Jane Austen in Bath, England

Parade Gardens

The Statue of Jane Austen in the Jane Austen Centre.  She stood 5 ft 6 inches tall.

Jane Austen (1775-1817) only lived in Bath, England a few years, 1801-1806, yet two of her six novels are set there, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion.  Bath is that kind of place.  It may not make you a novelist, but it does leave an indelible impression.

Let’s take a glimpse at Bath as Jane Austen saw it and glance at her circumstances. It hasn’t changed much. The city was a spa then and now, as it has been since before Roman times.  In Jane Austen’s day it became a playground for wealthy families, with gala balls and a rich social environment.  Today, tourists flock, directors film their movies here.  Cobbled streets.  Stone houses that almost seem like monuments.  Tea rooms abound.

But, let’s back up a pace or two and talk about Jane’s Bath and her writing.  I always hated lengthy, involved deconstructions in high school English class.  The teacher destroyed a good story, going on and on about symbols that sailed over my head like a poorly hurled vase.

My boredom wasn’t entirely the teacher’s fault.  He was in his wilting 50s.  I was a hormone raging seventeen year old.  Different times of life.  Different experiences.  And how could he have possibly known Jane Austen’s mind?  She was 25 or 26 when she moved here, half his age and triple his imagination.

So, I’m only going to throw you one triumphant point about Jane Austin’s novels.  They’ve lasted.  Seems like a new film, or TV interpretation comes out yearly.  (For my money, BBC is far and away the best).  Jane’s plots still ring true, with characters you’d recognize in your own life.  Interfering parents.  Loves won and lost.  Stuffy know-it-alls.  Busy bodies.  Iron clad social codes.  Jan Austen wrote novels about the same sorts of people you find in your town, or next door, or in your family.  For those reasons, today’s reader still finds her prose witty and alive.  Grab one of her books.  I’ll leave the rest to you.

Jane Austen was a keen observer of the ins and outs of matrimony, yet she never married.  Came close once, but broke the engagement off the morning after she’d accepted.  She wrote of courtship, and nailed the doubts and fears and false assumptions, as though she’d been in love a hundred times.  As with any good novelist, she had a hawk’s keen eye, not only for romantic threads, but also familial situations, social mores, poverty and excess, slights and human strength.  In short, she wrote a fictionalized rendition of early 19^th Century society, which in the human elements mirrors our own.

For her, the city of Bath was a microcosm.  Although she lived there only a short time, a lot happened to her here.  The family changed residences several times:  1 The Paragon, 4 Sydney Place, Green Park Buildings (no longer standing), 25 Gay St.

The blue door marks 4 Sydney Place.

Her parents married at one of Bath’s local churches, St Withins Walcot, and her father died during the family’s time in Bath, throwing the family into poverty.  The words of Mrs. Bennett, in Pride and Prejudice come to mind, “Oh, Mr. Bennett!  We are ruined!”

In Northanger Abbey, you’ll find as much or more romance and comic misunderstandings and emphasis on social standing and wealth, as you find in Pride and Prejudice.  Set in Bath, the city is everywhere in evidence, from visits to The Pump Room, to The Royal Crescent, and everything in between.

The Royal Crescent

Bath Abbey

"They arrived at Bath. Catherine was all eager delight… they approached its fine and striking environs, and afterwards drove through those streets which conducted them to the hotel. She was come to be happy and she felt happy already. They were soon settled in comfortable lodgings in Pultney-street."

A painting of Pulteney Bridge as Jane would have seen it.  Things haven't changed much.

Another view of Bath's magnificent Georgian architecture.

Want a summation of this delightful novel?  Catherine Morland loves Henry Tilney.  Catherine’s friend, Isabella Thorpe, loves Catherine’s older brother, James.  The Tilneys and Thorpes scheme to find the proper matches for their children.  James is a good friend of Isabella’s brother, John. But, John is comically rude and overbearing.  Ignoring Catherine’s spite towards, John, the Thorpes naturally decide Catherine is a good match for him.  You can take it from there!  Complications galore.  Fun poked at one and all.  Characters you love and those you’d love to slap.

The other Austin novel written with Bath and its environs in mind, Persuasion, is another lighthearted example of romance, familial battles, and love lost and won and lost and won.

Both Northanger Abbey and Persuasion were published in 1818 after Jane Austen’s death.  How did she die so young (42)?  Various theories, the latest of which is tuberculosis, perhaps contracted from raw milk.

