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If brevity is the soul of wit, then this entry of Austenesque Thoughts should get top billing at a Las Vegas Strip hotel! With the end principal work on the Bennet Wardrobe Series (all right, the #Audible performance of The Grail is in progress), my reserves have been sapped. I find it difficult to feel very creative.
Thus, today, rather than diving deeply into something esoteric, I think I will examine the tools writers <should> use in the creation of #Austenesque literature.
Note that I am stressing the word literature…for is not what we are doing a craft, a skill, an offering of an artistic effort? If it is something of which we are to be proud, should we not work to create fictional art that is a tribute to the Lady?
I come to this question in the appreciation of the utter originality of Austen’s tales. True, she did have the advantage of being early a forerunner in the world of the novel, and, thus, had a leg up in the chance to describe love lost and won before others.
However, what sets her apart is that she did it so well.
In our modern efforts, we seek to explore the universe she created by building our own tales bringing the Bennet family and friends into greater relief.
Of course, the best plot in the world cannot survive if the writing style seems adolescent or is rife with anachronisms that distract the reader.
While we can debate on the timing of the Elizabeth/Darcy story (me: I am invested in the 1810-11 window others have placed them in the 1790s), we cannot ignore the facts of the era. Railroads did not exist until the early 1820s. There were no telegrams or wires. Steamships did not ply the Atlantic until the 1830s. Steam whistles of any sort in the Pool of London in 1810 would have been nigh unto impossible. Travel to India took four to six months (ocean route around the Cape of Good Hope) as the shorter passage through the Mediterranean and then on foot across the Suez into the Red Sea was generally barred by the Napoleonic Wars. Few prisoners were transported to British Canada (Georgia having been lost in 1783), so Australia was the only logical choice. The Assizes consigning Wickham to “the Americas” in 1811 would have had to dispatch him to the Spanish colonies.
As for me, even with strictly correct context for my stories, I do not seek to replicate the voice of Regency England. This is by intent, not as an accident. I fear it would be rather inaccessible to readers—not as bad as Chaucer—but it might make comprehension difficult enough that the story would be lost. Thus, I write in a voice that is my own interpretation of how a 21st Century person might think a 19th Century individual would sound. (I would cherish comments on this specific idea.)
Knowing a touch of etymology helps. For instance, while contractions were in common use throughout the 19th Century, they did not enter the upper-class lexicon until the 1860s. Colonel Fitzwilliam would not have used can’t when conversing with his parents even though he may have learned it from his soldiers.
Writers need to be curious about the words they choose. A critical question I have learned to ask is Did this word even exist in 1811? For instance, teenager did not enter English until the 1880s. Closure (a word I used in The Exile: The Countess Visits Longbourn) did not appear in its psychological garb until the mid-1920s (however, Kitty had lived for decades in the world of Carl Jung). Alright still does not exist as a proper English word (all right as I was taught by Carol S. is the only correct way to compose this).
The wonderful editor Ellen Pickels hammered home the difficulty we face when seeking to be accurate when she zinged my use of the word “tailgate” when I was describing the flight from Meryton in my novel In Plain Sight. How she knew that this word did not appear until 1868—I checked the OED and found the etymology—is beyond me. “Tailboard” appeared in 1805. This got me thinking about how words evolve. The appellation of “-gate” implies something “hinged” while “-board” feels pre-industrial: set in a time before the manufacture of cheaper hinges for such mundane use.
The Oxford English Dictionary, as well as Fowler’s Guide to Modern English Usage, are two tools I use. I also know the wonders of a Google search using the term ‘(((pick your word))) etymology)))’. Either will deliver the results you need to keep your vocabulary consistent with the times. For instance, if you are writing a “modern,” the use of the word “whilst” is quite archaic—even in the early 1950s.
Of course, if your characters have lived in the future…but I digress.
However, when words of unique historical origin are used incorrectly, they stick out like a sore thumb. For instance, one of Elizabeth and Darcy’s children might be written to have been found clutching a teddy bear. That babe must have snuck out of one of my Wardrobe stories as the stuffed plush toy was not created until after Theodore Roosevelt’s 1902 bear hunt where he refused to murder a bear his beaters had tied to a tree.
