Lucy A. Snyder

It’s easy to take Jane Austen for granted because we live in the world that she created. We struggle to see how groundbreaking and innovative her novels are because they set the template for all modern fiction. Pride & Prejudice, to cite the most obvious example, did more than invent a genre. Anyone who now writes a story in which two people fall in love is either inspired by her or reacting against her. She’s like Tolkien in that sense. But she did much more than that. She perfected a method of narration known as “free indirect discourse” that’s now used by virtually every writer. You have only to read the novels of pre-Austen writers to see what a tremendous difference she made through her use of this technique. Literary scholar John Mullan argues that Emma launched a revolution in form & technique that’s comparable to the innovations of Joyce and Proust. It is the favorite novel of Susanna Clarke and of Katherine Rundell, who calls it “a book that shows as much of the sweep of the human heart, of fear, love, morality, untruth, foolery and triumph as a Shakespearean drama.” It is also, arguably, the novel that invented the mystery genre, having what J. K. Rowling has called the biggest twist in literature. You don’t notice the greatness of Austen for the same reason a fish doesn’t know that it lives in water.

Today’s world starts to make sense when you realize many people are passionately anti-intellectual. “I get upset when I see someone reading.” That’s anti-intellectual. “I have zero interest in old movies or books.” That’s anti-intellectual. “Chatbots will make college obsolete.” You hate the intellect, my friend.

This is why it drives me mad when people say, “Don’t you wish you’d had AI to write your college essays?” No, because writing those essays was a pleasure, because I enjoy looking things up in books and I like learning. I take pride in my work because I’m not a loser.

On Threads they’re debating whether using big words is ableist. I’m sick of this anti-intellectualism masquerading as social justice. People are making excuses to avoid having to do anything hard, but at some point you have to grow up and read and learn and challenge yourself.