I’ve already mentioned many of the sites you’d want to visit in search of the real Jane Austen. But, don’t forget the Jane Austen Centre, located at 40 Gay Street, just down the block from where Jane lived at 25 Gay Street.  http://www.janeausten.co.uk

The Jane Austen Centre

The beauty of Bath, England is that it’s so well preserved.  You can’t see Shakespeare’s or Dickens’ London.  Well, you can, but it’s so overgrown you’ll need a guide and an imagination vivid enough to picture Washington D.C. as a swamp.  In Bath, on the other hand, you can experience almost exactly what Jane saw.  You can walk the same streets, view the same buildings, read her descriptions and test the accuracy for yourself.  Have tea at The Pump Room, any of half a dozen other places. Take a ride in a horse drawn carriage.

Tea at The Pump Room

Bath has not forgotten her famous daughter and writer.  There’s even a Jane Austen day and Regency Ball, when revelers flood the streets in 18^th Century costume.  The next one is June 2016.  Go to the link above and read all about it.  Hey, you can even rent a costume and wig!

When you’re in Bath, to paraphrase what was said of the architect Sir Christopher Wren, if you seek Jane Austin’s monument, look around you.

   

Bath, A Jewel of an English City!

A typical street in Bath, England, with typical English weather.

When you think of the city of Bath, England, what comes to mind?  Drawing a blank?  Can’t get past the tower of London, Big Ben, and beer?  I sympathize.  Fortunately, I am here to enlighten you with a very brief overview of the glories of this uniquely delightful English city.

Bath, England:  Romans, Georgian Architecture, Jane Austin.  Pick just one and you’re in for a lifetime of blissful study.  We picked all three and ran ourselves raged in our five day, four night stay.  Yeah, you might say, but I don’t read, don’t like architecture, and who the hell is Jane Austin?

To that, I say, you are absolutely right to enjoy some reruns of The Flintstones, swilling a cold beer and munching a bowlful of grease laden, overly salted chips.  By the way, that’s chips in the American version.  Chips in the English version are what Americans call French fries. The Brits call our chips, crisps, a word difficult to say after you finish your first six pack.

Crisps are crispier than crinkled crumpets.  And by the way, what the Brits call crumpets, we call English muffins and what they call muffins….oh what the hell, change channels and pop another cold one.

But, for those worldly folk who travel to far places, and whose sweep of mind spans all forms of knowledge, let’s briefly explore Georgian architecture.

Bath is an almost perfectly preserved Georgian city.  By the way, what does the term Georgian architecture mean?  Well, first you have to know who George was.  From 1714 to 1830, a succession of British monarchs were named George, Georges I, II, III, and IV to be exact.  You may remember George III, the monarch during America's War of Independence.

An example of Georgian architecture....found all over the city.

And what is the style?  Some would say, exact symmetry.  Evenly spaced windows of the same size, chimneys on either end of the house, smaller dormer windows above. Pediments over the front entrance and windows.

When you stroll through this Georgian wonder of a city, you may notice some large bricked up windows.  Mark those down to the ‘window tax,’ another clever nonsensical result of government spending more money than it was bringing in.  To figure the tax on a house, the taxman counted the windows. This bit of governmental detritus floated from 1696 to 1851, and was dubbed ‘Daylight Robbery.’

A closeup of apartments on The Circus

The Circus

A view from No. 1 Royal Crescent

The Royal Crescent.  No 1 is on the far right.

I told you everything in Bath is close.  The Circus and The Royal Crescent are only a couple of blocks apart.

Every street in Bath is a testimony to the Georgian style, but some you must not miss are The Royal Crescent (No 1 is open to the public), and The Circus, a fabulous array of Georgian townhouses.  As you may know, originally Circus meant circle or ring (Latin).  Hence, modern circus tents are usually round, and we also have the nautical and aviation term circumnavigation.  In London, there’s the famous Piccadilly Circus, a vast traffic circle in the center of the city.

A view of the Roman baths.  Open for bathing until 1970!

The famous Pump House, next to the Roman Baths, and featured in a couple of Jane Austen's novels.

On to the Romans.  The Romans built a temple here in 50 A.D. and dedicated it to the Celtic goddess Sul and the Roman goddess Minerva, the goddess of healing.  Clever these Romans, to incorporate a local god along with their own.   The Romans named the city we now call Bath, Aquae-Sulis, the waters of Sulis.

