I've just read a comment by Jimmy at https://www.writersandartists.co.uk/question/view/2618 and was reminded of an e-mail that I received not long ago. It said something like: "[Do you] Want to write like Jane Austen?" Or maybe "How to write like Jane Austen". I suppose that it was offering places on a writers' workshop / seminar / whatever, and came from either "The Writers' Workshop" or "Writers & Artists". I've been looking through my e-mail inbox and can't find it, so I guess that I must have binned it. Or maybe there never was such an e-mail and dementia is advancing on me. Can any of you confirm [seeing something like this] (and rescue my sanity)?
Anyway, Jimmy's comment ('According to Jane Austen, the correct form was "Do not you think" ') has spurred me to answer this question "Want to write like Jane Austen?" with a resounding "Certainly NOT!" *
Not only do I not want to write "Do not you think", I ALSO don't want to write novels where the #1 obsession is "Is she going to catch him in the end?" NOR novels where none of the main characters seem to work for a living (OK, OK: an exaggeration, but there ARE a lot of idle rich swanning about with nothing better to do than going for outings in carriages) while the working class hardly puts in an appearance. (And a low income disqualifies them from love.)
Or have I been reading the wrong Jane Austen books?
* Not even the fact that Pride and Prejudice is by far the most down-loaded book of the Gutenberg Project's list sways me. (16,690 down-loads compared with the much-more-deserving #2, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, at 10,183) [See http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?sort_order=downloads] (Sherlock Holmes comes in 3rd, and a piece of erotica victoriana 4th. That's the only one I downloaded. [I've already got Alice in printed form.]) Of course, you have to remember that all the books on their list are copyright-free.
Actually, P&P is one of Austen's that I haven't read. (Perhaps the only one?) But I promised myself that if I was a good girl and behaved myself, I wouldn't have to. Even if it's free.
Jimmy, might I point out that you would have been better off if you had originally written"Emma thinks that X is another working class yokel, to be condescended to and trifled with [...]"?
I am well aware of your fetish for hyphens, but this was taking things to extremes, do not you think?
Perhaps you COULD benefit from the Jane Austen workshop...
[edit] "another working class to-be-condescended-to-and-trifled-with, while [...]"
should be "another working class to-be-condescended-to-and-trifled-with yokel, while [...]"
From Wilhelmina’s opening post: “And a low income disqualifies them from love.”
What’s that awful Austen book (I suppose that it must be Emma) where the “heroine” takes another young woman (but from the working class) under her wing and encourages her to believe that she CAN aspire to the love of X? Only (great comedy of errors stuff, this!) Emma thinks that X is another working class to-be-condescended-to-and-trifled-with, while the other young woman thinks that X is the man that Emma has the hots for.
When Emma discovers her own incomprehension of the situation, she gets all in a fluster. This may PARTLY be due to her own hankerings in the matter, but there’s also a whiff of: “What CAN she be thinking of??? Getting ideas above her station!”
Now, to present this dual rejection of the other’s wishes IN A FICTIONAL CHARACTER is all very well. And – after all – Emma has been presented as a foolish young thing who pokes her nose into others’ business with awful results.
But the point that I want to make is that the AUTHOR doesn’t censure the other woman from a POV of “Hands off! He’s Emma’s.”, but purely from the “getting ideas above her station” standpoint. Yeuuurckkkk!