Lost in Austenmania

Olivia Williams as the author herself in
JANE AUSTEN REGRETS, part of
"The Complete Jane Austen" series currently
running on PBS's MASTERPIECE.

A huge, inky wave is crashing on the publishing world: Austenmania. It’s oscillations first began in 1995, when CLUELESS, the Beverly Hills update of EMMA, showed Hollywood how totally cool Jane Austen was. This lead to successful and sometimes numerous studio adaptations of Austen’s other works like PERSUASION, SENSE AND SENSIBILITY and PRIDE AND PREJUDICE. Now that cinema has all but exhausted Austen’s wares, fans are seeking solace in new tides of Austen-inspired works.

While Austen's canon contains only six novels and some juvenilia, the number of novels dealing with Austeniana is rapidly hitting the 50-mark. In addition to smart re-modernizations like BRIDGET JONES' DIARY, there are journals from various heroes—be it Darcy or PERSUASION’s Fredrick Wentworth—erotic what-if novels, the Darcys in the future, Mr. Darcy in the past, Darcy with other wives and even stories about Austen addicts (AUSTENLAND and JANE AUSTEN BOOK CLUB). Of course, this type of literary mania is nothing new. Shakespeare, Lord Byron, Poe and Conan Doyle have all been the focus of fictional fixations. But few literary tributes, with the exception of Sherlockiana, have become their own genre.

I admit I have read PRIDE AND PREJUDICE 10 times and watched the BBC adaptation more than a baker’s dozen. However, I’ve never felt the need to go beyond Eliza Bennett and Mr. Darcy’s nuptials. If it didn’t interest Miss Austen enough to write about it, it was probably uneventful. The few products of Austenmania I have read have shrugged off Austen’s commentary and style and reduced her characters into a Harlequin Romance cast. But it isn’t all bad. Just as a phenomenon like this spurns many pastiches, it also leads to the creation of original work and concepts, like a Make Your Own Jane Austen Adventure Story.

LOST IN AUSTEN:
 CREATE YOUR OWN
 JANE AUSTEN ADVENTURE
Emma Campbell Webster
Riverhead Trade (2007)

LOST IN AUSTEN, by Emma Campbell Webster, is a lifesaver thrown into the Regency riptide. It’s smart, interactive and unsentimental for a period piece. Not only do you revisit the beloved characters from PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, you become its protagonist, Elizabeth Bennett.

There are two ways you can play LOST IN AUSTEN. You can simply read through or play with a point system. The latter consists of distributions into five categories: accomplishments, intelligence, confidence, connections and fortune (i.e., luck or money). You gain or loose points by making choices and answering trivia. The rules state that to “increase your chances of marrying well, you must try to improve your scores and gain more Connections and Accomplishments.” This is not really true. You can play without points, and if you do keep score and find it embarrassingly low by the end of the game, you are still viably marital. Regardless, I recommend playing with points, it’s more fun and makes you weight your choices and answers more than you would with just a cold read-through.

Your objectives are as follows: “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a young Austen heroine must be in want of a husband, and you are no exception.” Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to endear and engage yourself to Mr. Darcy. If you find him tiresome, you can pursue another beloved Austen hero.

When I read Make Your Own Adventure books as a child, the most annoying aspect was a wrong decision meant “game over.” Of course, no one who has ever played these books let death interfere with flipping to the next page, but it was always a morale killer. If you make a wrong choice in AUSTEN, you can die in freak accidents befitting the 19th Century, but in most cases you are rewarded with plot diversions to other settings and chance encounters with characters found in other Austen novels. Elizabeth Bennett is not only courted by Mr. Darcy, but also by Captain Wentworth, Mr. Knightly, Henry Crawford, Willoughby and even Tom Lefroy, who courted and was refused by Miss Austen.

You can also get lost in the sketchy gothic house of NORTHANGER ABBEY and become snubbed by Emma Woodhouse. The EMMA subplot is a prime example of Webster’s ability to preserve Austen’s trademark depictions of gentle absurdity. Upon meeting Emma, you are given a “society quiz” that determines Miss Woodhouse’s opinion of you. This is, of course, dictated by money, and you must choose whether you think you are of the “Not so Riche,” “Nouveau Riche” or “Old Money” class. True to character, none of these answers wins snobby Emma’s respect; you are esteemed as either beneath her, vulgar or so smart she hates you. Fun little tangents like these encourage the player to sabotage Elizabeth just to see what might happen.

The swoon-worthy Colin Firth as Lord Darcy
and Jennifer Ehle as the inimitable Lizzie
Bennett in the BBC Fan favorite
dramatization of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE.

Ms. Webster is an Austen scholar from Oxford, which leads me to believe she not only wrote this game as a response to Austen fanaticism, but also as a literary guide. Decisions are made at pivotal plot turns, and the correct results pinpoint pertinent change in Elizabeth Bennett’s emotional development. By the game’s end, you come away with a better sense of Austen’s greatness: her ability to create dimensional and unforgettable characters. Her books are not just about marriage, but about the emotional state and stressful pressure it placed on Regency young women. Some could argue the same pressure is still prevalent on women of this century. Which explains why women still want to grow with Austen’s characters and indulge in what-if scenarios and scenes. More than 200 years later, we still relate.

LOST IN AUSTEN cannot answer what Mr. Darcy or Elizabeth Bennett might be like on their 10th anniversary, but it can oblige you with a better understanding of their emotional growth and fantasies of an Austen land where all her characters interact. And despite all that scholarly mumbo-jumbo, it’s downright dignified fun!