Guide to pleasant reading from Jane Austen

At the beginning of the last chapter of her "Mansfield Park", Austen writes: "Let other pens dwell on guilt & misery. I quit such odious subjects as soon as I can."

When reading for pleasure, readers can substitute the word "eyes" for "pens" & apply it to their reading choice. This choice, in one fell swoop, removes all dystopian literature from our reading. This move may be criticised as ostrich-like hiding from unpalatable reality. But by reading such books, one cannot make the world a better place. Things have come to such a pass that even the phenomenally popular children's book series of Harry Potter contains more than its share of unpleasant scenes.

Incidentally, Jane Austen herself had her fair share of detractors. Charlotte Bronte, author of the immortal "Jane Eyre" said of Austen "that the Passions are perfectly  unknown to her." Kingsley Amis called the same "Mansfield Park" immoral. But the most vicious attack is found in Edmund Crispin's classic detective novel "The Moving Toyshop." The villain is introduced reading "Nightmare Abbey", a parody of the title of Austen's "Northanger Abbey." The detective, an Oxford Professor of Literature, Gervase Fen himself refers to the Bennet sisters in "Pride & Prejudice" as "those vulgar little man-hunting minxes." In the final scene, when the murderer is injured, Fen gleefully remarks that "he will live to be hanged, which will be one Janeite less, anyway", venting his spleen on Jane Austen to the fullest.

This, regarding the most beloved author in English Literature, after Shakespeare & Dickens!

A Murine Robinson Crusoe

In William Steig's "Abel's Island", one finds Abel, an anthropomorphic mouse, separated from his wife, during a storm while they are picnicking. He had an income from his mother & had no need to work. However he was observant & well read, and  had survival skills.

He, like Defoe's hero, was stranded on an island. But unlike Crusoe, who salvaged many items from his ship, Abel had nothing. Also Crusoe had no wild animals to contend with, whereas Abel had to face deadly enemies like an owl & his natural nemesis, the cat. The novel narrates, how by using his brain & being perseverant, Abel managed to survive an year in the island. 

He also meets a frog, (like Crusoe meeting Friday), who was quite friendly with him & promises to inform his wife about his whereabouts. But the frog forgets to do so & Abel finally swims to safety, when the water level in the river reduces & reaches his home to the loving company of his wife.

It is also implied, that chastened by his experience & using the skills acquired during the year, he may become economically independent of his mother.

What love of music means

There is a short story by Willa Cather (1876-1947) named "A Wagner Matinee". In it a man in Boston gets news that an aunt of his is visiting him to claim a small legacy left by a relative.

He remembers the time he spent as a boy with her & her family at Nebraska's remote homesteads. She, as a girl, was a music teacher at the Boston Conservatory, when she met & married her husband & settled in Nebraska. She taught her nephew Latin, Shakespeare & music on the little parlour organ, after her hard farm work. There was no radio.

He was seeing her again after 30 years, an elderly complete farm woman. After her law work, he takes her to a Wagner matinee, knowing her love of music. She listens enthralled, saying at the interval, "Have you been listening to all this ever since you left me?" reproachfully.

At the end of the concert, even after the hall has emptied, she continues to sit, with tears streaming down her cheeks, saying "I don't want to go back!" to the hard life of the remote homestead in Nebraska.