All Roads Lead to Austen (17 page)

Chela's heartfelt observations stuck with me long after she'd dropped me off. What she shared made me realize how much I'd allowed myself to silently make comparisons between the lives of the Lady Catherine group and those of the teachers in Antigua and my friends in Mexico. I knew what Nora had been up against trying to find time away from the throng living with her, struggling for privacy, and I'd assumed that Lady Catherine—and the ladies of Mrs. Gardiner—had it easy.

And here I was, being a reverse snob. You'd think an Austen lover would be a bit more careful about making assumptions, about giving in to first impressions. But alas, no. Chela's comments made me think twice about the pressure of a woman's role, independent of her finances. Going off in a corner with a book is, on a basic level, a selfish act. It was something Chela had found herself forced to defend, financial comfort notwithstanding.

Thank god for feisty women, rich or poor. Thank god for anyone who'll fight for the right to sit down with a good book—and then, the right to sit down with some good friends and that good book.

***

My last day in Guayaquil dawned hot. The furnishings that made my temporary home more homey returned to my suitcases—the purple fish blanket, the owl statue, the stuffed chihuahua. Joining them were quite a few more books and some beautiful fabric runners from the indigenous artisans' market. I emailed Diego to let him know that I was about to hit the road again. He'd been shocked when I'd told him about the dengue, blaming himself for not recognizing what had befallen me. “If doctors couldn't identify the problem,” I insisted, “why blame yourself?” He promised to protect me from any and all mosquitoes when I finally returned to him.

Would I return to him? I missed him terribly; that I knew. Walking Guayaquil's Malecón, I was always aware of his absence, aware of how, lovely as it was, the Guayas still just wasn't the sea at Puerto Vallarta. I'd spent plenty of time alone when Diego was working, but I'd always felt his presence. I knew that each evening he'd come through the door laughing, asking for a beer, sharing amusing stories about that day's fares in his cab. Could that be my life, what I'd left behind in Mexico? If my biggest complaint was “Gee, he's too cheerful,” was I an idiot to hesitate?

But it wasn't just about us; it was about geography, too—and that was something, for the moment, beyond my control.

I spoke briefly with my mother, as well. She urged me to keep coated with bug spray, to avoid perfume (“and strong deodorant—that's like perfume, too”), and to call when I made it to Chile.

Betsy was back from the beach at last, and for our good-bye lunch before my airport run we chose a Polynesian restaurant facing the Malecón, with surfboards for tables. The entire soundtrack of
Pulp
Fiction
played as we ate and chatted.

“This visit must not have gone as well as you'd hoped,” she said with a rueful smile. “But I'm so glad Emilia's doctor helped you!”

“I was sorry not to spend more time with you at the beach and also, that I missed Quito,” I admitted. “But even with the dengue problems, I had a good time here.” It was true. I'd become familiar with a fascinating, if somewhat rough, city, and I'd read unforgettable Ecuadorian literature. I'd visited museums and spent quiet hours contemplating the broad Guayas river from the Malecón. I'd been disappointed once more in my search for Nancy Drew in Spanish, but hey, I'd cracked the secret on bookstores being organized by publisher. Best of all, I'd enjoyed my visit with Lady Catherine and treasured the Austen discussion with Mrs. Gardiner. We'd even fit in a very pleasant dinner reunion at Oscar's house, minus the still-missing Ignacio José (“I don't understand
how
he could resist free food!” Leti had laughed). My twenty bucks were history—but it would have been nice to have seen that charming, artistic rogue one more time.

“Even though I couldn't be in your book groups,” Betsy said, “it's been wonderful for me to talk with you about your traveling Austen project. Reading is
such
an important part of life!”

She asked me how the Guayaquil groups had gone in comparison to the ones I'd already done. I hesitated over how to articulate the differences without sounding critical. Unlike the pickup groups I'd created in Guatemala and Mexico, Mrs. Gardiner had years running as a forum for discussion. They'd become a communal repository of wisdom on dozens of novels, and it was fascinating to see what literary connections Austen evoked for them.

But perhaps
because
of how well read Leti, Yolanda, Oscar, Fernanda, Meli, and Ignacio José were, Austen had been more of a special event for the groups in Guatemala and Mexico. With less time to read, less formal education, and less exposure to a range of authors, Nora and the ladies in Guatemala and Diego and his friends in Mexico seemed much more taken with the novel we'd shared. The Ecuador readers had enjoyed
Pride
and
Prejudice
, but with less fervor, somehow. Our conversation, rich and rewarding, was more like one I could have had with fellow professors where I teach.

