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Austen Chat: Episode 16

October 3, 2024

Austen in Translation: A Visit with Keiko Parker & Maria Biajoli


Ep16 Austen in Translation GraphicThanks to the tireless work of translators, readers around the world can enjoy Jane Austen's works in their native languages. But how does one even begin to translate her carefully crafted sentences? What unforeseen challenges and valuable insights arise in the process? In this episode, we ask Austen translators Keiko Parker and Maria Biajoli about their experiences—the good, the bad, and the je ne sais quoi.

Keiko Parker has been a JASNA member since 1981 and coordinated the 2007 Annual General Meeting in Vancouver. She has translated five Austen novels into Japanese—Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Persuasion, Mansfield Park, and Sense and Sensibility—and is currently working on Northanger Abbey. She has also been a breakout speaker at several AGMs and has published papers in Persuasions and Persuasions On-Line

Maria Biajoli is a professor of English at Federal University of Alfenas, Brazil, where she teaches English language and English literature, focusing on women writers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. She has presented at a number of JASNA's AGMs, including in 2023 in Denver, where she talked about translating Pride and Prejudice into Brazilian Portuguese. She has published papers about Austen in Persuasions, Persuasions On-Line, and other academic journals.

Show Notes and Links

Many thanks to Keiko and Maria for being our guests on Austen Chat

Related Reading:

break graphicListen to Austen Chat here, on your favorite podcast app (Apple PodcastsSpotify, and other streaming platforms), or on our YouTube Channel.

Credits: From JASNA's Austen Chat podcast. Published October 3, 2024. © Jane Austen Society of North America. All rights reserved. Theme Music: Country Dance by Humans Win.


Transcript

This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and readability.

[Theme music]

Breckyn: Hello, hola, and konnichiwa, Janeites. Welcome to Austen Chat, a podcast brought to you by the Jane Austen Society of North America. I'm your host, Breckyn Wood, from the Georgia Region of JASNA. Today we're talking about Austen in translation, which is a topic I've been looking forward to covering for a long time. Here to share their experiences translating Austen into their native languages are Keiko Parker and Maria Biajoli. Keiko was born and raised in Tokyo, but has lived in Canada for many years. She's been a JASNA member since 1981 and coordinated the 2007 AGM in Vancouver. She has translated five Austen novels into Japanese: Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Persuasion, Mansfield Park, and most recently, Sense and Sensibility. And she is currently translating Northanger Abbey so she can complete the set. Maria is a professor of English at Federal University of Alfenas, Brazil, where she teaches English language and English literature, focusing on women writers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. She has presented at multiple AGMs, including last year in Denver, where she talked about translating Pride and Prejudice into Brazilian Portuguese. Welcome to the show, Keiko and Maria.

Keiko: Thank you very much.

Maria: Thank you.

Keiko: I'm so happy I'm here.

Breckyn: Yeah, we're very happy. Okay, so we're going to play a Jane Austen version of "Would You Rather?" Would you rather perform in the Mansfield Park production of Lovers' Vows or perform on the piano forte in front of everyone at the Netherfield Ball? And Keiko, you are a professional music theory teacher and a pianist, so maybe this question is a no-brainer for you.

Keiko: Well, yes. I would say playing the piano, which would be much easier for me than acting in a play—although I have acted in Shakespeare's King Lear and Twelfth Night, but I think piano playing would be a bit easier.

Breckyn: Maria?

Maria: Well, I have to say that my brother took all the musical genes in my family, so I can't play any instrument, not even if my life depended on it. So I'm sure I would embarrass myself playing the piano forte at the Netherfield Ball, even worse than Mary. And I very much would like to avoid that. So, I'll go with joining the theater and play a part in Lovers' Vows. I'm not an actor, I can't act either, but at least I have a good memory and will not forget all my lines like Mr. Rushworth. And I guess it would be interesting to watch.

Breckyn: Oh, for sure.

Maria: The dynamics of that group—so that will be a bonus.

Breckyn: We're going to be talking about Brazilian soap operas later in the episode, which I'm very excited about. And I feel like that goes along with it. Like all of the drama that's happening in Lovers' Vows. That would make a great soap opera. Okay, so let's talk languages. Maria, in your AGM presentation, you called translating Pride and Prejudice into Portuguese a rocky road, which I know was partly to go along with the theme of that AGM, which was in Denver. But was it a difficult process? What were some of the biggest challenges?

