Jane Austen and Shelley in the garden by Janet Todd

 

Name of Book: Jane Austen and Shelley in the Garden

Author: Janet Todd

ISBN: 978-1909572270

Publisher: Fentum 

Type of book: Aging, contemporary times, history, Jane Austen, England, Wales, Italy, Venice, travel, friendship, ideals, Percy Bysse Shelley, desires, meditations, life, death, living, teaching, poetry, breaking, liberalism, conservatism, engineering 

Year it was published: 2021

Summary:

Eccentric Fran wants a second chance. Thanks to her intimacy with Jane Austen, and the poet Shelley, she finds one.

Jane Austen is such a presence in Fran's life that she seems to share her cottage and garden, becoming an imaginary friend.

Fran's conversations with Jane Austen guide and chide her - but Fran is ready for change after years of teaching, reading and gardening. An encounter with a long-standing English friend, and an American writer, leads to new possibilities. Adrift, the three women bond through a love of books and a quest for the idealist poet Shelley at two pivotal moments of his life: in Wales and Venice. His otherworldly longing and yearning for utopian communities lead the women to interrogate their own past as well as motherhood, feminism, the resurgence of childhood memory in old age, the tensions and attractions between generations. Despite the appeal of solitude, the women open themselves social to ways of living - outside partnership and family. Jane Austen, as always, has plenty of comments to offer.

The novel is a (light) meditation on age, mortality, friendship, hope, and the excitement of change.

Characters:

Main characters include Fran, a wannabe reclusive novelist who could literally channel Jane Austen. ( Yes plenty of Jane Austen quips in the tale too.) Fran is oldest in the group and very knowledgeable when it comes to Wales as well as early history of Percy Bysse Shelley. Annie is Frans friend and a teacher. She and Fran seem to be very close. Rachel is from America and can't make up her mind whether or not to stay in England. She is very adventurous. Thomas worships Percy Bysse Shelleys ideas as well as his diet and he desires to retrace his hero's life. There is also Tamsin, the youngest in the group who also wants adventure and to break from mold. Jane Austen is either a ghost or a figment of imagination who is subtle, conservative and unafraid of being herself. 

Theme:

General themes is basically humanity and idea of aging as well as friendship

Plot:

The story is in third person narrative from Frans point of view, although Frans friend, Annie also gets a turn in telling her viewpoint. Fran gets invited by her friend And her friends students to sort of retrace Percy Bysse Shelleys life. ( He was married to Mary Wollenstocraft Shelley, author of Frankenstein.) And it's a journey that takes five traveling companions ( four women and one man) to Wales as well as Venice in Italy. The author is great at providing and explaining about Percy Bysse Shelleys life, somehow knowing or sensing that her audience is less likely to know about him. And the reader certainly leaves knowing a great deal about Shelley.

Author Information:
(From goodreads)

Janet Todd (Jan) is a novelist, biographer, literary critic and internationally renowned scholar, known for her work on

women’s writing and feminism. Her most recent books include

the novel: Don't You Know There's A War On?;

edition and essay: Jane Austen’s Sanditon;

memoir: Radiation Diaries: Cancer, Memory

and Fragments of a Life in Words;

biography: Aphra Behn: A Secret Life;

the novel: A Man of Genius 2016.

Jane Austen and Shelley in the Garden: An Illustrated Novel, forthcoming 2021

A co-founder of the journal Women’s Writing, she has published biographies and critical work on many authors,including Jane Austen, Mary Wollstonecraft, her daughters, Mary (Shelley) and Fanny (Death And The Maidens) , and the Irish-Republican sympathiser, traveller and medical student, Lady Mount Cashell (Daughters of Ireland).

Born in Wales, Janet Todd grew up in Britain, Bermuda and Ceylon/Sri Lanka and has worked at schools and universities in Ghana, Puerto Rico, India, the US (Douglass College,

Rutgers, Florida), Scotland (Glasgow, Aberdeen) and England (Cambridge, UEA). A former President of Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge, she is now an Honorary Fellow of

Newnham College.

Opinion:

I definitely need to make time to reread this novel. Why? It deserves to be reread slowly with no rush and to help the reader meditate and enjoy the tiniest details, from Shelleys life to discussion of engineering or of meditation on breakfast and age. In my opinion this is also a true contrast to her previous novel, DONT YOU KNOW THERES A WAR ON? In the previous novel, it often seems as if the characters are stuck in the past but they can't run away from it nor is there desire to confront it. In this tale, the characters are learning and dealing with history, but they use it in a complex manner of healing their traumas and emotions, at least thats what i sense. Also, dont let the cover fool you; this is a novel destined to challenge and grow ones mind rather than be used as a light reading.     

This was given for review 

4 out of 5
(0: Stay away unless a masochist 1: Good for insomnia 2: Horrible but readable; 3: Readable and quickly forgettable, 4: Good, enjoyable 5: Buy it, keep it and never let it go.)