Ms Jane Austen

An Oxbridge Conceit  - Ms Jane Austen.

Zeitgeist -  and in the Foucaltian sense -  I’m a white Anglo Saxon (non protestant) man looking for different entertainments, in a different way, in a different time. But to be balanced here I do get old stuff too like Shakespeare, Dickens, Thackeray, and the very subtle but clever Ms/Mr G Elliot- what a delight – and I absolutely rave about some old poetry….

What I don’t get is Ms Jane Austen. I don’t think it’s

• Clever
• Amusing
• Interesting
• Engaging
• Insightful
• Romantic
• Sexy (only joking)

I understand that the often very difficult term to define ‘wit’ is used in conjunction with Ms Austen’s books.

So here is the challenge for anyone with an Austenian Phd  –  could you please direct me to the bits in the books that are funny – well even vaguely amusing. As much as I would like laugh out loud thigh slapping  Runyonesque humour – I’m willing to do very subtle - no extremely subtle – nay even gentile musing…like lapping ripples against the Sunday rowing pleasure boats  idle movements….

AND

The defense of the indefensible is really annoying but the Oxbridge crew/s do really take the biscuit. Find one Oxbridge chap/chapess (all irritatingly born with an innate sense of superiority – and accents that are really now shameful in their antiquity) who does not like Ms Austen? It’s part of the Oxbridge conceit in the DNA to love and adore the clever amusing books of Ms Jane Austen - heaven forefend  - to even contemplate……no no no no no….

Or in my case Nothing Nothing Nothing Nothing Nothing