After having enjoyed a similar memoir linked to Shakespeare not so long ago, I was immediately drawn to this. However, it didnt quite meet the mark for me in the same way. Whilst it was lovely to go back through Austen quotes and scenes, the link to the memoir felt at times a tad detached, uneventful or too overthought to get a huge amount of enjoyment from it. As an English Lit graduate, the academic side didnt put me off, but i found it perhaps misplaced.

On our daily dog walk the other day, I explained to my horrified sister-in-law what I had learned about The Jane Austen Remedy from its Introduction: When Ruth Wilson turned sixty, she started developing vertigo (diagnosed as Meniere’s syndrome, Wilson would think of it as more a metaphysical disease of the soul), and when she turned seventy, she realised she was still not well, “In a revelatory surge, I had stumbled into a moment of truth: I was out of love with the world and I was not happy.” With a family legacy that allowed her to buy a cottage in Australia’s Southern Highlands — and with no small dose of inspiration from writers like Virginia Woolf and Germaine Greer — Wilson decided to leave her “bewildered” husband of over fifty years and live in her cottage, alone: “It was, I thought, time to take my turn; a last chance to examine what had become of a girl’s once-upon-a-time great expectations of life.” I knew from the Introduction that Wilson had seemingly known domestic happiness with her husband and four children, she had had a fulfilling career and a life of travel, continuing education, and lively interactions with a large circle of friends, but at seventy she felt it had not been enough (she had always felt the patriarchal power imbalance in her marriage and wanted to finally have the last word on matters that concerned her) and she determined to do something about it. And in this initial conversation with my sister-in-law, we couldn’t decide if this was bravery or madness: when is selfishness the ultimate act of kindness towards oneself, and when is it an antisocial assault on the world around you? Happily, this is just the Introduction, and throughout the rest of her memoir, Wilson relates the story of a fascinating life — tying events to lessons learned from a lifetime of reading, but especially to the rereading of the novels of Jane Austen; her passion project for the next decade — and she certainly makes the case that even at seventy it’s not too late to create the life one has always wanted (Wilson eventually turned elements of her Austen reading project into a doctorate dissertation at eighty-eight and the publication of this memoir has coincided with her ninetieth year). The biographical bits were engrossing, the social commentary was wise, and the intertextual connections were exactly to my taste. The writing, the thinking and lived experience behind the writing, and the connection to the greater human project are all of the highest level: I can’t give fewer than five congratulatory stars for a life well-lived and well-told.

Beyond excited to read this! I have always heard so much about Jane Austen through book and film, but always wanted to know more! Full review to follow…can’t wait to dive in!

An empowering memoir of a life reclaimed through reading

Ruth Wilson first encountered Pride and Prejudice in the 1940s. She has returned many time to Jane Austen’s novels and heroines during a long life in which reading has been both a love and a priority. After her sixtieth birthday she took the radical decision to retreat from her conventional married life and live alone while confronting perplexing feelings of loss, loneliness, regret and unhappiness. In a small rural cottage, painted the colour of yellow sunshine, Ruth embarked on a re-reading of Jane Austen’s six major novels. As she read between the lines of both the novels and her own life she felt herself reclaiming her voice and her sense of self.

An uplifting memoir of love, self-acceptance and the curative power of reading, The Jane Austen Remedy raises big questions about truth and memory, personal loyalty and betrayal, prudence and risk, reason and passion. It is an inspirational account of recovery and self-discovery. Ruth travels through nine decades of living, loving and learning, unravelling memories of relationships and lived experiences, looking for small truths that help explain the arc of a life that has been both ordinary and extraordinary.