Prudie, the club's youngest member, loves to contradict Grigg's male-oriented take on Austen, and Jocelyn - who matched up Sylvia with her husband (her ex-husband) when they were all still kids at school - desperately wants everyone to get along. Not surprisingly, the members' comments on Pride and Prejudice or Emma often contain veiled critiques of one another's lives. Readers savvy to the idea that the real subject of book clubs is not the books but the participants will find The Jane Austen Book Club dishy good fun. Grigg is convinced no one wants a nice man, and Allegra hasn't yet decided whether her next lover will be a man or a woman. Sylvia is uncoupling from a 30-year marriage, while Jocelyn, her best friend and book-club organiser, has sworn off men and has begun breeding dogs. As spring turns to summer in a town that sounds a lot like the author's hometown of Davis, California, Fowler's characters read through Austen's entire oeuvre, book by book, revealing their own bits of pride and prejudice. Reviewed by JOHN FREEMAN Five women and a single man meet for an "all-Jane-Austen-all-the-time book club" in Fowler's ingenious fifth novel.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |