![]() ![]() For me, as regards literature, punctuation is what separates true greatness from the merely good-and certainly from the false. These make for some of the funniest passages in the novel.Īs the reader has perhaps noticed, great care has been taken with the punctuation used in this account. The vindication of his maligned aunt, riddled with inconsistencies and bizarre logic, is peppered with tirades on a range of subjects: history, theology, and grammar. Rufus is the quintessential unreliable narrator, writing his rebuttal of Austen’s version of events from debtors prison in Clerkenwell in 1858. After two knowing winks from Stillman in two pages: consider yourself warned. Rufus has dedicated his novel to none other than the Prince of Wales, mimicking Austen’s dedication of Emma to the Prince Regent, but in a much more effusively toad-eating style. Readers familiar with Austen’s Lady Susan will notice an inversion of good and evil from the outset. His loyalties are made clear with the novel’s subtitle, “In Which Jane Austen’s Lady Susan Vernon Is Entirely Vindicated (Concerning the Beautiful Lady Susan Vernon, Her Cunning Daughter & the Strange Antagonism of the DeCourcy Family).” ![]() Rufus has penned his “true narrative of false-witness” to expose Austen’s supposed hatchet job on his aunt. He introduces a new character to the story: Rufus Martin-Colonna de Cesari-Rocca, Lady Susan’s nephew. Now Stillman has written a companion piece to his latest film Love & Friendship in straight narrative form. Who better to capture Austen’s witty social commentary than filmmaker and writer Whit Stillman? His first film, Metropolitan, was one of my favorites from the 1990s, but I confess that I didn’t catch its similarities to Mansfield Park until many years later. While the novella lacks the depth of later works, it is a wickedly funny short story in epistolary form its tone is reminiscent of the snarky comments found in many of Austen’s letters. Lady Susan is a terrible person, but a wonderful character. As she includes her own daughter in this camp, calling her a “stupid girl,” she has no qualms in forcing Frederica to marry a decidedly silly man with a large fortune. A scheming widow who also happens to be “the most accomplished coquette in England,” Lady Susan Vernon is intelligent, attractive, and unscrupulous, agreeing with her immoral friend Alicia Johnson that “Facts are such horrid things!” (256) Her letters to Alicia detail her plans to snare wealthy husbands for both herself and her daughter Frederica while causing pain and suffering to those she deems detestable. Lady Susan is my favorite of Jane Austen’s minor works. ![]()
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