Soon after, the Romans built an elaborate bath on the site of hot-springs, whose waters had been noted for centuries for their healing powers.  The baths and associated museum and displays are the best curated Roman remains I’ve seen, and that includes those in Rome.  The repair, uncovering, and upkeep are stories in themselves, and the results are a master’s class in Roman civilization and a Roman’s daily life.

Inside The Abbey

The Abbey's ornate ceiling.

Another place to visit is the world famous Bath Abbey, or as it’s officially known The Abbey Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul. It’s an Anglian church now, but it’s history dates to 757 A.D. and an Anglo-Saxon monastery.  The Normans pulled it down to build a Norman cathedral.  In next few centuries, Norman edifice fell to ruin, and was then rebuilt to become a Catholic monastery, only to be ruined in 1539 when Henry VIII ordered monasteries dissolved.  Repairs began 70 years later and finished in 1874.

http://www.bathabbey.org

Pulteney Bridge, also showing the weir (lower right corner), a method of flood control.

Don’t miss The Pulteney Bridge, one of only a few bridges in the world lined with shops.  Completed in 1774, it crosses the River Avon.  What's another bridge with shops?  Come on, you travel junkies!  The Ponte Vechio in Florence, Italy, of course.

Shopping?  Oh, yeah, let’s get to that.  Bath is number one on my list for shopping areas.  Bath Street, in the old downtown is just the start of a bee hive of name shops, specialty stores, and bargain spots.  We had tea at Waterstone’s Books, at 4-5 Milsom, in the heart of the downtown.  Café W is known for it’s selections of local produce, including cookies and cakes.  The staff is friendly and since it was near closing time, the wait-staff passed out unsold pastries to all the patrons.

 The closeness of all the sights and shops and pubs makes Bath an ideal city for strolling.  Walk a few steps, see a major attraction, walk again and have tea, then a couple more blocks and you're at another attraction.  Perfect!

Ok, ok, now what about Jane Austin?  Sorry folks, that’s for another day, another blog, but soon…

And remember:  More yet to come, with closer looks at the Roman Baths, No 1 Royal Crescent, Pubs, and tea emporiums.  Oh, yeah, Bath is a small wonder world!

Getting there:  Trains leave from London's Paddington Station every 30 minutes for the hour and a half trip.

The Girl Who Wasn’t There by Ferdinand von Schirach

A year ago I wrote about Ferdinand von Schirach’s The Collini Case.  So why revisit the same author?  Because he’s THAT good.  http://stroudallover.blogspot.de/2014/09/the-colllini-case.html

In The Girl Who Wasn’t There, von Schirach taunts us with another closed and shut case.  Sebastian von Eschburg had an unusual childhood, to say the least.  He’s risen above it.  A renowned photographic artist, his works play with reality and truth, bridging the boundaries of both.  He provokes, he guides his viewers into places of wonder.

Von Schirach carves his character in clear, distinct, but circular lines, making us wonder, plumbing the depths of an unknowable mind.  The language is sharp, concise, chiseled.  Take this short description of an episode in the protagonist’s beginning as a photographer:

“…the owner of a perfumery came into one of these small studios.  She wanted nude photographs of herself. She was in her mid-forties and she and her husband had divorced a few months before: the pictures were to be for the new man in her life.  She blushed when she said that.”

You’re immediately caught with the awkwardness, the abruptness, and a pathway leading to the heart of the book.  Somewhat romantic, but in the sense of gauze-covered glimpses, in a dream-like reality.

You wonder, why would a writer take the time to bridge the stepping-stones of his character’s development as a photographer?  The sure answer is, the reader needs to be lead carefully from transient soul to artist.  And yet, there is always that misty covering, the fog of who Sebastian von Eschburg really is as a man, as well as questions about his character.

Then comes the kicker.  A foot to the solar plexus.   The artist is accused of murder.  A seasoned lawyer, Konrad Biegler agrees to represent him.  Sebastian gives him no help at all in his own defense.  The evidence piles up.  Blood.  The murder scene.  It’s open and shut…or is it?  Dark shadows of deception darken every corner.  Still, the artist refuses to speak.

By this time, you read faster.  Ya gotta know!  This is a short book, just over 200 pages.  Once you open it, you won’t leave your chair, and when you finish, you’ll be breathless.

The Girl Who Wasn’t There, by Ferdinand von Schirach