One
very fortunate aspect of my decade-long research on Jane Austen can best
be explained by the metaphor of a puzzle grid (think of sudoku, crosswords
or any type of puzzle you like to do).
I
think of all the mysteries, cruxes, shadows, and other open questions about
Jane Austen's novels, letters, biographical facts, allusions, etc., as
each being represented by blank boxes and sections, respectively, in one
giant puzzle grid.
If
you've ever done such puzzles, particularly the most challenging ones, you
know that there are generally two stages in solving them. The first part
is the harder one, as the solver attempts to get a foothold, searching
for clues which can be solved without the assistance of any partially
filled in boxes from other clues. This is generally the longest part
of the process, and can be very challenging, because you have to imagine
answers entirely out of your own head, with no extra hints to help
you.
And you lack a sure sense of the exact parameters of the concealed themes
of the puzzle, as a double-check.
But
then, once you establish enough footholds, you eventually reach a tipping
point in solving the puzzle, after which it's "all downhill", because
you are getting so many hints from already-solved clues that there is as
snowballing effect, and it tends to go much more quickly. Plus, answers
you already got take on deeper meaning, when you have a sure sense of
the overall themes.
And
that's exactly where I'm at in solving the vast puzzle of Jane Austen's
shadow stories. At this mature stage of my puzzle-solving, I've gotten
to the most enjoyable part of the process, when getting answers in one
sector enable you to solve answers in other sectors, because, again, the
whole puzzle is very interconnected. And answers I got before I am now
able to improve, sharpen, deepen, because I have context from all the other
by-now answered clues.
I
think you get the picture by now.. ;)
Anyway,
I was prompted to explain my puzzle-grid metaphor today by a perfect
and extraordinary example of that sort of interconnectness, and how
rich the rewards of insight are, when you've already got more than half
the grid filled in.
To
wit, as I was following up yesterday on my discovery of the complex allusion
to Shakespeare's As You Like It in Sense & Sensibility.....
....,which also
pertains to Jane Austens bitter judgments about the Austen family's removal from
Steventon in 1801, I came across something astounding from another section
of the "grid" entirely, which till yesterday I would not have considered
to be interconnected--a virtually incontrovertible cluster of circumstantial
evidence that validates my longstanding claims about Mark Twain
loving Jane Austen's writing!
My
own previous claims about Mark Twain and Jane Austen....
...are
themselves a major extension of earlier claims by James Flavin and a
tiny number of brave and insightful Austen scholars who have not simply floated
along on the gentle, unthreatening waves of the conventional dogma that
Twain hated JA's writing, but who have swum against that current, and
have
made the leap and recognized that Twain was only pretending to hate A's writing.
And I
still stand by every word I wrote in those earlier posts. But now I know
beyond a shadow of a doubt that Flavin, myself, and the few others in our
camp, have all been correct, even more than even I had imagined.
In
fact, much more so. Mark Twain was not just a Janeite, he was an Austen savant!
Take that one to the bank, I guarantee it....when you see the evidence,
properly presented, there will be no reasonable doubt as to the very
high esteem in which Twain held Jane Austen's brand of satire, and also
her noble authorial purposes as a satirist. ;)
I
have already reached out to helpful contacts in the world of Twainites (as
we Janeites might be inclined to call them) and expect in due course to be
in a position to spread the word about my recent discovery about Twain
and JA in both literary worlds, and hopefully even beyond.
But
this process could take a little while, and so in the interim, I wanted
at least to make this limited announcement, because it is of interest
to a lot of Janeites, Twainites and Jane/Twainites! ;)
More
to come.....
Cheers,ARNIE
@JaneAustenCode
on Twitter
P.S.:
It was Rudyard Kipling who coined the term "Janeite" and so it is only
fitting that Twain lovers be called "Twainites", when we read the following
about Kipling's idolization of Twain, and it makes me wonder what
secrets about Jane Austen the two men shared during their encounter:
"In
1889, having published six short-story collections in a one-year period,
the 23-year-old Rudyard Kipling left India for a tour of America and
Europe. His travels brought him to New York and Connecticut, where he hoped
to locate and "shake hands with" Mark Twain, the "man I had
learned
to
love and admire fourteen thousand miles away." His recollection of that encounter
was published in newspapers from Allahabad to New York. "An Interview
with Mark Twain" is more than a transcription of his conversation
with the author of Tom Sawyer; Kipling also recounts the humorous
story of how he hunted down his idol, his awe at actually meeting him,
and Twain's genteel demeanor to a stranger arriving unannounced at the
door. When Rudyard Kipling traveled to England the following year and soon
became a literary celebrity, Mark Twain did not immediately connect the
young visitor with the rising star of English letters--but Twain's daughter
Susy, enamored with the idea that anyone could hail from such an exotic
locale, had kept Kipling's calling card with its address in India. Twain
then read Plain Tales from the Hills and wrote to a friend, "whereas Kipling's
stories are plenty good enough on a first reading they very greatly
improve on a second." Mark Twain later recalled his initial encounter
with Kipling: "I believed that he knew more than any person I had
met before, and I knew that he knew that I knew less than any person he
had met before--though he did not say it, and I was not expecting that he
would. . . . He was a stranger to me and to all the world, and remained so
for twelve months, then he became suddenly known, and universally known."
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