All Roads Lead to Austen by Amy Elizabeth Smith

Author:Amy Elizabeth Smith
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.
Published: 2012-03-29T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

As the evening set for the Austen group drew closer, Ramon would periodically tell me, “My friends are all enjoying the novel!” When I asked if he were, he’d dodge. “I’m just about to start it…” The day before we’d arranged to meet at my apartment, he called me aside after one of my classes. “Amy, I’m so sorry. I can’t make it to the group. But the others are still excited about it.”

I was sorry, too. There went my chance to win the Twain lover over to Austen’s camp! But así es la vida.

We planned the meeting at my place for 7:00 p.m., which I assumed meant that folks would begin to arrive around 7:30. To my surprise, the first eager Austen reader arrived early. Fernando was soft-spoken and pleasant and, like all the readers Ramon had invited, a poet by nature with a day job. He was tall, with light brown hair and an apple-cheeked aspect that made him look youthful, despite being about my own age.

Elvira arrived next. She was a fascinating woman, quiet and composed. We’d barely made introductions when our small talk turned to literature, and at my request, she recommended several Chilean authors: Antonio Gil, Marta Brunet, and Cristian Barros. If I had to match Elvira up with a U.S. writer, I’d say she was the Emily Dickenson of the group, solemn, intense, and passionate about literature.

Silvia, Marcia, and my friend Carmen Gloria arrived more or less at the same time. Silvia, tall and slender with enormous dark eyes, had an elegant air, without the hauteur. In another era I could see her gracing a Paris café, poet and muse all in one. Marcia, smiling and cheerful, reminded me quite a lot of Carmen Gloria. A Bolivian who had transplanted herself to Chile, she was smart and energetic and, somehow, the least “poet-y” of Ramon’s friends, taking stereotypes into account. I wasn’t surprised to learn that her creative writing branched out into prose as well.

The odd-person-out was Carmen Gloria. While a writer, her genre was history. She published frequently on the mining trade between Chile and Bolivia, exploring, among other themes, the exploitation of workers.

“I’ve got a lot of things to say about Sentido y Sensibilidad, although I’m a bit out of your literary environment,” Carmen Gloria commented as we jumped into the discussion. “But what surprises me are the absences.”

Registering our curious looks, she continued. “They talk about servants, for example, but they don’t even name them. I tried to think about other works from this time period that address social class issues, like works on the French Revolution. But this novel just doesn’t seem to have a historical context. I read it, thinking that if I didn’t already know what period it was written in, I wouldn’t have been able to figure it out.” Oscar in Ecuador had also noted the timelessness of the text, but I don’t believe Carmen Gloria, as a committed historian, meant it as a compliment.

“That’s what makes it so timely now,” Fernando offered.

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