Maria: You know, it was so difficult it was actually a lesson in humility. I was invited to do this. I didn't volunteer for it.

Breckyn: Oh, really?

Maria: Yes. But I was naive enough to think that I could do a good job because I had been studying Austen for years, so I had a good understanding of the novels, and I thought, well, that must count for something, right? But in fact, I guess it was the opposite. We know that Austen was very precise with her choice of words. We know she was ironic, she was very sharp, and that is hard to translate. People think that the biggest difficulty is when there's not the exact word you need. But, in my opinion, the most difficult cases were when I had many options, because then you can decide which word in your language is the best. That was clear from the very beginning, the first sentence. If we take the opening line in Pride and Prejudice, "It is a truth universally acknowledged . . ." — I debated for a long time with this last word, "acknowledged." Some critics say that—I mean, it's the narrator repeating Mrs. Bennet's words in her conversation with Mrs. Long, which happened before the beginning of the novel. In that case, Mrs. Bennet probably believes it is true, as if it's a fact. But in the narrator's voice, it becomes ironic, right? So it is like one of those empty maxims that doesn't mean anything. Everybody knows it as a saying, but not necessarily agrees with it or accepts it. So I had two or three different words in Portuguese that could work there, depending on if I wanted to highlight Mrs. Bennet taking it as a fact, or if I wanted to highlight the narrator mocking it. So can you imagine having to go through that in every sentence? 

Breckyn: Line by line.

Maria: Yes. Having to stop to consider a specific meaning every three or four words in the impact of your choices. It was a little bit of a nightmare. And well, there were also language structures that work in English, but they sound really weird in Portuguese, so you have to adapt. And if we continue that line, "a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife"—this "must be in want of" was a big problem in Portuguese. And I remember I tried three or four different options. At some point, I decided to go with the simple present, and I wrote something like, "single man in possession of a fortune needs a wife." Then I thought that was not good enough, and I changed it to something like, "he must be needing a wife," which does not work in English at all, but it does in Portuguese. And honestly, I can't tell if it was the right choice. That's the problem. You question yourself over and over again, all the time.

Breckyn: Yeah, definitely. Okay. I assumed before you started talking that this would be a labor of love, but did it make you hate the book? Or Jane Austen? Like you're cursing her name for being so complicated and difficult to translate?

Maria: No, no, it was actually the opposite, I have to say. But when I said I was naive, it's just because I thought it was going—well, I didn't think it was going to be easy, but I thought that I would have the means to overcome some challenges. And I guess, in the end, I realized that the more I knew, the more I questioned my choices. And the lesson here that is very hard to accept is that when you read a novel that has been translated, you're not reading the author's words, you're reading the translator's. So people here will read my choices. And I felt like I was letting Austen down all the time. So it was exhausting. But in the end, it just made me admire her work even more.

Breckyn: Yeah. I mean, you could maybe say that no one knows an author's work as well as a translator does, right? Because you have to think of all of those different levels, and you've got multiple plates spinning at once.

Maria: Yes, that's true.

Breckyn: Yeah, that's incredible. Keiko, what made you want to take on the challenging project of translating Austen into Japanese, and where did you start?

Keiko: Okay. I have to, first of all, explain to you the difference between the Japanese and English languages. To start with, we skip the subject. If I say, "I go to school," you skip "I." And then the word order is totally contrary. So "go to school,"—I skipped "I," obviously—"go to school" becomes "school to go." Do you see the difference? 

Breckyn: It's complicated.

Keiko: Yes, it's totally backwards. And then there are no plural "s" in Japanese. So whether there's one rabbit or three rabbits, or many, many rabbits, it doesn't make any difference. It's just "rabbit." And you have to surmise how many there are from the context. Or you can say many rabbits or three rabbits or four rabbits. So, no "s" to be added to the word to make a plural. You see? And then the Japanese are very conscious about the elder and younger relationship among people. So that, for instance, there is no such word as "sister" in Japanese. There are just two words, "elder sister" or "younger sister." And if you have to say "sister" in general, you have to say "elder and younger sister" with "s" in brackets, because as I said, we don't use plural in Japanese. And that sort of thing goes on even with "uncle" or "aunt." Suppose we take "uncle." If he's an elder brother to either of your parents, then, when you write it, it's different. We use a more respectful Chinese character for "uncle" than if the person is younger than your parent.

