“Failure seldom stops you. What stops you is the fear of failure.”
—Jack Lemmon
“Failure seldom stops you. What stops you is the fear of failure.”
“Failure seldom stops you. What stops you is the fear of failure.”
The Great Bike Ride was, I hope, the first of many rides,
each one getting a little smoother. I admit that on this first ride, I felt
kind of silly. I *should* be able to ride a bike, right? I learned long (long)
ago. But right now, I do it kind of badly. And that’s OK. Doing things badly is
important, and you should be doing things badly, too. Want to know why?
If you never try
anything you’re not already good at, you’ll never learn anything new.
Maybe you’d like to learn to sketch, try salsa dancing, or bake
the perfect pie. If you’ve never tried it before, it’s likely that you won’t be
good. It’s the rare person who is
good at something the very first time he/she tries it (and you have my
permission to hate those people). If you never step outside your comfort zone
and risk doing things badly, you’ll never know if you even like to samba or how creative your sketches can be. (And if your
goal is the perfect pie, please call me—I’m willing to taste your experiments.)
Once you’ve tried something for the first time and you
decide you like it, guess what: you might still do it badly for awhile. Many,
many worthwhile and satisfying things take time to master. The point is, if
you’re not willing to do something badly, at least for a little while, you’ll
never know just how good you can be.
For me, horseback riding has been a prime example of doing
things badly. I recently saw a video of my first ride on Tank, and frankly I
was appalled (and I felt sorry for Tank). In the years I’ve had him, I’ve taken
many riding lessons and spent hours practicing, and I know I’m a much better
rider than I was then. Thankfully, I didn’t give up when I found that good
riding is much harder than it appears.
When you try your new things (and I write this to myself as
much as to you), be patient and don’t be embarrassed or self-conscious about
doing things badly. Realize you’re learning and expanding your horizons. Be
proud of your badness for badness, eventually, leads to goodness.
What would you like to do badly?
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| Still practicing... (Photo by Holly Bryan) |
When I hear that someone has never read Jane Austen, I somehow manage not to drag him or her to the library or bookstore and load them up with Miss Austen’s body of work. She’s one of my favorite authors, and I’ve read all her novels, some of them several times. Pride and Prejudice is my favorite (possibly because of the marvelous British mini-series with Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy and Jennifer Ehle as Elizabeth Bennett), with Emma a close second.
In addition to her six novels, the Austen fan can find multiple
movies made from her books, as well as sequels, spoofs and take-offs, including the intriguingly-titled, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and the movies Clueless (Emma) and Bridget Jones’s Diary (Pride
and Prejudice).
I bring this up now because there’s a slew of new books
about Miss Austen and her work, this flurry of interest likely related to this
year’s 200th anniversary of the publication of Pride & Prejudice. I spent most of August happily engrossed in
my own little Jane Austen project.
Why has her work remained so popular when on the surface it
appears that the stories are all about young women finding love and getting
married? I already knew I enjoyed her sly wit, language usage, and characterization.
I learned to respect her even more after reading the books below, each of which
has its own take on why she remains popular. So without further ado, if you
want to begin an excursion into Austenland, here are some books to make your
trip more enjoyable:
If you’re interested in Miss Austen herself, the Penguin
Lives biography, Jane Austen, by Carol
Shields is a great place to start. It’s an easy-to-read, compact (185 pages)
overview of her life. An excerpt:
“The young often read Austen’s novels as love stories.
Later, more knowing readers respond to their intricate structures, their
narrative drive, their quiet insistence that we keep turning over the page even
though we know the ending, which is invariably one of reconciliation and a
projection of future happiness in the form of marriage….Marriage reached beyond
its moment of rhetoric and gestured, eloquently and also innocently, toward the
only pledge a young woman was capable of giving. She had one chance in her life
to say ‘I do,’ and these words rhyme psychologically with the phrase: I am, I exist.”
One of the interesting points Shields brought out was that
Miss Austen wrote during a time that the novel form was still in its infancy. “Her novels were conceived and composed in
isolation. She invented their characters, their scenes and scenery, and their
moral framework. The novelistic architecture may have been borrowed from the
eighteenth-century novelists, but she made it new, clean, and rational, just as
though she’d taken a broom to the old fussiness of plot and action. She did all
this alone.”
