Ever since I had a chance to visit Orchard House, the house in Concord, Massachusetts where Louisa May Alcott wrote her classic Little Women, I've had a special fascination with literary places. Spending a day touring the home and town of one of my favorite authors really brought home to me how inspiring and thought-provoking such literary places can be. For anyone who has a deep love of literary history, the notion of a pilgrimage to a favorite author's home or terrain is exciting. It's why I not so secretly pine to visit Beatrix Potter's farmhouse, Harry Potter's platform 9 3/4, and Maud Hart Lovelace's hometown of Mankato, Minnesota (just to name a very few of my favorite literary travel dreams).

So when I head about Lori Smith's book A Walk With Jane Austen, I couldn't wait to read it. Here was a young woman who had done something that I had only dreamed about doing: she spent time walking in the "footsteps" of Jane Austen, enjoying places where Austen lived and visited. Considering that Austen is one of the most beloved authors of my heart, such a literary tour is high on my list of dream travel.

The brief blurb I first read intrigued me because it indicated that Smith combined spiritual reflections along with literary and personal reflections inspired by Austen. (Not many people connect Austen and faith, but there's no reason why they shouldn't. Like me, she was a committed Anglican laywoman!) I've been deeply nourished by reading Christian confessional literature and spiritual memoirs, both past and present. Some of the better spiritual journals I've read in recent years have been penned by contemporary women such as Anne Lamott, Debra Rienstra, Lauren Winner, Luci Shaw and Madeleine L'Engle. I was hoping that Smith's book might feel similar to the work of some of those writers, while adding in a unique and fascinating (to me) literary focus.

I think I probably just set the bar too high. To begin with, I had a surprisingly difficult time getting into the narrative. I had expected that Smith would jump immediately into her journey to England to walk Austen's footsteps, especially since there's a lovely map, right up front, entitled "Lori's Walk With Jane," that shows you all the places she visits within the narrative. (You also get a great interactive list, right up front, with links to websites for many of these places.)

But it turns out Smith went to England to attend some classes prior to taking her literary tour. Part 1 of the book (about 65 pages, roughly 1/3 of the narrative) is spent on her time in Oxford. To be fair, I think she wants to give her audience a chance to get to know her, the kind of person she is, the faith which she embraces and honestly struggles to embrace, and why she decided to make this Austen tour in the first place. I can appreciate that decision, but the book loses something by taking such a meandering, circuitous route to its heart.

As a single, 30-something American woman, she cheerfully confesses that a secret part of her yearns to "meet someone" while she is in England, to actually live a real version of an Austen novel. That's a desire I'm sure many single women share and I found the admission touching. And yet, when she does suddenly meet someone right at the beginning of her classes, she seems to try way too hard to push the week-long encounter into an Austen-esque mode. The acquaintance feels so slight, and Smith's inner hopes so huge, that I found myself more worried (in a maternal way...and I'm not that much older than she is!) than intrigued or fascinated. Not enough seems to happen between her and this man (even from the Austen perspective of "tiny things can suddenly loom huge") to warrant such intense hope and introspection. The Oxford prelude may have felt important to her personally, but it felt too consciously "shaped" into an Austen kind of encounter to feel entirely real, and I kept wanting to get on with the tour.

The tour itself, where she actually walks in Jane's footsteps, is the book's second and best part. The somewhat choppy (and occasionally whiny?) prose of her personal introspection moves into a much smoother, confident cadence as she describes the physical places she visits. She does a nice job of interweaving her descriptive observations with thoughtful anecdotes based on a thorough reading of Austen's novels, biographers and letters. Some of the main places she visits include Alton Abbey (where she stayed with monks, including one who is an Austen expert); Steventon Village where Jane grew up; Chawton Cottage (the place Jane lived later with her mother and sister, which has now become the Austen House Museum); and the British Library, which contains some Austen artifacts and manuscript. She also visits a number of other places either connected to the Austen family (like brother Edward's estate at Godersham Park) or to Austen's novels. For instance, she goes to Box Hill, where characters picnicked in Emma, and to the town of Bath, where Austen lived for a while and where two of her novels are partly set. And yes, she even visits some places associated with Austen film adaptations.

The final third contains Smith's reflections on her tour, her romantic encounter, and on the learnings she gleaned from all of it. Although not necessarily profound, it is refreshingly honest. Smith is particularly candid about her struggles with chronic fatigue and depression, latent during her time in England and full-blown not long after her return. I think these struggles may perhaps account for some of the weary-worried-introspective tone that can feel a bit like navel-gazing in the earlier part of the narrative.

Not that I mean to be unkind. Parts of this book work beautifully, but there is an awkward flow to the narrative as a whole, and the attempted intersections between Smith's life and Austen's (which could have been most interesting) often feel labored. I was also disappointed by the lack of depth in some of her faith reflections. Like Smith, I come from an evangelical background, but some of her struggles with that background and with her relationship with God as a result didn't feel like something I could connect with on a deep level. Perhaps I might have connected more with some of these reflections in my twenties. In general, the book has more of a "coming of age" feel than I expected, given that the author is in her thirties. I suspect younger Christians (both younger in actual years, and younger in their faith) might find more to resonate with, especially if they have experienced physical or mental health problems. In that regard, and for that particular audience, I think her honesty is a real plus.

My favorite moments come when Smith pauses for some simple, quiet reflections on Austen as a ordinary woman writing about ordinary people, and on why her work continues to mean so much to so many of us ordinary women years after it was written.

"How many of our lives would people judge as utterly unremarkable -- lives in which perhaps love fails, careers are made or broken, deep friendships and family relationships endure, tragedy is in some form or other inescapable, and the future is murky. These are our realities, and that's where Jane specialized: the drama of ordinary life, lives not inflated beyond recognition and not with unbelievable goodness or incredible tragedy...Jane taught me something about the value of an ordinary life...She wanted to love her family and her friends, to live her faith rather than talk about, to do good work and tell good stories."

If those lines resonate with you, and if you've ever wanted to take a walk in Jane Austen's footsteps, you may well enjoy this honest book.

~befus, 2008

A Walk With Jane Austen: A Journey into Adventure, Love & Faith
by Lori Smith
Waterbrook Press, 2007
ISBN 9781400073702

Note: the author has a fun website called www.austenquotes.com where she posts an Austen quote each day.




Recommended: Yes