Interview with author Natalie Jenner - A look at Ruth Wilson's ‘The Jane Austen Remedy’
The Jane Austen Society by Natalie Jenner (Fiction), The Jane Austen Remedy by Ruth Wilson (Memoir)
Interview with Natalie Jenner, author of The Jane Austen Society and Bloomsbury Girls, on her response to reading Ruth Wilson’s The Jane Austen Remedy (published by Allen & Unwin).
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In reading Natalie’s Jenner’s novels, The Jane Austen Society and Bloomsbury Girls, and then Ruth Wilson’s memoir The Jane Austen Remedy, I found some parallels in vision. I expected to, of course, because they are both well versed and immersed in Jane Austen’s novels. Natalie has also read Ruth’s book so I thought it would be ideal to ask her a few questions on her interpretation of the text and of her own journey through Austen’s novels and how they affected her own life and writing.
The basis for The Jane Austen Remedy is the loss of one woman’s voice and how she sets about trying to reclaim her life. In the book’s introduction, Ruth Wilson shares her turning point after being diagnosed with Meniere’s syndrome (hearing loss, nausea, vertigo). Ruth came to think of it as a metaphysical disease of the soul because she was ‘out of love with the world’ and ‘not happy’. She felt great awe at the discovery of a connection between body and soul. She reasoned her unhappiness was manifesting itself in her physical body. But why? She seemed to have everything. Yet she felt lost. Her road to recovery would begin with the need for self-care, motivated by the “feeling of being insufficiently loved, less than happy, and touched by grief” for herself. She moved to a cottage in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales, Australia, alone to find the answers she needed.
Where should she start? In her introduction, she begins by identifying her greatest love outside of family and work. And that is, reading fiction. She decides this will become her means of rehabilitation. And Jane Austen’s novels are at the top of her list. She hopes to find the answers she is seeking by revisiting passages that have, in the past, been very important to her. As Ruth says, “I was making Austen’s novels a starting point for exploring the satisfactions and dissatisfactions of my own life, framed and illuminated by her fictional universe.” In re-reading Austen, she sought a cure for her “malaise of the spirit.” Returning to something familiar and comforting certainly can ease our conflicts and woes. For it pulls our minds back to a happier place.
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INTERVIEW
What were your thoughts Natalie, when you read the introduction in Ruth’s book where she states her dilemma and purposed cure? Although this was a personal experience of one author, could you relate to any of her frustrations and desire to re-read Jane Austen’s novels in hopes it might help her life in some way? I understand you re-read Jane Austen’s novels when you were going through a difficult time? Please share how Jane’s books helped you.
When dealing with life’s challenges, I always initially turn to books for distraction more than anything else, and so in my case the rewards and lessons sneak up on me afterwards. When my husband was diagnosed in 2016 with terminal lung disease in his early 50s, I raced through all of Austen’s books before asking myself why: why were they providing me with comfort during such a traumatic time? I then turned to non-fiction for the answer, and how I wish Ruth’s book had existed back then to help elucidate me! Eventually I came to understand that Austen remedies me by providing fictional worlds in which justice is perfectly meted out, heroines win for staying true to themselves and their unique needs, and self-improvement and actualization are never too late. These uplifting messages helped me greatly as I struggled to live in the moment with a husband given only a few years to live (fortunately, with new and experimental drugs, he has managed so far to vastly outlive the statistics for his disease!).
Ruth explores in her memoir the power of books and why we read. “Reading emerges…as an antidote for many failures of human nature: ignorance, lack of discrimination and moral awareness.” Ruth points out that Jane Austen’s character Emma, realizes the value of reading but never gets around to it. She keeps lists of books she intends to read but never does. It stands true there are many people who follow this pattern but for those who commit to reading, they reap some wonderful benefits. Ruth mentions Gabriel Betteredge’s idea that “some books can give us whatever we need at the time of reading.” What are your personal thoughts on the power of books in people’s lives?