Nora and the ladies had identified with the book on a more personal level, making a smoother transition from Austen's world to their own. It's typically considered a mark of literary sophistication to move beyond seeing your own life reflected in a book, and I suppose that's true, to an extent. But it depends, on the one hand, on the book. Austen creates a world that is simultaneously fact and fiction, one that taps directly into the core problems that confront us as we navigate life and relationships, a world that invites us to make moral self-assessments. On the other hand, the capacity to move beyond seeing your life in a book also depends on your life. The conversation with Chela from the Lady Catherine group was a healthy reminder that, rich or poor, we all have our troubles. But it isn't surprising that the theme of prejudice hit home in Guatemala for women who feel the consequences of discrimination more directly in terms of gender, race, and social class.

There had been one amusing point of entry into Austenland for the Guayaquil readers, however, one subject that really got them going on a personal rather than an intellectual level. Darcy. It was fun to watch the men so willing to give him a good thrashing and the women so eager to bustle in and protect him. With Darcy, they'd all crossed that line from discussing characters within a fictional setting to imagining how they'd interact with them.

But Ignacio José, Leti, and Fernanda were firm about Austen's world having existed in a particular place and time. For them, her characters couldn't step out of the pages of
Pride
and
Prejudice
and onto the streets of Guayaquil. Smart, careful readers with a broad field of comparison at their disposal, they were able to recognize what's distinctive about Austen. But I was happy with Oscar's compromise. Sure, Austen's characters occupy very specific territory in Regency, pre-Victorian England—but human beings are human beings, and our basic motivations and the challenges we face don't change drastically from one culture or one period to another. Austen's characters seek love and approval and struggle with pride and jealousy, as do we all.

I decided to take Oscar's contribution as an omen that I would have a great discussion with his fellow Chileans on the next go-around with
Sense
and
Sensibility
. If Chileans really are “the English of Latin America,” maybe they'd have a special affinity for Austen? And if smart, contentious, and colorful Leti was any indication, I was going to have a blast in Argentina, further down the road.

Santiago, my next stop, was calling. Betsy and I finished up our Maui burgers, and she helped me haul my grotesquely overweight suitcases into a taxi, sending me off with hugs and warm wishes. “You've got to take care of yourself!” she urged. “Emilia and I won't be around to help, you know.”

I felt a pang at the thought. However little time we'd gotten to share, Betsy had brought sunshine to a cloudy month. I looked forward to exploring a new country, but I was once more jumping off from the familiar and heading to a place where I didn't know a soul.

Then again, I hadn't known Betsy, Lady Catherine, or Mrs. Gardiner when I'd arrived in Guayaquil a month earlier.

In which the author reports for duty at a Chilean university, discovers Used Book Heaven and buys still more books, hangs out with a rooster then flees the police, tries to talk a student out of hitchhiking from Chile to Denver, and, after being asked out by a strange variety of married men, reads
Sense and Sensibility
with quirky, insightful Chilean poets (and one bright, bubbly historian).

It's got the world's driest desert in the north, ice and penguins in the south—and Chile is more than ten times longer than it is wide.

Sounds very exotic. But I was amazed on the long ride to Santiago from the airport by just how much the landscape reminded me of California's Central Valley. Flat and dry, the wide expanses on either side of the highway were dotted with sparse, scrubby growth. Santiago, Chile's capital, is in the
valle
central
of Chile, famous for its wines. California's Central Valley is also wine country. On a clear day, if you climb a levee, you can see the foothills of the Sierra Nevada to the east and the Coastal Range to the west. Santiago proper isn't quite so flat; my new neighborhood hugged the base of one of its largest hills, Cerro (or “Hill”) San Cristobal.

On a clear day, without climbing a thing, the striking snowcaps you see belong to the Andes.

The apartment complex where I'd be living straddled the line between two Santiago neighborhoods: Providencia, a pleasant residential/commercial center, and Bella Vista, the funky, lively party center of the city and location of
La
Chascona
, one of the houses of fabled Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. I was close to bars and restaurants if I were interested but far enough away that the clubs didn't disgorge noisy drunks under my windows at 3:00 a.m. (so, no
faux
roosters in Santiago, like in Guayaquil). The Río Mapocho flowed by two blocks away, its banks the site of an attractive, well-stocked farmer's market. My mother could eat Chilean fruit in January in nippy Pennsylvania, but now I could get it (and a sunburn)—walking distance.

