In Nine Parts of Desire the author Geraldine Brooks meets a fundamentalist Muslim girl with a degree in English Literature. The books she liked best during her course were Tess of the D'Urbervilles and Pride and Prejudice. Brooks writes that: "I smiled. It was hard to think of two Western books more in tune with an Islamic world view than Hardy's tale of a woman ruined by sexual dishonour or the Bennet sisters and their parlor-based quests for suitable spouses."1.
This kind of condescending attitude is also applied by many critics and journalists to those they nick-name the 'Janeites', a term they often loosely call other fans of Jane Austen. They have also been called 'the frilly bonnet brigade' because it is thought that they often don't read the novels and just like to watch movies based on JA's novels because they are romantic and have beautiful costumes. If the Janeites do read Jane Austen, it is thought that they are not interested in also reading the criticism of her novels.
Natalie Tyler in The Friendly Jane Austen divides fans of JA into Janeites; those who belong to the Gentle Jane School; those who belong to the Subversive Jane School; and those who belong to the Ironic Jane School. She does this in a slightly tongue-in-cheek manner but also thinks that the Janeites regard JA as 'comfort food'.2.
E.M. Forster actually admitted that he was this kind of Janeite. He wrote that: "Shut up in measureless content, I greet her by the name of most kind hostess, while criticism slumbers'.
ORIGINS OF THE TERM
The term 'Janeites' was first used by the critic, George Saintsbury, in an introduction to Pride and Prejudice. However, it was Rudyard Kipling's story 'The Janeites' which made the name famous. The story concerns a simple and uneducated soldier and mess waiter in the trenches who reads Jane Austen's novels so that he can join the 'secret society' of officers who read her. At first Humberst doesn't like her novels, but eventually he becomes a big fan. Ironically, after the war is over, reading Jane Austen reminds him of the comradeship and camaraderie that he found in the trenches. Humberst praises this soothing quality of JA: "There's no one to match Jane when you're in a tight place."
Mr. and Mrs. Kipling found consolation by reading Jane Austen's novels to each other when their son died in the First World War. Shell-shocked veterans were advised to read her to help them overcome their illness, caused by the horrors of the war.
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