The Bedside, Bathtub & Armchair Companion to Jane Austen, by Carol Adams, Douglas Buchanan
and Kelly Gesch. I enjoyed dipping into this lighthearted book. Austen
newcomers can learn a little bit about the author and her novels, and dedicated
Janeites can delve deeper or test their knowledge of all things Austen.
One of the features in the Armchair Companion is an interview with Joan Klingel Ray, author of
Jane Austen for Dummies. When asked
about the current fascination with Austen, part of her reply made sense to me: “Austen
is unique in that while she is a classic novelist who is studied by academics
and taught in universities, she also appeals to what we might call the ‘common
reader’—the ordinary person who picks up her novels simply for the pleasure of
reading them.”
Ray encourages new readers not to see the films or TV versions of Austen’s work before reading
the novels, and suggests they be read in the following order: Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion, Emma, Northanger Abbey, Mansfield Park
All Roads Lead to Austen, by Amy Elizabeth Smith. Smith spent a year traveling through Latin
America , organizing and meeting with small groups to discuss Jane
Austen’s books. Smith sums up her year this way: “I hadn’t realized how my trip
would really be a road test of values and beliefs I thought I had already
absorbed from Austen: Don’t judge too hastily; not everyone wants the same
things out of life; people’s circumstances color how they respond to
everything; we’re not all speaking the same language, even when we’re speaking
the same language.”
A Jane Austen Education, by William Deresiewicz. I loved Deresiewicz’s deeply thoughtful,
honest, and interesting account of the life lessons he received from studying each
one of Jane Austen’s novels. For example, he learned the importance of everyday
things from Emma: “Austen, I
realized, had not been writing about everyday things because she couldn’t think
of anything else to talk about. She had been writing about them because she
wanted to show how important they really are. All that trivia hadn’t been
making time until she got to the point. It was
the point. Austen wasn’t silly and superficial; she was much, much smarter—and
much wiser—than I ever could have imagined.”
Deresiewicz continued later in the chapter, “Austen
taught me a new kind of moral seriousness—taught me what moral seriousness
really means. It means taking responsibility for the little world, not the big
one. It means taking responsibility for yourself.”
After finishing these books, I’ve barely scratched the surface. The list of additional Jane Austen-related books I
haven’t been able to get my hands on yet, includes:
Celebrating Pride & Prejudice: 200 Years of Pride and Prejudice, Susannah Fullerton. From Amazon: Austen scholar Fullerton “…delves into what makes Pride and Prejudice such a groundbreaking masterpiece, including
the story behind its creation (the first version may have been an epistolary
novel written when Austen was only twenty), its reception upon publication, and
its tremendous legacy….”
The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things, Paula Byrne.
Byrne looks at the small things, such as a shawl, a notebook and a card
of lace, which held significance in Jane Austen’s life, using them to paint a
fuller portrait of the author.
Jane Austen’s England,
Roy and Lesley Adkins. Written by husband-and-wife historians, this book “explores
the customs and culture of the real England ”
of Jane Austen’s everyday life.
Among the Janeites: A Journey Through the World of Jane Austen Fandom, Deborah Yaffe. Instead of
Austen herself, Yaffe takes a look at Austen’s obsessed and devoted fans.
According to Amazon, Among the Janeites is “Part chronicle of a vibrant
literary community, part memoir of a lifelong love…a funny, touching meditation
on the nature of fandom.”
In the Garden With Jane, Kim Wilson. Jane Austen loved a garden, and this book takes us to the
types of gardens she would have known, including the one that still exists at
Jane Austen’s House Museum Chawton , England
The List Lover’s Guide to Jane Austen, Joan Strasbaugh. What books did Jane Austen have in her
library? Who were her royal ancestors? A compact reference for Austen lovers.
