ROANOKE TIMES

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, August 10, 1995                   TAG: 9508100021
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: DIANE WHITE THE BOSTON GLOBE
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium


`SWEET LITTLE LADY WRITER' IS STILL STIRRING THINGS UP

In the summer of 1995, 178 years after her death at age 41, Jane Austen is still alive in the minds and hearts of her admirers, and more than ever in the news.

Some greater or lesser controversy always seems to be brewing in Austen circles surrounding modern adaptations and interpretations of her work. The latest involves the Aug. 3 London Review of Books, which flaunts on its cover, in bold teaser type above the masthead, the provoking question: ``Was Jane Austen Gay?''

An American academic, Terry Castle, in a review of a collection of Austen's letters, strongly suggests the novelist had some sort of lesbian relationship with her sister Cassandra. The piece is fraught with phrases like ``subliminal fetish-life,'' ``underlying eros,'' ``homophilic fascination,'' ``unconscious narcissistic or homoerotic imperatives'' and ``proto-Gertrude Stein.'' Castle musters some tortured arguments for her thesis, noting for example Austen's ``remorseless eye ... for male fatuousness'' as one indication of her lesbian tendencies. She ignores that 1) Austen also portrayed some very silly women in her novels, and 2) lesbians don't have a lock on noticing male fatuousness, far from it.

``This is right up there with the craziest interpretations,'' said Garnet Bass, president of the Jane Austen Society of North America, from her home in Raleigh, N.C. She said it reminds her of another paper, published a few years ago, ``Jane Austen and the Masturbating Girl.''

``It made similar arguments about homoerotic tendencies in Jane Austen,'' Bass said, ``focusing on a scene in `Sense and Sensibility' in which Marianne is distraught after Willoughby has rejected her and Elinor is comforting her. Both are wearing night clothes, so ...''

Bass couldn't seem to bring herself to finish the sentence. ``You just hope these things will die a natural death,'' she said with a bit of a sigh. She tries, she said, to keep in mind a line from ``Pride and Prejudice,'' when Elizabeth says to Darcy, ``Follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies do divert me, I own, and I laugh at them whenever I can.''

Bass said she counts herself among those who think Austen was a radical writer for her time. ``What she did in literature was radical, giving us an intelligent heroine who thinks for herself,'' she said. ``But I don't think she was promoting alternative lifestyles. It's interesting how far we've come in a short time. Thirty years ago people argued that Jane Austen was a sweet little lady writer. Now she's a raging lesbian.''

Another interpretation of Austen's work is causing a bit of a stir this summer, the movie ``Clueless,'' which writer-director Amy Heckerling based very loosely on ``Emma.'' The setting, Beverly Hills, is a departure from Austen country, and the teen-age Cher Horowitz is no Emma Woodhouse, but she shares Emma's propensity for disastrous matchmaking, and like Emma she's clueless when it comes to matters of her own heart.

The word on ``Clueless'' is good on the Internet's Jane Austen bulletin board. ``People have have been saying it's fun, you'll love it,'' said Garnet Bass, who saw the movie last week and agrees. ``Clueless'' is indeed funny and charming, in its peculiar way. It may not please Austen purists, but that takes some doing.

For example, some traditionalists in Britain have been critical of the recent BBC-TV adaptation of ``Persuasion'' (which will be released in movie theaters here in October) because it includes a modern innovation - a kiss between Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth. Now there are rumors, upsetting to some, that a forthcoming BBC version of ``Pride and Prejudice'' will include a shot of Darcy in the nude. Whatever next? Maybe a female ``buddy'' movie, ``Jane and Cassandra.''



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