As I'd done in Ecuador, I promptly decorated my new apartment with the purple blanket, the big-eyed owl, and the stuffed Chihuahua from Diego, along with some brightly colored, woven fabric runners from an artisans' market in Guayaquil. I'd coughed up $100 extra for my overweight baggage on the flight out; not a single book, bright blanket, or big-eyed owl was getting left behind. At the rate I was going, by the time I hit Argentina I'd be able to take an unfurnished hotel room.

The doormen where I lived were a friendly crew, and the day I arrived, I chatted a good hour with Demetrio the Spaniard, Emilio, and Don Alberto. The complex, with a large central courtyard, was composed of three buildings accessed by a gate, beside which stood the doormen's office. At least two were there at any given time, talking together or reading.

“Don” wasn't Alberto's first name; it was the title conferred on him as senior doorman. In his mid-sixties, he and Emilio, a strikingly handsome man in his thirties, were Santiago natives. Slender Demetrio the Spaniard, the youngest, had come to Santiago to study. With Don Alberto and Emilio, I found the “Chileans are cold” stereotype wasn't holding true but another one was: Chileans speak the most difficult version of Spanish in South America. Even more than Guayaquileños, they drop word endings, mash syllables together, and speak quickly. Kind of the Pittsburghers of the continent, which I found heartwarming—but challenging.

Demetrio the Spaniard, easiest to understand, was also a gold mine; he knew where to find every bookstore, flea market, and weekend book fair.

“You're in luck!” he cried, when I explained my traveling Austen project and desire to learn about Chilean literature. “There's a sale tomorrow outside the Providencia municipal building.”

Pursuing books would be just the thing to stave off an attack of new-place-travel-panic, even if I wouldn't be able to show them off proudly to Diego at the end of the day.

The next morning I set off with the map Demetrio had drawn. I am such a book hound that I actually dream about flea markets and thrift stores. My sleeping brain creates dusty, crowded places where, in the midst of old clothing and bric-a-brac, I suddenly discover Nancy Drew mysteries from the 1930s that I never knew existed, despite already owning a complete set. Or I pull leather-bound Dickens novels for a dime apiece from under a stack of warped LPs. Or I stumble over a box marked “Free!” that's stuffed with hardback bodice rippers from the 1920s with titles like
Daughters
of
Luxury
or
The
Barbarian
Lover
. I've never had the nerve to ask any of my book-loving friends if they have these nerdy dreams, too.

I hit the
feria
de
libros
—the book fair—on a mission, since I'd gotten my first reading recommendation before setting foot on Chilean soil. Austen had reminded Oscar from the Ecuador group of Alberto Blest Gana, and finding a copy of his
Martín Rivas
proved easy. My bags grew heavier and heavier with treasures I couldn't live without before I remembered the distance I had to haul them back to my apartment. I was still recovering from dengue and not up to full strength, plus taxis were trickier to catch and more expensive in Santiago—no economical
tuk-tuks
available, like in Antigua.

The walk home was a lot less carefree than the one there. Being passed by a flock of small, screeching green parrots lightened my load for several blocks—wild parrots in the city! But by the time I made it back to the doormen's office I was winded, my back and shoulders on fire.

“You found the sale!” Demetrio the Spaniard greeted me as I staggered up, while Don Alberto hurried to open the security gate.

I emptied my bags onto the counter to display my loot to Demetrio. Don Alberto scooped up the bags as I repacked them and, despite my protests, wouldn't give them back until I was inside the door of my apartment.

“Well, good-bye for now,” he said, smiling over his shoulder as he left. Pleasant as he was, Don Alberto was well into his sixties. Still, I was beginning to get the idea that he was, in fact, flirting.

***

How did a nice guy like
Sense
and
Sensibility
's Edward Ferrars get caught up with a sneaky skunk like Lucy Steele in the first place?

“Want of employment,” that's how. If he'd had work or studies to keep him busy, he tells Elinor at the novel's end, he never would have entered into an engagement so rashly. Most of us love to gripe about our jobs, but our “employment” often makes us who we are. After all my months of book shopping, hanging out with Diego, doing reading groups, and recovering from dengue, Santiago was where my employment resumed. I'd be teaching two literature courses for U.S. and Canadian students at a Chilean university that offered a special semester on a North American timetable, January to May; a typical Chilean semester wouldn't start until March.

I'd assumed the miserable slump I'd fallen into in Ecuador was all about the dengue I'd contracted in Mexico and about missing friends and family—and most of all, Diego. Entering the university building in central Santiago and seeing the rooms where I'd be teaching showed me there was more to it. Despite some language difficulties, I immediately felt at home among my new Chilean colleagues. The specialist in American history and culture was Carmen Gloria, an attractive, vivacious woman my age with full, dark hair shot through with striking auburn highlights. She reminded me immediately of Nora—not so much in looks but for her warm, positive, welcoming energy. A friend in the making, I hoped.

