Actually, I found this book by chance. By a lucky chance. I was surfing the Net for the books by Sarah Waters, as she's one of my favourite female writers. But, as it turned out later, Waters was not the author of this very book. In 2009 there was a competition of short stories held by the Chawton library. Twenty stories were selected among 3000. Sarah Waters was one of the judges of this competition.
To tell the truth, I'm not much of Austen's fan. Frankly speaking, I read only "Sense and sensibility" long ago, and before reading "Dancing with Mr. Darcy" I knew absolutely nothing about Jane Austen's live and very few about her works. Nevertheless, I did enjoy this book. In the opinion of the judges, the best story from the 20 selected is "Jane Austen over the Styx". It's rather good, to my mind, but in the prosess of reading, I've selected my own winners and favorites.
My first place goes to the story called "Broken words" by Suzy Ceulan Hughes. There's a story inside the story. I was greatly impressed not by the charecters and the pastoral surroundings, but by the legend about the girl, the bull and the Glass Valley. It's a tragic story, an allegory. It describes modern world and people, who lost the ability to hear and understand each other. Everybody is so busy nursing his own self, that he so rarely pays attention to the people around. Everybody wants love, tenderness and understanding, but so few see this desire in others. As a result, the doors close, the walls between people appear and rise. They become so great and impenetrable, that it seems impossible to find the one, who'll see your soul and take you as you are.
My second favourite is "Marianne and Ellie" by Beth Cordingly. It's another story of misunderstanding or of the lack of desire to understand. There we see two sisters, very different from each other. One of them suffers of lost love. Her groom refused to marry her, and she's perfectly upset. Her sister tries to comfort and console her, but she's persuaded, that it's impossible for her sister to understand her situation, because she's too "plain" and down-to-earth. And she even does't know, that her sister has very deep and rich inner live, she's just not eager to open all her thoughts and feelings to others.
I was also impressed by "Snowmelt", which describes the librarian's small "apocallypsis" - the beginning of the automatised era, when "printed" books become unnecessary, because of electronic ones. Personally I am very fond of "paper" books. You can touch them, smell them. Turning the pages is a great mistery for me. Electronic books are good in some way, but they are not "alive", if I can say so.
There are several romantic stories, such as "Eight years" about the renunion of loving souls, "Tears fall on Orkney", which is devoted to unrequired love, and "Bina", which tells us that love is always near, you should just open your eyes wide...
I enjoyed humorous "Jane Austen hen weekend" about the bride's party on the verge of failure.
"Jayne" is a story of a young girl, who earns money by posing nude to photographers. She hates this, but she needs money for education and living. She has a lot of plans for the future and is very purposefull. She quotes classical literature all along and is fond of reading.
"Cleverclog", a story of a girl, who counts words, which she reads a day, and who is fond of Austen's "Sense and Sensibility", is very warm and kind. The end of it seems to me very touching.
There were other good stories, inspired by Jane Austen and some of them even with the characters of her books. Maybe I would like them better, if I knew Austen's works deeper. To crown it all, I'd like to say that this book is worth reading. Some stories are pieces of magic, that make you smile or empathize with the characters.
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