Breckyn: So, how did you do that when Jane Austen herself doesn't necessarily tell you. Like Mr. Gardiner is . . .

Keiko: Exactly. Exactly. Mr. Gardiner is a good example. He's a brother of Mrs. Bennet, but it doesn't say younger or elder. And I had to figure it this way. Mr. Gardiner—his offspring are children younger than the Bennet girls who are teenagers. Therefore, Mr. Gardiner must be younger. So I use the word "younger brother" for him.

Breckyn: Oh, my goodness.

Keiko: Yeah, that sort of judgment call is required sometimes.

Breckyn: So, we've talked a lot about the barriers and what makes it difficult. But Maria, what would you say are some of the aspects of Austen's work that really resonate most with a Brazilian audience?

Maria: Well, I think that first, it is easy to read—at least if you translate her in a more updated language. I think it's very easy to read. So I see teenagers reading her work, and they don't find it boring or old-fashioned, like they would, say, of some other novels of our own Brazilian literature from the nineteenth century. But I also think that—well, that's actually a good question, and I have been meaning to do some research on that. Why do you like Austen here in Brazil? But I mean, where is the time? So all I can give you is my opinion, right? So, my perception here is that—well, first, we don't study English literature in school here. We study Brazilian literature, a little bit of literature from Portugal. So we don't read Jane Austen. We don't get to hear about how she's an important name in the history of modern novel, for example, unless you go to college and you decide to major in English. It's very specific. I only discovered Austen when I was in college in a class about history and philosophy of the eighteenth century. Our professor—she told us to watch Sense and Sensibility with Emma Thompson because she wanted to discuss—

Breckyn: Great movie.

Maria: Yes, great movie. But she wanted to discuss Sensibility and the French Revolution. That was very random, and it was a very different introduction to Austen in my case. But most people here, they know Austen through adaptations. Her popularity only really began after the 2005 movie of Pride and Prejudice, which we can love or hate, but we know it's a little bit dramatic—the proposal and their fight in the rain—

Breckyn: It's great. I'm just going to stake my flag. I love it. I don't care what anybody else says.

Maria: Yes. And, I mean, the final scene where they meet again and the mist opens and you see Darcy walking towards Elizabeth with a shirt half open . . .

Breckyn: Does that speak to the Brazilian heart? Is that what you're telling us, Maria?

Maria: Yes, that's what I'm telling you, because we are a country that likes soap opera. We like drama. So that movie—it really made Jane Austen popular here. But it also made her a writer of romantic novels for women. So it narrows her audience in a way. So, I'm going to give you an example. A couple of years ago, I offered an elective course about Austen and history. And I had around 50 students enrolled: 47 women, three men. Yes. And these three guys, they told me—I asked them, why are you here? And they said that they needed the credits—only because of that. They had never heard about Austen before. One of the guys—he was there because his girlfriend made him enroll. And no one had ever read Austen before. So I guess that classroom was a microcosm of Austen's image in Brazil. And so I would say that what resonates today here is the love story and this little bit of drama that adaptations usually add.

Breckyn: Sure. You know what? It's a starting place, and I'm okay. I'm okay if the movies are a gateway drug to people actually reading Jane Austen.

Maria: Yes.

Breckyn: Yeah, okay. So, Keiko, you have translated five of Austen's novels into Japanese, which is an incredible feat. Does it get easier, or does each novel present its own challenges?

Keiko: No, not at all. I started with what I thought is the easiest, which is Emma, because I knew it so well. I love the story, so I've read it many times. So as I'm translating, I could tell what was coming next and so on. Then I moved on to Persuasion, which I love nearly as well as Emma. Then I went on to Mansfield Park, which was very good experience for me because I came away with a great respect for Fanny Price and her rejection of Henry Crawford. And it's this big backdrop of Mansfield Park. And the story and the way Jane Austen tells it is so immense and deep, to match the backdrop. So I just loved it. Then after these three, which I admire most of Jane Austen's works, I went on to Pride and Prejudice and then to Sense and Sensibility. And this Sense and Sensibility—oh, it gave me—well, I shouldn't say trouble. It was a pleasure, but in a different way. It was difficult, mainly because sometimes a paragraph lasts for one whole page or a sentence lasts for four or five lines. And I had to think about the readability for my Japanese readers.

