Subject line: A second chance for Austen’s most melancholy heroine

This week saw the launch of the final episode of our hit podcast Jane Austen’s Paper Trail (although a bonus Q&A episode is coming in January for any Austen fans experiencing withdrawal).

Episode six is devoted to Austen’s last novel – and my favourite – Persuasion, which tells the story of lovelorn Anne Elliot who has missed her chance of happiness after being persuaded to give up the man she loves for lack of wealth and prospects. Seven years later, Anne is still pining and aching with regret, when Frederick Wentworth re-enters her life as a rich and successful naval captain.

Considered Austen’s most melancholy novel, it is little wonder one of our academic experts, John Mullan, states in the podcast: “If you’re under 40 your favourite Austen novel is Pride & Prejudice, after 40, it’s Persuasion.” It is a novel that resonates with those who have experienced the pain of loss and heartbreak.

More widely, the episode asks the question: was Jane Austen happy? As she remained a lifelong spinster, many might assume not. But this groundbreaking writer was a woman of substance, someone who filled her life with meaning through interests, friendships, socialising, travel, and most of all, a purpose.

I travelled to Lyme Regis with Nada Sadaaoui of Northumbria University to ponder this question on the very spot where the pivotal scene of Persuasion takes place: on the Cobb, a wide limestone breakwater that snakes out into the English Channel.

It is here in the novel that Anne and her captain reignite the spark of their love. And it was here we sat buffeted by the wind, listening to the waves and the cries of the gulls, imagining Austen herself walking here, exhilarated by the sense of freedom bestowed by the elements.

As Nada explains, walking alone for women in the early 19th century was a simple but radical act, a rare chance to be unshackled from men, chaperones and expectations. To feel invigorated, alive and most of all, free. It was a wonderful day spent by the seaside with this enthusiastic young academic thrilled to be walking in the footsteps of Jane Austen.

Question

As we come to our final podcast episode, having explored themes of love, romance, friendship, politics, and happiness in the life and work of Jane Austen, we’re curious to know: which is your favourite Austen novel?

a) Sense and Sensibility

b) Pride and Prejudice

c) Mansfield Park

d) Emma

e) Northanger Abbey

f) Persuasion

Eternal love and bear necessities

Who would you choose to spend the afterlife with? This is a question explored in the new romcom Eternity in which Joan (Elizabeth Olsen) has to choose between two husbands, the grumpy old one, Larry (Miles Teller) with whom she spent most of her life, and the handsome chiselled one, Luke (Callum Turner), who died young a war hero. (Luckily, in eternity your looks are restored to the period when you were happiest.) Who should Joan pick and why? We invited philosophy academic Tony Milligan to give his take exploring what really matters when it comes to love.

Twenty-nine children’s books and three movies later, our favourite little Peruvian finally becomes an all-singing, all-dancing bear in Paddington the Musical, currently delighting audiences in London’s West End. Fortuitously, we sent professor of Greek Culture Emma Stafford to review it and, by Zeus, she has decreed that Paddington is actually a hero in the classical mould, bearing comparison with the likes of Aeneas and Odysseus. Armed with his bear necessities – a trusty marmalade sarnie and a truly terrifying stare – our plucky little hero completes his journey with a real family, spreading his message of love and tolerance this Christmas.

Beauty and sorrow

Patti Smith has just published her latest memoir Bread of Angels at the age of 78, which took her a decade to write, “grappling with the beauty and sorrow of a lifetime”. This eloquently told story charts a life filled with adversity, creativity, tragedy and loss, but, says our reviewer Julia Toppin, “to read how Patti Smith has endured while staying true to herself is an uplifting experience”.

Now streaming on Netflix, Train Dreams is a new film adapted from the unsettling novella of the same name by Dennis Johnson, charting the frontier days and settler colonialism that shaped the building of America as it emerged as a superpower. Clint Bentley’s film revolves around a man haunted by regret, and is a stunning meditation on grief and loss – and an important account of the early days of environmental crisis, when huge swaths of forest were decimated to build America’s railroads.

Something good to read

Who doesn’t love a nice glass of mulled wine this time of year? This deeply warming tipple spiced with cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cloves has become synonymous with the Christmas period, but did you know it was brought to our shores by the Romans? Or that it is mentioned in the biblical poem, the Song of Solomon, and in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales? Discover more fascinating facts about mulled wine as we take you through the history of this fine festive drink which is now firmly associated with yuletide thanks to Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

The Conversation