Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict by Laurie Viera Rigler
Reviewed by Amy Woods Butler special to the Post-Dispatch
Like
most chick-lit heroines, Courtney Stone obsesses over love, marriage and
calories. But unlike most, this amusingly neurotic 30-year-old does it in an
empire-waist gown, dancing a reel.In "Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict," debut novelist Laurie Viera Rigler turns the craze for all things Austen on its head by transplanting 21st-century Courtney into the body of an early 19th-century Englishwoman. Shortly after breaking up with bad-boy fiancé Frank, Courtney wakes up one morning in a strange bed attended by a doctor dressed in what looks like "cast-offs from the Merchant-Ivory costume department."
The threat of being committed to an insane asylum quickly convinces her to play the part of the woman whose body she inhabits: Jane, a wealthy, well-chaperoned woman teetering on the edge of spinsterhood.
Faced with a mother she can't stand and a suitor she can't trust, Courtney finds life in 1813 England surprisingly similar to the one she led in modern-day LA. Body odors are riper and personal conduct more restrained, but the search for true love still reigns.
Despite enjoying the pleasures of the idle rich, including a well-stocked jewelry box, an attentive maid and the luxury of a twice-weekly bath, Courtney longs to return to her old, imperfect life, even as she finds herself growing more enmeshed in the life of Jane.
Rigler, a member of the Jane Austen Society of North America, clearly holds the works of Austen in high regard, liberally borrowing situations, themes and even names from the master of 19th-century chick lit.
But where Austen treated her readers to cool, careful observations of human nature, Rigler seems satisfied with characters who feel, by contrast, almost perfunctory. Mrs. Mansfield, the mother, is cold and calculating and nothing more; the suitor Edgefield's eyes twinkle a great deal. Even Courtney/Jane feels a little thin, with her 21st-century self-absorption and hang-ups about love.
As the strangeness of her new existence gives way to a comfortable routine and the possibility of romance, the boundary between Courtney's and Jane's identities begins to blur. It is here that the novel transcends its stock characters and takes on a shine of originality. Time-travel in novels is not new, but Rigler uses it to explore some decidedly modern concerns about personal identity and self-fulfillment.
"I'm stuck inside a romance novel with pretensions to Jane Austen," Courtney/Jane thinks to herself, a thought that may be echoed by the reader. Then again, even hard-core Austen fans sometimes crave a little entertainment of the Bridget Jones variety.
Amy Woods Butler is a writer in St. Louis.