Jane Austen Game Theorist, Michael Suk-Young Chwe. One of the more intriguing new releases,
“Jane Austen, Game Theorist shows how
this beloved writer theorized choice and preferences, prized strategic
thinking, argued that jointly strategizing with a partner is the surest
foundation for intimacy, and analyzed why superiors are often strategically
clueless about inferiors,” according to Amazon.com.
A Truth Universally Acknowledged: 33 Great Writers on Why We Read Jane Austen, edited by
Susannah Carson. Essayists include Eudora Welty, Anna Quindlin, Amy Bloom,
Virginia Woolf, Harold Bloom, and many others, and topics include everything
from “insights into the timelessness of her moral truths” to how her writing
might have changed if she had lived another 20 years. There’s even a piece by
Amy Heckerling about how she turned the characters of Emma into 1990s-era Beverly Hills
residents in the movie Clueless.
I haven’t read Pride
& Prejudice recently, and I
think maybe it’s time to have a leisurely reread of all Miss Austen’s work,
preferably with a cup of tea and a scone in hand. If you’re an Austen fan,
which of her books is your favorite? Which book would you suggest that an
Austen newbie read first? And just for fun, which Jane Austen heroine are you? Take the quiz here. (I am Elinor Dashwood.)
Note: For more information on Jane Austen and her work,
visit:
Writing poetry, reading poetry, we are invited to join with
others in celebrating life, even the ordinary, daily pleasures. Here the Seattle
poet and physician, Peter Pereira, offer us a simple meal. [Introduction
by Ted Kooser.]
A
Pot of Red Lentils
simmers on the kitchen stove.
All afternoon dense kernels
surrender to the fertile
juices, their tender bellies
swelling with delight.
In the yard we plant
rhubarb, cauliflower, and artichokes,
cupping wet earth over tubers,
our labor the germ
of later sustenance and renewal.
Across the field the sound of a baby crying
as we carry in the last carrots,
whorls of butter lettuce,
a basket of red potatoes.
I want to remember us this way—
late September sun streaming through
the window, bread loaves and golden
bunches of grapes on the table,
spoonfuls of hot soup rising
to our lips, filling us
with what endures.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine.
It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. Reprinted from Saying the World, 2003, by
permission of Copper Canyon Press. Copyright © 2003 by Peter Pereira.
Introduction copyright © 2013 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's
author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry
to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006.
*I think there’s no
better way to move ahead in life than to appreciate the simplest of daily
pleasures. On the anniversary of 9/11, I’m grateful for these continued simple
pleasures and I wish for you a life full of celebrations of all kinds.
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| Photo courtesy Candace Penney |
Is it just me, or does September feel like a new beginning?
Most of my life I’ve treated September the way most people treat January: as a
new year. Even before I had a child going back to school or lived in Florida
where the promise of the occasional cooler, drier day bumps up my energy, I
reevaluated my life in the fall. My birthday is in September, so I think that
adds to the “new start” feeling since like most of us I become more
introspective around birthdays.
I’ve thought about starting my own Happiness Project, like
Gretchen Rubin has written about in the book of the same name, and its
follow-up Happier at Home (where the
title of this blog post came from). I even began listing areas I’d like to focus
on, but decided I’m not ready to attack things I want to change or enhance in
quite that fashion. Planning all those months in advance felt too overwhelming
to me. Instead, I decided to take baby steps and do some very simple things to
get my new year off to a good start:
First, I’m keeping a time log this week to see where I’m
spending my time. (I’m using this one.) From there, I hope to come up with a
flexible schedule so I can get the important things done while still having
time to play.
My weight has become a concern again, so I’m tweaking my
eating and fitness routines to combat those creeping pounds.
I’m making plans for fun by figuring out the details of our
postponed anniversary trip and scheduling some upcoming Field Trip Fridays.
I’m purging—the freezer, my closet, my file cabinet. I’m
always battling stuff!
Even though it’s still blazingly hot here and it doesn’t
feel like fall yet, I’m starting to feel more energetic, more likely to make
some changes and explore new avenues. I’m ready to savor simple pleasures and
take part in everyday adventures. Even though the calendar says September and
not January, I’m ready for a new year!
Do you make any special plans in September? Are there any
other times of year you evaluate life, set goals or take up challenges?
