Okay, let’s discuss!  My first question is what everybody thinks of the epistolary form—do you think Austen uses it well and what do you think of possibilities of the form itself?

I have only read a few epistolary novels, but I really enjoy them, and I think Austen did a fine job. They read true, not as if they were written as an eclaircissement to the reader. She keeps the story concise and active by leaving out some of the correspondence that obviously passed between the characters, and by putting in only the things most essential to the plot. I would like to try my pen at writing one of these some time.

Dorothy, after reading your review I have another thought. Does the form remove the reader one step from action that might otherwise be disagreeable? For instance, if a scene was written showing Lady Susan speaking the truth to her friend, and another showing her speaking deceit to her in-laws, wouldn’t the reader think she was two-faced? With letters, I think it is easier for the reader to appreciate the artfulness of it, instead of just seeing the lies. Also the form allows an author a greater ability to play with time. Writing a novel of action scenes out of chronological order is difficult if not impossible to pull off without losing the reader completely. With letters, an author can postpone revealing crucial information simply by presenting it in a letter that is written or arrives later than the actual events.

I was surprised by the form--I wasn’t expecting that at all.  I think the form makes it difficult to tell a story, but if it is well done, it’s a pleasure to read.  A modern version should be done in email, though, don’t you think?  Because part of the charm of epistolary stories is that they evoke a time when people really did write notes and letters to each other constantly, as they could not talk on the phone for even simple communications.  When you read novels of this era, you always read about the “morning post” and the “afternoon post.” Who has mail delivered twice a day?  (We don’t need it because all we get are bills and junk mail.  Real communication is by phone, SMS, or email.)

Also, you read about ladies having their special room or desk for writing letters, and those little travel writing-desks were important for long journeys, as you needed paper, ink, sealing wax, pens, and a blotter to write on.  When Elizabeth Bennett is taken on a tour of Pemberley, the housekeeper points out the room and desk where Mrs. Darcy always wrote her letters.

So, to me, the epistolary form is an anachronism for the most part. But I like it just the same.

You’re really taken with that word eclaircissement, aren’t you Quillhill I like your point about distancing very much—all we have is the writer’s version of events, or perhaps two different writers’ versions of events, but there is no narrator who can explain things for us; all we are working with is interpretation.  So we’re susceptible to Lady Susan’s artfulness just as everyone else is—she can work her magic on us too.

Yeah, Karen, I agree that a modern version would have to be email, unless an author could make up a situation where letters would be plausible (like a travel narrative where the internet isn’t available).  And I think letters are important in Pride and Prejudice, so Austen didn’t abandon the epistolary form entirely.

I like the epistolary form. I think Austen used it well here. The letters were short and to the point, unlike in Clarissa where the letters go on for pages. I think the short letters keep the story moving and the reader interested. Also having letters to and from several different characters adds a sort of dramatic tension. We readers know what’s going on but the characters don’t. I am disappointed by the end, however, and wish Austen could have figured out a way to conclude the novel with letters instead of authorial narrative.

Margaret Drabble called that ending a failure—like she’d given up on the epistolary form.  I imagine it would be hard to make it work well, as Karen points out.  Austen did admire Richardson very much, and it’s interesting to see her trying out his form and then abandoning it and moving on to do something very new.  I think Austen’s later novels are so good at showing the psychology of her characters, which would be much harder to do in letter form.  There’s no narrator in that case to point things out about a character or to make exterior, objective observations.

I also thought the ending was kind of abrupt. And the authorial narrative almost sounds like something an editor would have written to sum up the rest of the book if Austen had never finished it.
When I think of the modern version of this form, I think of interviews. I watched the first seasons of Real World on MTV, the start of reality television. I don’t know how those type shows work now, but back then they showed things happening, and then each person had time to confess or vent privately to a camera. You could probably remove the action, show only the interviews, and have a good idea of what was happening and how the characters were. To me it’s these type of private interviews which are the modern version of the epistolary novel. Didn’t Coupland or somebody do an email novel?