Of all art forms, literature uniquely enables us to be inside another person’s head. As a result, books help us forge connection with people different from ourselves and empathy as a result of that immersive bonding. I also believe that so much of what attracts us to art is intuitive or springing from our own creative mind. This is why books not only “give us whatever we need at the time of reading”: they also have a way of finding us when we most need them.
Ruth makes a number of references to the human condition in The Jane Austen Remedy. In her reading of Northanger Abbey as a mature reader, she identifies it as “a story that carries powerful ideas, understanding of the human condition and lively characteristics, written with wit, humour and mastery of language.”
Natalie, you stated in an interview for The Silver Petticoat Review “When we step into Jane Austen’s world, we can work through our own understanding of ourselves and others, and of the human condition in general.” Please comment further on your own view and its’ similarities to Ruth’s and how these qualities seen in Jane Austen’s stories inspire your own.
I think what devoted Austenites such as Ruth and myself appreciate most of all—more than the wonderful romance, wit, or catharsis of Austen’s endings—is the quality behind all of that: her genius in understanding and efficiently capturing the full gamut of human behaviour. Speaking for myself as a writer, my joy in writing comes from the time I spend with my characters and it is that joy that I most want any reader of mine to feel. Austen’s stories inspire me to create real, vital, humorous and ultimately likable characters, and I use her narrative technique of Free Indirect Discourse to also articulate important personal, social, and historical themes through an omniscient narrative voice.
In re-reading Pride and Prejudice, Ruth saw the importance of connecting to someone or something and how these connections give meaning to life. What is your opinion of this observation and have you utilised the need for connections in your own books? If possible, please provide one example.
As a former career coach, I have repeatedly witnessed the importance and value of staying open and curious to new experiences and new people in life, so I could not agree more with Ruth’s observation. In fact, my books are focused most of all on the need for connection in life. Each of my books features close to a dozen different main characters, and my joy and goal as I write is watching how they all come together for a common purpose: to save Jane Austen’s cottage as a museum as one example, taking over an antiquarian bookshop from its old-fashioned male-dominated management as another.
Ruth discusses frequently in The Jane Austen Remedy the topic of friendship and particularly how it dominates the beginning of Northanger Abbey. She poses the question: “What is more important than having a friend?” And then she compares this sentiment to relationships in her own life and the conclusion that ‘Friendship allows you to agree to disagree.’ What are your own views on friendship (in literature and life). Have your sentiments changed in any way after reading Ruth's thoughts on the topic? Have you explored the importance of friendship in your own novels and, if so, please provide one example?
I am almost exclusively interested in friendship as a connective thread between characters and am fascinated by the families that we choose in life. In fact, not one of the major characters in any of my books is biologically connected to another: that’s how important a theme it is to me. I am sure that Austen’s own personal experience and literary portrayal of friendship is another significant reason for my attraction to her works and I loved the detail and candour with which Ruth in The Jane Austen Remedy explored her own valued friendships.
Ruth comments on fairy tales and that she is interested in how their “elements blend with the realities of human existence.” She says “Jane Austen sometimes pretends that life is like a fairy tale. But this is only an illusion.” Ruth uses Emma Woodhouse as an example. Then says “Austen’s fairy tales are no more than hints and whispers; her courtship and marriage plots are preludes to a different reality.” What are your thoughts on these statements?
I found this latter statement by Ruth a most compelling and illuminating one. As a fiction writer, I have experienced the strong emotional urge or pull to provide a closing for my characters that will allow me as the author to move forward and leave them behind at the end. When I write a book, it is a very immersive form of world-building, and until it is over, I spend much of my time in that other world whether I am aware of it or not: my own happy endings are as much for my sense of peace and closure as they are for anyone else! I also love my characters so much that I want to leave them in a good place, well-armed for the inevitable challenges of life ahead. I, too, therefore regard Austen’s use of the marriage plot as a point on a continuum, rather than the ultimate expression of a fairy-tale view of life.