I cut a long paragraph in half where I thought it's most appropriate. Again, I had to use my own discretion about that. And as to the long sentence, there was no way I could reproduce it in Japanese in proper order, because sometimes the fact you have to know comes after the other fact. Do you know what I mean? So, I couldn't do this and do that, etc. So I had to divide it up into three or four separate sentences. Actually, translating Sense and Sensibility, which came fifth, was the most difficult. So, it doesn't get easier. It doesn't get easier. I think it all depends on each novel.

Breckyn: Well, how's Northanger Abbey going? Can you give us a peek behind the curtain? Are you having any headaches with that?

Keiko: Yes. Right now, I'm a bit bored about John Thorpe's chatter, you know.

Breckyn: He's the worst.

Keiko: Yes, it's a struggle to try to put it into proper Japanese. I mean, men have—I talked about how I can refer to myself in three different ways. But men have even more ways of referring to themselves, depending on education, work, etc. So, right now, I'm getting John Thorpe to use the least polite word referring to himself, but I may change that. I'm not sure.

Breckyn: That must be fun, though, to have that huge menu to choose from.

Keiko: Yes. In a way, you are sort of recreating—putting in your own input a lot, you know.

Breckyn: Yeah. No, that's amazing. Maria, I hinted at the beginning that we were going to talk about this, but a few years ago, you did a presentation about a Brazilian soap opera called Pride and Passion, which—side note—sounds amazing, and I need to find where to stream it immediately. So, are there a lot of those kinds of adaptations of Austen's work in Brazil? You mentioned that it's a pretty recent phenomenon because of the Keira Knightley Pride and Prejudice.

Maria: No, there aren't many. No, the soap opera was an exception, I guess. For everyone that is curious and speaks Portuguese, you can watch it through the streaming of the TV channel that produced it, called Globo. But I don't know if they have subtitles in English available for those who don't speak Portuguese. But the soap opera was a success, and I had a couple of students come to me wanting to study also because of that. And, of course, because it is a soap opera, it was very dramatic, very exaggerated. Lots of plot twists that would make Austen, I don't know, either laugh hysterically or turn in her grave. For example, Emma doesn't get to marry George Knightley—yes. . .

Breckyn: What?

Keiko: How shocking.

Maria: Her happy ending—Yes. I don't know how familiar you are with soap operas, but the good characters, in the end, they always marry. It's a rule for happy endings.

Breckyn: Well, and Jane also knew that rule. That was true in her time as well.

Maria: Yes. I think that's why it was such a match for an adaptation. And so Emma—in the end, she marries a poor worker, someone much more like Mr. Martin, which I thought was hilarious. But it was part of her development of the story that she would be less proud or something like that. And I'm not sure, but I think also the audience didn't approve the relationship between an older man and quite a young girl. So the screenwriters, they changed it as well. But it is really interesting to discuss this soap opera and analyze the reception of her works.

So, for these students, I had to make them take a step back and read Austen again and critically—like taking, I don't know, a literary cleanse ritual, so they wouldn't be overly influenced by that adaptation. But one thing that I can mention is a very recent novel that was quite popular—maybe it was a best seller two or three years ago. The writer is called Carina Rissi and she wrote a story very similar to Lost in Austen. Have you seen that TV series? Yes. So the girl finds a magic door in her bathroom, and she goes to Pride and Prejudice to live the story.

So, Rissi’s novel is about a Brazilian girl who is sent by a magic cell phone into the past. The year, I guess, is 1830. And of course, she falls in love with a gentleman there, etc. And this character—she's a fan of Austen. She's reading Austen when she travels through time, so there are lots of references and similarities. Rissi’s novel was a bestseller. It has been translated into other languages, Italian, French. I'm not sure if it was translated into English, but it was such a big deal here that last year they made it into a movie. But again, like I said before, it is all connected to the image of Austen as a writer of romantic stories only.

Breckyn: And I do think that as much as I love the adaptations, I think it might be a shock for people who are like, oh, I like this movie; this is great, and then they read the novel. And she's not very sentimental. She can be kind of mean, Jane Austen; she can be sharp and biting and witty, and she doesn't dwell on the romance nearly as much as the movies do. But it's still—of course, I think they're still wonderful and so enjoyable, but there are a lot of changes that have to happen to make it palatable for a twenty-first century cinema audience.