However, there is one item that traps #Austenesque writers—and I am not joking about this…
#1 Favorite Word Anachronism: OK or Okay.
This word originated in the American Presidential campaign of 1836 which pitted Vice-President Martin van Buren against Henry Clay. Van Buren, whose political machine controlled politics in the Empire State, was a descendent of the original Dutch patroons who had settled the Hudson River Valley. Van Buren was known as Old Kinderhook. A good nickname like a memorable trademark was useful in pre-literacy America.
Politics of the time were very personal as the spoils system ensured that government jobs would be staffed with partisans. Those men could expect a few years of guaranteed employment (and corruption) if their man won. Thus, it was important to confirm everyone’s loyalty.
OK grew from the response to being quizzed about Presidential preference. One who was voting for Van Buren would aver that he was “O-K” and would pass the test.
Here is the link to Amazon (worldwide) for The Pilgrim pictured above. mybook.to/PilgrimLydiaWardrobeMP
Speaking of playing with the #Austenesque timeline…here is an excerpt from The Pilgrim: Lydia Bennet and a Soldier’s Portion, Volume Seven of the Bennet Wardrobe Series. I fear I may have overpromised with my opening…but I will leave it to myself to offer a lengthy excerpt!
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This excerpt from “The Pilgrim: Lydia Bennet and a Soldier’s Portion” is © 2019 by Donald P. Jacobson. Any reproduction in any form without the expressed written consent of the creator is prohibited.
Chapter 47
…
The Acorn Harvest, October 1943
Lydia stole a glance at the man working in the shade beneath the crowns of the great oak forest that flowed from Europe’s interior all the way to the dunes that fronted the Atlantic. Even in chill air made sharper by the shade of oak leaves yet to release their hold on the great gnarled branches, Hans Richter was perspiring as he labored by Mrs. Wickham’s side.
There was visible joy in the way he wielded the acorn rake, so old that the wood had aged to a silver-gray. Richter was a man who rejoiced in the physical manifestation of life. The Hauptmann had stripped down to his undershirt. To Lydia, this was the best way to appreciate Richter—or any man, for that matter, as she recalled Wickham, Tomkins, and Wilson spinning through their cutlass and ax drills by Longbourn’s barn. Hans’s lean frame was efficiently corded with long- and short-fiber muscles that rippled as he pulled piles of dark-brown oak nuts toward him, separating them from the loamy undergrowth. He rarely paused as he took part in the acorn harvest.
His distinct maleness strummed a chord running down her center. The aroma of dried oak leaves blended with the potent spice of witch hazel and the earthy scent of moss. That and the man brought her senses into pinpoint clarity.
Her awareness of Richter’s closeness stained her cheeks, already pinked by her exertions, which relieved the sundry discomforts her memory would dredge up. Lydia had begun to move ahead—haltingly perhaps, but ahead nonetheless in the weeks after the trial. Now, as the cycle of life began once again, she had immersed herself deeply into the engrained habits that had measured time, be it ancient or modern.
Autumn had wrapped its arms around Normandy early this year, the Channel-cooled mornings and evenings forcing the last gasp of summer’s heat off to the south to ripen Bordeaux’s fruit. The shorter days naturally led to harvests both in fields and forests: barley and wheat from the former, acorns from the latter.
In late October, Deauville’s residents had engaged in the centuries-old ritual by loading their families into wagons to head northeast for twenty-five or so kilometers. There, in grounds traditionally reserved for their commune, past Honfleur in the Marais-Vernier Forest bordering on the Seine, they took advantage of nature’s bounty. Dozens of men, women, and children went to work harvesting acorns beneath the leafy canopy. The ancien regime, in one of its few well-considered decisions after the ascension of Louis XIV, had deemed it necessary to permit paysans unrestricted rights to exploit the otherwise useless piles of acorns. While the nuts may have been free for the taking, the work necessary first to hull and later to leach the tannin from the acorns before making a nutty flour was as close to backbreaking as agriculture could get. The upper-class prejudice against dark bread probably saved France’s paysans from losing even this narrow margin between starvation and survival.