I rather like the word eclaircissement myself now, though I am not sure I will be using much in my daily conversations....

I really like the epistolary form.  I thought she worked well within it really.  I can see how it would be restrictive in some situations, however.  I think I like the voyeuristic aspect of letters.  You can read two people’s written conversation and are privy to information you wouldn’t otherwise know.  I liked how Lady Susan was so wonderful (well more or less) in person, but then you would get a real glimpse of her manipulative nature in her letters.  Of course you only then get a one-sided view of the lesser characters--we know very little about Frederica.  She only had one little letter. 

I do have a question about the story--in the end did Lady Susan come around in terms of her daughter...not thinking she was so stupid (or was that just talk, since she sort abandoned everyone at the end) at the end?

I would have loved more letters by Frederica--one or two written to her friends the Clarkes and several written to a friend newly made at the boarding school right before she ran away so that she could conveniently provide more backstory about the type of marriage her parents had had. Since she’s shown to be a reader I have the feeling Austen didn’t regard her as being half as stupid as Lady Susan did, but without someone to write an honest letter to, she has no way of getting her merits across.

That’s an interesting idea about interviews, Quillhill—although for me the sense of audience might be lost.  One of the things I like about letters (or emails) is the way they are crafted for a particular person—we get a sense of the relationship and of how the author describes things to make sense within that relationship.

Danielle, I got the feeling that Lady Susan was only pretending to care about her daughter at the end, and that it was all a plan to make sure Frederica went to live with the Vernons, so Lady Susan could marry Sir James.  I think Mrs. Vernon figures out that Lady Susan meant to send Frederica off to her to get her out of the way.

Susan—interesting suggestions for letters, and I’d forgotten that Austen shows Frederica as a reader—that does seem important.

So for those who have read other Austen novels, if she had taken Lady Susan seriously, intended to publish it, would she have done some of these things that have been suggested: include more letters from Frederica, provide a more satisfying ending? Or was this the best she could do at the time? To put it another way, do you think she took this seriously as a novel, and do you think she just gave up on it at the end?

I just read something that suggested Austen was made to give up this amoral and disturbing book by her family, hence the abrupt ending.

I agree with Dorothy, I think Lady Susan never had much feeling for her daughter besides annoyance. When her engagement with Reginald fell apart it was only a small matter to get Sir James to transfer his affection for Frederica (if he ever really cared for her anyway) to her mother.

Interesting question Quillhill. I think Austen took the book seriously, but for whatever reason--artistic or familial--she never published it. I’d like to think that if it were going to make it to publication she would have done more with it.

I find the idea of letters having a particular audience quite interesting. It’s true, isn’t it? I can write a letter to my best friend about an event and then write a letter to my grandma about the same event but each letter will be very different in tone, in details and style. And the actual event will probably even be a bit different than what is described in the letters. When we start writing and creating a narrative I think we start incoporating and tossing out details according to how we want the audience to view us and how we want to view ourselves too. Early on in the novel I wished for more letters from Mrs. Johnson figuring she was much like Lady Susan. But when we get those letters later it turns out Mrs. Johnson is quite conventional and when things get messy, drops her relationship with Lady Susan, placing the “blame” on Mr. Johnson. So very convenient.

We all have different personas, and in writing letters or in any other form of correspondence we become authors of the story of our own life. I wonder if those solitary interview/confessions didn’t come out more real and honest and true to whatever happened--totally unfiltered--because there was no specific intended audience.

Quillhill—I think 60 pages is awfully short for a novel, and people would probably have expected something longer in a finished work.  I bet she’d expand and fill in some of the gaps if she’d intended to publish it, but I don’t really know. 

I agree with you Stefanie—I think the audience changes the story, and Austen has some fun pointing this out.  I like what you say about tossing out details and adding details depending both on our audience and how we want to see ourselves.  It seems that even in writing that doesn’t have a clear audience, we’re still shaping what we write, if only to create an image of ourselves for ourselves.