Maria: Especially for those who are looking for love only, because Austen is very economical with her declarations of love and this kind of thing.

Breckyn: And sometimes you don't even get them. They're just hinted at.

Maria: Yes, exactly. So . . . yeah, we don't have these big scenes. I feel like these scenes are what people are expecting to get, but anyway . . .

Breckyn: Well, and so, Keiko, are there any major Japanese film adaptations of Austen novels?

Keiko: No. As far as I know, there are no adaptations, either in film or in anime. I think it may work in anime, but I think live production—either stage, screen, or whatever—might be a bit difficult for the Japanese because they have to recreate the Regency era, and the costumes and the settings and the Georgian buildings and so on. And, also, the actors need to be able to act as the English people of the Regency era. So, I think it might be difficult. As far as I know, there has been no film adaptation.

Breckyn: Okay, well, there's an untapped market. I think we could make that happen. A few years ago, I saw a manga-style graphic novel of Sense and Sensibility at my local library that looked pretty fun. So that did make me hope that maybe Jane Austen was making her way into the manga and anime . . .

Keiko: Manga would be all right, and anime would be fine, I think.

Breckyn: And that would make it a lot easier because you just do the drawings instead of having to recreate everything. Yeah. So, I'm going to keep my eye out for that. Well, I want to ask both of you this. We'll start with Keiko. How has translating Austen into another language changed your appreciation or understanding of her work?

Keiko: Okay. I think I came to appreciate Jane Austen's fine work much better than before. The subtlety in the choice of words she uses. Now, this: Mansfield Park, the last chapter, and the narrator is remembering what happened some years ago when they were at Mansfield; they were talking about adopting Fanny Price, you know, just to relieve the Prices economically. It says—this is the passage: "When the poor little girl's coming had been first agitated,"—they are talking about, how about bringing one of the children to Mansfield Park? And I think the word agitated is very suitable for Mrs. Norris. And that sort of thing I'm discovering here and there, all over the place. So, how Jane Austen uses an apt word—that impressed me very much. And another thing is I enjoyed her irony. I'm beginning to discover it all over the place, even if it's not—I think, for instance, George Eliot, if she says some ironical things, she seems to point out that, here, readers, I'm seeing an irony here, you know? Jane Austen doesn't do that. She slips it in.

Breckyn: Well, to the point where you don't even know sometimes. You're like, is she joking or is she being serious? You're not sure.

Keiko: Exactly. Yes, sometimes you find it out in second and third readings. So that's another aspect of how I enjoy rereading Jane Austen's novels. Even Anne Elliot sometimes is a target for her poking fun. There's a passage in Persuasion—she's going down that main street, down the hill, and Jane Austen says something about what she was thinking—Anne Elliot was thinking—[which] was good enough to spread perfume all over where she's progressing—something like that. ["Prettier musings of high-wrought love and eternal constancy, could never have passed along the streets of Bath, than Anne was sporting with from Camden Place to Westgate Buildings. It was almost enough to spread purification and perfume all the way." —Editor.] Well, Anne Elliot is made to be like a saint, you know. Well, that's not a straight talk. She's half-poking fun at her. That's something I discovered quite recently, but I enjoy all the fine things that Jane Austen does with English words.

Breckyn: Yes. Yeah, that's amazing. What about you, Maria? How has translating Austen changed your appreciation or understanding of her?

Maria: Well, I have to agree with Keiko that the use of irony, sometimes in specific sentences, it just made me want to give her a standing ovation because it was awesome. But I'm going to mention something actually different, because I remember that when I finished the translation, the last word, I sent an audio message to a friend, and I have to admit I was emotional a little bit. And one thing that I told her in that message is that I had never realized—and maybe that's my experience, and you tell me if you do the same—I never realized that when you're reading, you're reading different rhythms depending on the scene that you have to go through. So when the scene is calm, you maybe read it slowly. But when you're reading a scene that is tense, or with a conflict, you accelerate your rhythm. Maybe your eyes skip to the bottom of the page because you want to know if it's going to be all right or not. And so, I realized that when you are translating, you cannot do that. You have to go word by word. You cannot skip it. So, it was actually painfully slow to go through this conflict.

