Newberry Honor winning author Shannon Hale has expanded her horizons from the young adult genre to chick lit. In 2007, she published Austenland, a romantic comedy about a 30-something New Yorker named Jane Hayes, a woman successful in her career but not in her love-life, on account of being more than a little obsessed with the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice… and Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy.
The setup is not unlike most chick lit, but the twist comes when Jane’s wealthy great aunt passes away, bequeathing Jane with a three week vacation to Pembrook Park where the rich go to re-enact 19th century Regency-era English life, a la Jane Austen. Jane sees the vacation as the perfect opportunity to give her obsession one last, all-inclusive hurrah before moving on to real life and real men.
At Pembrook Park, Jane assumes the identity of Miss. Jane Erstwhile, a visiting niece from America and slips into the role, interacting with two other female clients and a house full of actors, servants, and attractive, athletic gardeners. There’s even Mr. Nobley, a Darcy-esq gentleman who in proper Austen fashion, simultaneously fascinates and infuriates Jane, who isn’t sure if she is in love or overcoming an unhealthy infatuation.
The clever premise aside, Austenland is charming fluff, but it failed to keep me engaged. There was something very off-putting about the heroine being in a completely staged environment and acting out a false life with pretend characters. Jane was so mixed up about her own feelings, it was difficult to identify with her, and whenever she acted on her romantic yearnings, I couldn’t become invested in her exploits because it was never clear what was real for Jane or for the actors she becomes involved with.
I’m also unsure how Jane thought the Pembrook Park experience could be therapy for her obsession. Mrs. Wattlesbrook, a Regency-era madame if there ever was one, promises an authentic experience worth every penny, and it does seem that if clients return to the Park year after year, then Jane is more likely to have a blast and intensify her obsession than overcome it.
While reading Austenland, I couldn’t help but think of the sci-fi series Dollhouse, although it’s a completely different genre and medium. In Dollhouse, “dolls” are people programmed with false memories and personalities who are sent on engagements to fulfill the desires of paying clients. In Dollhouse, the dolls are fully invested in these staged scenarios because they believe them to be true, but it was often difficult for viewers to identify with the dolls and their engagements because we never really knew what was genuine and what was pretend.
Tags: Austenland, Book Review, Books, Chick Lit, Dollhouse, Pembrook Park, Shannon Hale
