Jane Austen Party: How it went!

Written By Bryanna Harbeke

Over the last weekend, we had a party to celebrate the cultural and literary icon herself, Jane Austen. And it was a success.

On Friday, we started with Prosecco, finger sandwiches and tea. Everyone who showed up was excited to talk about their favourite Jane Austen novels, and those who had never read her before perused all the our beautiful editions of her works (I had to exercise all my willpower to not buy everything with sprayed edges… I did good…)

At 8pm, we hosted our very first trivia night at Pile of Books, and it was a blast. Our resident literary doctor Stella Castelli won, and as a prize received a tote bag, 4 novels (not used), a sticker and postcard. Don’t worry if you missed out on this. We are definitely going to do more trivia nights. I will also post the trivia questions below, for those of you who want to play along and test your knowledge (no cheating!)

We kicked off Saturday with the lovely Alexandra and her Zurich Glue Club making collages and book marks, all Jane Austen themed of course. Throughout the day, there was tea and Prosecco to enjoy. I held oracle card readings for those interested, and some people walked away with new reading inspiration.

At 5pm, the Ink Drinkers met for bookclub to discuss Sense and Sensibility, which was accompanied by high tea. There were tiers of egg or cucumber finger sandwiches, homemade muffins by Fabio, cake, shortbread cookies, a mountain of scones made by Babu’s bakery and of course copious amounts of alcohol. It was one of our biggest turnouts, and I still apologise to the people who had to sit on the floor (sorry Yuval and Alaina). But everyone had a great time. We discussed sense vs. sensibility and which one Jane favoured, if any (Elinor seemed to come out on top), and whether or not it was a happy ending for Marianne when she married the Colonel. (If the movie starring Alan Rickman as Colonel Brandon is anything to go by, yes… yes it was…) Do we need both of these attributes to lead a balanced life? We must have a sense of the romantic and whimsy, and yet be grounded in rationality. I have to say Marianne is my favourite character in all of Austen’s canon that I’ve read so far. She was so me in high school…

We delved into themes such as the cult of sensibility, the plight of women in the 18th century, marriage as economy and what it means to grow up and mature. What do we lose when we grow up? Was it supposed to be a punishment for Marianne to lose her spark, because she was too based in her emotions? The point was also brought up that readers today often romanticise Austen’s work, trying to parcel out the love stories, but S&S is ultimately not a love story. It is not about the romance, as is seen between Marianne and Willoughby. Romance cannot survive, as much as we want to believe Bridgerton.

And of course, the men do not fare any better. Does Willoughby deserve our forgiveness? Is he redeemed in the end? His ending is also not a happy one, but does he justly deserve it, or is there some room for pity? Once again, the patriarchy bites everyone in the ass.

Everyone seemed to enjoy the book, but a lot of people agreed it was not their favourite, and it seems that it was Austen’s early attempts at figuring out her characters. There are a lot of aspects of Pride and Prejudice, but maybe not as fully fleshed out. That being said, it is so far my favourite of her works.

If you’ve read it, what do you think? Where does it rank for you?

Thank you so much to everyone who came out to celebrate Jane with us. It was truly a weekend full of laughs and great insights. And so much tea. We want to do more author events like this (looking at you Charles Dickens) and it was great to see that people had a good time (Some even got super dressed up!)

See you next time and happy reading.

TRIVIA QUESTIONS:

  1. In which era did Jane Austen’s novels belong?

    1. Victorian 

    2. Tudor

    3. Jacobean

    4. Georgian 

  2. True or False: Jane Austen published her first 4 novels anonymously

    1. True

    2. False

  3. If you’re a lover of the Gothic, chances are your favorite book of the following would be: 

    1. Pride and Prejudice

    2. Frankenstein

    3. Vanity Fair

    4. Portrait of a Lady

  4. Which of the following is Jane Austen’s satire of the Gothic genre? 

    1. Sense and Sensibility

    2. Persuasion

    3. Northanger Abbey

    4. Mansfield Park

  5. While we can’t exactly all agree, which of the following is considered the first English novel? 

    1. The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole 

    2. Sicilian Romance by Ann Radcliffe

    3. Evelina by Frances Burney

    4. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe 

  6. Who said, in critique of Jane Austen’s characters "I should hardly like to live with her ladies and gentlemen, in their elegant and confined houses"?