For Ruth, falling in love with life again was vital to her happiness. Upon re-reading Northanger Abbey, she looked back and saw the good things she had had and taken for granted. Now these blessings gave her “sufficient hope to continue the journey, milestone by milestone, as advocated by Marcus Aurelius: to get out of bed, to remain sane, to renew the taste for the cup of life… filled to the brim with fiction and friendship.” The key idea for me here is the need for hope (alongside fiction and friendship!). Hope means envisioning a future that motivates, pulls or inspires us to take even baby steps towards it; the necessity to link our past with the present. How did you feel when you read the lines by Marcus Aurelius? Have you had a similar experience, reaction or inspiration you can share?
When I read those lines, I felt as if Ruth and Aurelius had both been inside my own head. When my husband was given only a few years to live, we felt as if we were at the end of something. This is the type of diagnosis that makes you stop working, take bucket list trips if fortunate enough, plan for future living needs and space, and start saving for expensive drug costs. My greatest challenge was moving forward with more whimsical goals unrelated to my time with my husband, because those could easily drain what little time I might have left with him. Rereading Austen was something I could do easily and affordably and in his presence: it was a small step, but it kept me connected with the younger version of myself and my past, and gave me a much-needed dose of hope for the future. As I read more by and about Austen, I came to appreciate how sick she herself had been in her final years. And still, she wrote Persuasion in the second-last year of her life, started writing Sanditon, and continued to advocate for all her literary efforts. I must have drawn tremendous, latent hope from her example because a year later, I returned to creative writing after a ten-year break and wrote the book that would become my debut novel, The Jane Austen Society, published the year I turned 52.
Ruth mentioned how the six books of Jane Austen spoke to her at various times in her life and how with age and re-reading them, she came to see more. Do you have a favourite Jane Austen novel that you relate to most or have re-read that inspired you to see your world in a new light?
Persuasion is the novel that most emotionally rewards me upon rereading (Emma rewards me intellectually). I believe that Persuasion’s greatest continuing gift is the voice of Anne Elliot. As I approach my own “golden years,” I gain increasing appreciation for Anne’s growth as a character: she really does move from a place where so many people, especially women, are forced or socialized to stay, and finds happiness within herself. To a younger reader, especially one of “rebellion” age, Anne’s difficulties might not appear that difficult on the surface. But her greatest barriers to personal development and self-actualization lie within her, and as we get older, we realize just how difficult to identify—and surmount—such barriers are. Yet somehow, without any promise of security or romance, Anne learns through hard internal work and the external respect and affection of friends, to better value herself. Rereading Persuasion inspires me to recognize where and how I can affect personal change of my own and in that respect, I grow stronger alongside Anne.
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Thanks so much Natalie for joining me in the discussion on Ruth’s Wilson’s The Jane Austen Remedy!
As readers, we may agree with Ruth that the words of Marcus Aurelius are good advice. With all the trauma, change and issues surrounding our lives today, we need even more to take time to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love, to care for ourselves. Part of that comes through reading a good book like Jane Austen’s or Natalie Jenner’s. And if you feel lost, need enlightenment or to find your way back home again, pick up The Jane Austen Remedy memoir by Ruth Wilson as it will offer invaluable insight and help you decide which Jane Austen novel to read first (or again). For there is a bonus section at the back of this book with clever prescriptions suited to various ailments, ideal for any age at any time! There are many valuable topics and lessons within the rich resources of reading that can be shared by all on friendship, family, empathy, self-love, second chances, imagination and reason—just to name a few. And how all these powerful pieces of a puzzle fit into our lives.
Many thanks to Natalie Jenner for her wonderful participation and responses in this inteview.
Also, big thanks to Ruth Wilson’s publisher Allen & Unwin for my review copy.
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NOTE: For more information on Natalie Jenner, her books and other cool information, stop by her website. Natalie Jenner is the internationally bestselling author of two novels, The Jane Austen Society and Bloomsbury Girls, which have been published in more than twenty languages. Her third novel, Every Time We Say Goodbye, is scheduled for release in 2024.
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