Austen Years

February 1, 2020
How Jane Austen's novels can guide readers through joy and grief. "Criticism and memoir have always been near neighbors," writes essayist and biographer Cohen (Creative Writing/Univ. of Chicago; Bernard Berenson: A Life in the Picture Trade, 2013, etc.); "the gift of a pronounced personal point of view leads to deeper readings, and to new ones." In a thoughtful meditation on the interweaving of literature and life, Cohen recounts her reading during years when her life altered dramatically: Her father died, she married, and her two children were born. Those profound experiences made her vibrantly alert to Austen's themes: "families and friendships and changing history, how we go back over what we have lived, and whether we can hand it on." Although Austen never married or had children, she "did not forget that her books would be read in rooms where babies had just been born, and where parents had breathed their last." Rooms, and the objects within them, reverberated with memories and life. Cohen brings to her analysis a thorough familiarity not only with Austen's unforgettable characters, but also with her critics and biographers, including the "restrained but insightful" memoir written by Austen's nephew. These works help her to contextualize the novels, which she analyzes with astute sensitivity. Austen's characters, in fact, emerge more vividly than many individuals from Cohen's own life. Except for her father, a kind, imaginative man "full of wit" and generosity, others remain shadowy: her mother, a theater director and teacher; Cohen's husband--their convoluted 15-year courtship, a friend remarked, seemed "very Jane Austen"; her sister, son, and daughter. Cohen's father was a professor whose research focused on organizations "and the ways people work and play together." The author remembers him laughing "with delight and with surprise," and she portrays the family's home as "a place of tenderness"--though it was not without mysteries (her father's sudden decision to give all their books away, for example) that, along with treasured memories, came to shape her reading. A nuanced portrait of a writer and reader.

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February 17, 2020
In this erudite if uneven exploration of connection and loss, essayist Cohen (A Chance Meeting) draws parallels between her own life and Jane Austen’s life and literary legacy. After Cohen’s aging father died, she fell into a depression as “the rhythm of days altered... the world careened”; seeking comfort, she turned to Austen’s novels and wondered, “Was this a retreat, a seclusion?” To cope with the death of her father, raising her two children, and her own uncertainty regarding her marriage and relationships, Cohen assigned specific titles to major events: Persuasion to the pregnancy and birth of her daughter, Sense and Sensibility to the aftermath of her father’s death, Pride and Prejudice to her pregnancy with her son, Mansfield Park to a move from New York to Chicago, and Emma to when she experienced the tug of parenthood and career. The works of Austen also soothe Cohen as she scatters her father’s ashes in his beloved city of Venice. Cohen’s writing at its best is lush and lyrical, though it can become dense with anecdotal biography, academic literary criticism, and passages of self-analysis. And readers not well versed in Austen will have a hard time finding their way in, despite the synopses Cohen provides. Despite its clever premise, this memoir adds little to the canon of Austen appreciations.

Starred review from June 1, 2020
Without intending to, Cohen, the award-winning author of A Chance Meeting (2004) and Bernard Berenson (2013), found herself seeking comfort in reading and rereading Jane Austen's five complete novels. When her father became ill, and she was pregnant with her first child, Cohen found herself picking up, skimming, and putting down Austen's Persuasion almost compulsively, a little like checking in with a good friend for advice. While Persuasion may have been Cohen's "best friend" in the group, each Austen novel is appreciated in its turn for the insights into and reflections of the human condition it offers. This is a wondrous mix of memoir and biography as Cohen provides detailed portraits of Austen, her family, and their world and analyzes how this context inspired Austen's indelible novels. This is a book not to be hurried through but consumed in small portions and pondered over as it sparks introspection. The deep knowledge of and respect for Austen's novels will equally impress Austenites and readers less versed in her works, and all will appreciate the information found in Cohen's notes and bibliography. As readers absorb these pages, personal notes will be made and quotes shared.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)

July 1, 2020

Memoirist Cohen (A Chance Meeting: Intertwined Lives of American Writers and Artists) juxtaposes elements of her personal history with the life and works of English novelist Jane Austen (1775-1817) to demonstrate the relevance of literary classics today. During a critical time in Cohen's life, spanning her children's births and her father's death, the author reread Austen as a way to cope with her grief. Here, she asserts that through Austen's novels we can feel more ourselves and see the world clearer. Cohen's relationship with her father is central to the text; one letter he wrote to her serves as a kind of passageway to Austen's themes. For instance, reflections on Sense and Sensibility are tied to the deaths of both Austen's father and Cohen's. Cohen further draws parallels between Austen's era and our own, making connections to historical events in the novels, including the Napoleonic Wars and the slave trade. Recognizing the link between memoir and literary criticism, Cohen references new memoirs and commentaries on Austen's works by scholars and writers such as Virginia Woolf. VERDICT A successful reminder of how time-honored literature evokes insight into our present reality and why the classics should be read more and often.--Denise J. Stankovics, Vernon, CT

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