    1. Anne Brontë

    2. Charlotte Brontë

    3. Virginia Woolf

    4. George Eliot 

  7. Who wrote “Three o’ clock is always too late or too early for anything you want to do”? 

    1. Charles Dickens

    2. Jean-Paul Sartre

    3. John Steinbeck

    4. Herman Melville 

  8. Who wrote “Beware, for I am fearless, and therefore powerful”?

    1. Mary Shelley

    2. Emily Brontë

    3. Sheridan le Fanu

    4. Bram Stoker

  9. True or False: Pride and Prejudice was an immediate hit after publication

    1. True

    2. False

  10.  True or False: Moby Dick is loosely based off a real albino whale called Mocha Dick

    1. True

    2. False

  11. Who was the first woman novelist to win a Pulitzer Prize? 

    1. Virginia Woolf

    2. Kate Chopin

    3. Edith Wharton

    4. Sylvia Townsend Warner

  12.  In The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, what is on the cup the little girl has in the diner? 

    1. Bunnies

    2. Cats

    3. Clouds

    4. Stars

  13.  What does the word “timshel” refer to in East of Eden by John Steinbeck? 

    1. Love

    2. Free will

    3. Freedom

    4. Peace

  14. Where does the phrase “WHEN SHALL WE LIVE IF NOT NOW” appear in Shirley Jackson’s works? 

    1. The Sundial

    2. The Haunting of Hill House

    3. The Lottery

    4. We Have Always Lived in the Castle

  15.  Who wrote “Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing?” 

    1. Charles Dickens

    2. John Williams

    3. William Makepeace Thackeray 

    4. Oscar Wilde 

  16. Fill in the quote: “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. "Ignorance is…”

    1. Weakness

    2. Strength

    3. Righteous

    4. Power

  17.  True or False: Henry James’ real name was Spurgeon Eliot Seewald. 

    1. True

    2. False

  18.  In what year did Jane Austen die? 

    1. 1818

    2. 1820

    3. 1835

    4. 1817

  19.  In The Count of Monte Cristo, for how long is Edmond Dantes imprisoned? 

    1. Fourteen years

    2. Twenty years

    3. Ten years

    4. Sixteen years

  20.  In Far From The Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy, what does Gabriel Oak do for a living? 

    1. Lumberjack

    2. Miller

    3. Sheep herder

    4. Brewer

  21. Of all her heroines in her 6 novels, which one did Jane Austen relate to the most? 

    1. Emma (Emma)

    2. Elizabeth (Pride and Prejudice)

    3. Fanny (Mansfield Park)

    4. Anne (Persuasion) 

  22. True or False: Ernest Hemingway, when inebriated, used to try on his wife's clothes and parade them around their home. 

    1. True

    2. False *** NOTE*** For this question, I thought I just made it up and put the answer as false. I was sitting on the couch with my friend, trying to come up with something funny. We pulled it out of thin air. However, as it was quickly proven to me, this is actually true, so I ended up giving everyone a free point.

  23. For 2 points: Can you name all 6 of Jane Austen’s well known works in order of publication? 

  24. Which of the following is the pen name of Mary Ann Evans? 

    1. Elizabeth Gaskell

    2. George Eliot

    3. Henry James

    4. John Buchan

  25. Who founded the Urania College, a place for women who had fallen out of society and needed a place to go? 

    1. Henry James

    2. George Eliot

    3. Elizabeth von Arnim

    4. Charles Dickens


BONUS ROUND: 

  1.  What was the name of Steinbeck’s puppy companion in his travel stories? 

    1. Charley

    2. Rover

    3. Quixote

    4. Toby

  2.  What’s the name of the red headed ghost-like man in Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield? 

    1. Ebenezer Scrooge

    2. Fagin

    3. Uriah Heep

    4. Bill Sikes

  3.  What word did J.R.R. Tolkien add to the Oxford English Dictionary? 

    1. Wrath

    2. Waggle

    3. Discombobulate

    4. Defenestration 

  4.  True or False: Daniel Defoe once tried to sell a perfume made from the excretions of cats' bottoms. 

    1. True

    2. False

  5.  What phobia did James Joyce have?

    1. Arachnophobia (fear of spiders)

    2. Acrophobia (fear of heights)

    3. Astraphobia (fear of thunder and lightening)

    4. Trypophobia (fear of clustered holes)

Bryanna Harbeke
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Silas Marner: Summary and Discussion: Part 2