As had been traditional since the seventeenth century, the atmosphere in the encampment was akin to a market day where families would combine work and vacation, sleeping out in the open or beneath weathered but colorful canvas. While every hand was expected to fill their buckets multiple times, there was ample opportunity to play over the three or four days the campsites were in place. Children found inventive ways to vex their mothers during the day. Evenings beside campfires saw great vats of soup disappear into hungry people who used chunks of acorn bread to sop up the rich lamb, pork, or chicken gravy that coated the bottom of their dishes. Copious quantities of homebrew consumed by the adults made the dancing and games even more raucous.
The Germans tended to ignore the two-way migration of villagers throughout the region. They felt that there was little chance for rebellious activity amongst crowds composed of townspeople that were composed of the young and the old. Many of the men of military age were still held in the camps or in labor battalions along Rommel’s Atlantic Wall. The occupying authorities had weighed the attitude of starving persons, however, and had resolved like the late but unlamented French aristocracy to allow the people to forage for food that would not otherwise be dedicated to German soldiers.
As she thought of the Germans, Lydia realized just how lucky Deauville had been thus far in the war—at least when it came to German interference in the daily lives of the people. The insertion of Schiller and Richter into l’hôtel de Ville had meant so much, removing as it did the threat of mass arrests, deportations, and expropriations.
Even now, Schiller had eased any possible restrictions on the acorn harvest by arguing that Deauvillards were generally peaceful folk. The Oberst promised the powers that be that Richter would accompany all from the town to act in loco parentis, representing the Kommandantura as the people moved between administrative areas.
As she bent over her own work, Lydia imagined how she must have looked to Hans: a woman in full, although thinner than she had been when she first arrived in Deauville. However, much of what she had lost in cushioning had been replaced with firm muscles thanks to the laundry, housecleaning, and other chores she had undertaken around the House.
She was dressed in high-waisted slacks above a pair of paratrooper boots. Where had Hans discovered a pair of these clodhoppers that were small for a man even though my feet are large for a woman? Her outfit was topped by a serviceable, multi-colored rayon blouse tucked in at the waist. Her face was tanned. What would Mama have to say considering how she constantly nagged at Lizzy that she would never catch a man if she instead caught freckles?
What the Widow Bennet would have thought in 1815 mattered not to the Widow Wickham in 1943. For months she had denied that which was her nature: she was a passionate woman with a woman’s needs. She required a man’s hands and a man’s body to sate her desires and to lift her soul with the music only a man could play. Yet, there was more: Lydia needed a man who existed like a calm pool of fathomless water into which she could plunge, to explore its depths without fear of slamming into hidden shoals.
For her, she had rapidly become convinced, that man was Hans Richter.
If her ruminations of Richter had caused her to blush, how would she have reacted if she could hear his thoughts on her figure bent over her own bucket?
***
The revelation that was Lydia Wickham had given Hans pause.
She has opened her heart to me even more since Letty put down those two dogs. Lydia still has her moments when her eyes dim, and she turns inward. What is different is that before she would vanish from this world, running away. Now she comes toward me, to share her pain and to allow me to bring her what peace I can.
I have discovered that she utterly despises people who avoid speaking of Georges Henri. True, they fear bringing her sadness, but their silence erases the little man’s existence as if he was made a nonperson by that Bolshevik Stalin. Their good intentions—who was it who said that ‘The road to hell is paved with good intentions?’—bring more pain.
The Stoic in Richter helped him to see that pain was an essential part of life, for without it, how could one understand the joys that pleasure could bring?
While he would never willingly hurt Lydia, he cherished her enough to know that whatever disquiet she would experience if he broached Georges Henri would ultimately bring happiness, lighting that pair of fine eyes.
The past two days had been magical as they moved through the forest, stepping around thickets, and building great mounds of nuts. Then they would spend evenings wrapped together beneath the lambswool coverlet that Lady Kitty had insisted they carry with them in the cab of the rickety Renault truck, an artifact of the last war.