For example, I had to go through Elizabeth and Darcy's quarrel in the first proposal. I had to go through Elizabeth's sadness when she realized she loved Darcy but, because of Lydia's marriage, they could never be together. And it was so slow, this process of translating these scenes, that I felt I was living it in the same pace as Elizabeth was experiencing these scenes—her anguish, her doubts. So it added a new layer of meaning to the novel. I felt myself, a few times, on the brink of tears which had never before happened. So I can say that, before translating Pride and Prejudice, I was an admirer of Austen's writing because of her irony, her incredible talent for weaving together politics and history with the most private aspects of our lives. But after this experience, my eyes have been opened to her ability of conveying feelings in such a powerful way without any need for exaggeration or overly dramatic scenes. So, yes, I guess translating Austen was probably one of the hardest things I have ever done, but it was also wonderful.

Breckyn: And an opportunity to live through it, right? As closely as possible. That's incredible. Thank you so much for sharing your experiences. To end, would you each read to us the famous first line of Pride and Prejudice that you translated yourselves? Maria, do you want to start?

Maria: Sure. Just to make clear, just the first line?

Breckyn: Yeah, the famous, "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."

Maria: All right. Okay. [Reads first line in Portuguese.]

Breckyn: Awesome. Keiko.

Keiko: All right.  [Reads first line in Japanese.]

Breckyn: I love it. This has been so fun. Thank you, guys, so much.

Keiko: Oh, thank you. I only have Jane Austen to thank for all the wonderful fifteen years that I've had since my husband passed away and she filled the void for the loss. And it's been such meaningful years for me.

Breckyn: Yeah, that's great. Maria, thank you so much for coming today.

Maria: Thank you, and in Portuguese, we say obrigada.

Keiko: Arigatou gozaimasu.break graphic

Breckyn: All right, listeners, here's your monthly dose of JASNA news. Calling all JASNA members! Are you working on an Austen-related creative or scholarly project and need to do some research in Chawton, England? If so, you may want to consider applying for JASNA's 2025 International Visitor Program grant, which can be used toward transportation, housing, and expenses while spending up to six weeks in Chawton next summer. Each year, JASNA offers this great opportunity to one of our members whose research requires their presence in Chawton. In addition, the International Visitor works two days a week for Chawton House, Jane Austen's House, and/or St. Nicholas Church.

You don't have to be a student or an academic to apply, but you do have to be a JASNA member living in the U.S. Or Canada, and you have to be able to live in England for four to six weeks during July and August, which includes the date of the UK Jane Austen Society's AGM in Winchester. Learn more and download the application form on the International Visitor Program web page at jasna.org/programs/international-visitor/. While you're there, you can also read about past IVP projects and check out the Austen-related Institutions section. Completed applications must be submitted by December 16th, 2024, and the IVP Committee will inform applicants of their decision by mid-February 2025. If you have any questions, please contact the Committee Chair, Susan Farnsworth, at chawtonivp@jasna.org.

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Breckyn: Now it's time for "In Her Own Words," a segment where listeners share a favorite Austen quote or two.

Catherine: Hello, my name is Catherine Gwinner, and I'm with the JASNA International Region. My favorite quote comes from the book Pride and Prejudice. It occurs at the beginning of the novel, when Elizabeth decides that she must go and visit Jane at Netherfield Park, as she's fallen ill and is to remain there for a few days. And so Elizabeth decides she's going to walk and not ride a horse. And she explains to her family, "the distance is nothing when one has a motive." And that is my favorite quote from Jane Austen, because as a military spouse for the past 30 years, I've moved around the United States and the world multiple times. And because of this moving, I've had the good luck to travel much more often than most people have. And I'm always looking forward to exploring new locations, new cities, new countries, or new states and meeting up with my family and friends—regardless of how far I have to travel.

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Breckyn: Hello, dear listeners. I just wanted to ask you a favor. If you've enjoyed listening to Austen Chat, please give us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts and leave a comment saying what you like about the show. The more positive reviews we get, the more people will see and hear about the podcast, and the more Austen fans we'll find to join our community. Though Emma Woodhouse may have disagreed, I side with Mr. Weston. One cannot have too large a party or too many Janeites.

As a final reminder, JASNA is now on YouTube! So be sure to follow us there, as well as on Instagram and Facebook, for updates about the podcast and new episodes. And if you have any comments, questions, or suggestions, please send us a line at our email address, podcast@jasna.org

[Theme music]

“I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.”