse her cousins gave her. Catherine's imagination literally ran away from her. Ann let a good thing go because her family didn't like the guy, and it came back to bite her in the ass. And Maryann was a wee bit over-dramatic, literally trying to die from a broken heart.

But as much as the characters annoy, you can't help but love them. Except Lydia. I'm sorry, but that chick hasn't got a clue, and I'm just thankful the story wasn't about her. All you want is for the character's dreams to come true, for them to find their happy ending.

I'm always amazed that Jane Austen wrote such wonderful novels about finding love and the troubled roads her characters take to find it, yet she never married or had children. In fact, neither did her sister. She only lived to her early 40's, and until her passing, all her books were published "By A Lady". The original title for Pride & Prejudice was "First Impressions", and many believe it's loosely based her own bout with love with Tom LeFroy. No one is completely sure what Jane Austen died from, some think it was Addison's Disease, some believe it was Hodgkin's Lymphoma, and still others believe it was bovine tuberculosis which is a strain of typhus.

I think she'd be thrilled if she knew how popular her books have become and how they've endured as people's favorites.

Although, I think she'd turn over in her grave if she knew someone took Pride & Prejudice and ran away with it to call it Pride & Prejudice & Zombies.