All those huddled around the bonfires that warmed the communards studiously ignored the couple, he a German officer and she an Irish relative of the countess. These friends had seen the cost of blind prejudice and refused to allow it to hinder the pair.
Every evening when they separated to their individual tents, Lydia’s natural musk, more powerful than usual after two days of hard labor and no bathing, tortured him whether awake or asleep. It was an aphrodisiac that aroused him, agitating his loins in a primeval manner. He struggled against his passions, knowing that Lydia could not be taken but, rather, gratefully accepted when she fully opened her heart and offered her body to him.
Even now, hours before they were to leave to return to the House, he quivered as if he were filings being drawn to her lodestone.
There was little more he could do but await her decision.
He stopped his work and stood panting in the cooling breeze circulating between the giant trunks. Eventually, though, his breaths became slower and deeper. A preternatural peace flooded his being. His eyes drifted shut for a moment until he could sense everything about him. A vast plane of existence stretched out behind his closed lids. Infinity, though, was curved with a dent nearby. That hollow was filled by a ball of energy, coruscating across the spectrum between sky-blue and hazel with longer and longer periods of the richest green hue.
That was his Lydia, his center, his reason to exist. He could not resist her raw power.
***
Lydia, her own efforts arrested by his sudden halt, straightened and focused on the blond Atlas, his rangy paratrooper’s form leaning against his acorn rake. With his eyes closed, Richter’s visage assumed an almost childlike innocence, all stress and care erased.
As he was standing just four feet from her, Richter’s scent, sweetly redolent of cinnamon and apples—a farmer’s aura, so much like a pie—wafted to her on zephyr’s wings, disrupting her.
Try as she might, Lydia could not find anything about Richter that she did not appreciate.
His entire body began to lean toward her. That motion erased the last vestiges of doubt and released the bindings around her heart, ligatures that had kept the pieces of her soul from flying into infinity in the months since the accident.
She exhaled, releasing a sigh between slightly parted lips—the deepest rose they were—which bordered on a hum.
The sound of this woman purring galvanized Richter. His eyes flew open, blue pools drinking in a vision of her loveliness.
Lydia’s sun-dappled skin glowed in the early afternoon rays filtered by leaves and branches. Shadow and light played across her creamy complexion, implying motion even though she stood motionless. Her taut figure was arranged in the pose of eternal Eve, one knee cocked, all her weight resting on the other leg. Her woman’s hips, shrouded by her slacks, framed her womb’s dome. Her full breasts rested high upon her ribcage, proud beneath the multi-colored blouse.
But it was those lips that enslaved him. Their fullness, swollen as if they already had been thoroughly kissed, cried out and pulled him into the vortex that was Lydia Wickham.
She moved like a leopard, sinuously covering the gap until she stood before him.
He was mesmerized. His hand rose of its own accord, two fingers closing the gap to gently caress first her downy cheek and then to trace the edges of her mouth.
Their eyes locked, and their stares bored deeply into the core of their beings, answering all the questions they had ever asked themselves or each other.
Her arms embraced him. His free hand cupped the back of her head.
While kisses previously had been taken, given, and shared, this one moved into that high country where rarified air, ionized by Sol to shimmer in their memory’s rose-colored lenses, haloed each of them. It was as if this was their first.
But, if not first, then best.
They broke and regarded one another at arm’s length.
Calmly licking those self-same lips, employed so pleasantly but a moment ago, Lydia wordlessly looked up at her man and nodded. Then she tapped her fingers against his lips and nodded again. Richter held his peace.
Leading him across the clearing, Lydia bent—offering Richter a tantalizing view of her firm bottom—and rifled in her oversize musette, pulling out the soft gray lambswool throw. Draping it over her arm, she brought him to a laurel thicket where she dipped and vanished into a shadowy, grass-lined den.
Confused, Richter stopped until her blonde head poked out, looking up at him with a fire that raced across the arid hillside of his heart before Lydia.
“Come, Hans,” she urged, “let this be our bower. Leave this world and come to me.
“Make me yours as I will make you mine.”