musical Janes

A longstanding fear for me as a wannabe writer, and an occasional distraction to me as a pathologically loyal reader, is the Cast of Recurring Characters. Even the very best imaginations at some point run out of new voices: Macbeth's most famous speech ("Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow...") could very well have been Hamlet's, while Goneril and Lady Macbeth crib each other's lines. Whole books by Faulkner, meanwhile, are virtually interchangeable: they switch backdrop from swamp to village to horse show, but barring this only Toni Morrison could tell them apart.

A couple months ago I reread Pride & Prejudice. I wanted to lose myself in the story, but was unable see past some recurring types in Austen's books: is Jane Bennett both Jane Fairfax (Emma) and Anne Elliott (Persuasion)? Is Mr. Wickham the same as Mr. Crawford (Mansfield Park), and is Mr. Bingley a nicer and richer Mr. Willoughby (Sense & Sensibility)? One could play this game all day, and it's not just characters who, from book to book, shift between central and supporting roles.

Take, for example, the theme of persuasion. It is the title and central subject of Austen's last novel, but in Pride & Prejudice it appears as light material for a brief and teasing repartee: "To yield readily--easily--to persuasion of a friend," (Ms. Bennett tells Mr. Darcy), "is no merit with you." (Emphasis Austen's; the theme also pertains to Darcy's influence on Bingley, but that is not the subject of this post.) This isn't attention-grabbing wankery like the travesty of Romeo & Juliet slipped into A Midsummer Night's Dream, or like the mocked quotation of The Marriage of Figaro near the end of Don Giovanni. It is, however, enough to knock Austen's obsessive readers out of that elusive, delicate moment; the scene falls away the moment we begin to think.

None of this in any way discredits Austen herself, whose genius lies in what she does with her material, rather than in its flash and variety. (She is, and may she forever remain, my favorite English-language novelist.) Such intertextual connections do, however, make me glad to have held back on certain authors. Melville and Grass are the topical examples: I've read exactly one book by each of them and am afraid to read more. Sometimes you want to learn, and sometimes you want to hold onto the magic.