Pondering Jane Austen
As an Austen enthusiast, I really enjoyed Henry Oliver's explanation of her techniques and achievements. It's one thing to enjoy a book, but it's a wonder to understand why it works. I highly recommend Oliver's entire article, excerpted below.
Why we love Jane Austen more than ever after 250 years
She wrote about what really matters
Henry Oliver
She invented the modern novel in order to answer fundamental questions about how to be good, happy, and flourishing in a commercial society. Her novels are about questions that are still central to our lives. How to live a good life in a commercial society? What is a moral education in the modern world? Who should we marry?
Jane reigns supreme because no other novelist else invented such important narrative techniques or had so much to say to readers about their lives and what it means to live in modernity.