School is my element. So yes, I am a nerd. My book orders were in, my handouts were ready to go, and there I was, Dr. Smith again.

The study abroad coordinator, a somewhat timid man in his thirties with large, solemn eyes and dark, curly hair, took me out to lunch to celebrate my reporting for duty and to brief me on the students before classes started. “These are good kids,” Ramon said as he led me into the restaurant. “But you need to approach study abroad differently. Trim back your reading just a
bit
. And add some field trips. They love field trips.”

Field trips—check.

“Students are often gone on the weekends because they come here to travel,” he explained. “It's perfect that you'll be teaching travel literature. And it's one of my favorite genres.”

As talk shifted to reading preferences, I realized that Ramon, bright and well read, could be the perfect person to help me with Austen. The Guatemala, Mexico, and Ecuador groups had all been arranged before my arrivals, but knowing that I had five months in Chile, I'd decided to do the legwork once I got to Santiago. Now, maybe I didn't have much legwork to do.

At the first reasonable opening I asked, “What do you think of Jane Austen?”

Ramon took a sip of wine. “Austen is a classic,” he nodded tactfully. “But do you know who I really love?”

Then he did it—he named the author who makes hard core Austen loyalists sigh in distress, the author who wrote, “Every time I read
Pride
and
Prejudice
, I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shinbone” and “It seems a great pity that they allowed her to die a natural death.” What a contrast with gentle Sir Walter Scott, lamenting that “such a gifted creature died so early!”

Who could contemplate assaulting Austen's corpse with…Austen's corpse? I love to horrify students by sharing these quotes on the first day of my Jane Austen class and asking them to guess the source. Surely the culprit must have been John Wilkes Booth, Jack the Ripper, Charles Manson. Maybe Adolf Hitler?

Nope. Mark Twain.

Why on earth did Twain hate Austen so much? It helps to know the context for his most biting comments. Twain's friend William Dean Howells was an over-the-top Austen fan, and Twain couldn't resist tweaking his nose on this. The “It seems a great pity” comment actually comes from a private letter to Howells, not any polished statement Twain published. The “shinbone” crack was also from a private letter, one to Joseph Twichell.

There's no way a writer as good as Twain could fail to appreciate a master stylist like Austen, so I've got a theory. The cynic in him was galled by all of the happy endings Austen pulled out of her bonnet. Wicked humorist that Twain was, how could he not love great writing like this from
Northanger
Abbey
: “A family of ten children will always be called a fine family, when there are heads and arms and legs enough for the number.” Or this, from
Persuasion
: “The report of the accident had spread among the workmen and boatmen about the Cobb, and many were collected near them, to be useful if wanted; at any rate, to enjoy the sight of a dead young lady, nay two dead young ladies, for it proved twice as fine as the first report.”

So, Ramon's affection for Twain didn't put him on the wrong side of a literary divide for me. My opportunity to pursue Austen came over our decadent dessert, when Ramon asked, “Aside from teaching, what are you hoping to get out of your time here in Chile?”

I explained about the Austen reading groups I'd already done and, by the time the check showed up, I had one committed Austen reader and Ramon's promise to deliver more.

“A number of my friends are poets,” he smiled. “That would be appropriate for the land of Neruda, wouldn't it?”

***

It's a shame how little formal education Austen got to enjoy—only about two years total. What an intimidating student she would have been, no doubt smarter than most of her teachers, taking in lectures with an exacting mind, ready to greet any dullness in her lessons with sharp, sly commentaries. But given how well she turned out, maybe there's something to be said for being more or less self-educated, after all.

For my new students in Chile I was offering versions of two literature courses I do at my home university, one on travel and the other on war. There were five students in the travel class and four in the other, smaller groups than I was used to but good by the standards of the study abroad program. Mine were the only classes taught in English, giving students the chance to speak up without being nervous about sounding like boneheads.

I'd heard that when studying abroad, at least one student per class will seriously go native. This is good if it means they're adapting well,
not
so good if they start missing classes and flunk the semester. I couldn't resist trying to guess which one it might be. In my travel lit course, Alison and Jenny both were open, sunny California girls, and if I hadn't learned that Matt was from Alaska, I'd have assumed he was also from California. All three seemed too classically American to seriously blend in with the rather broody, often black-clad Chilean students thronging the streets outside. There were six other colleges and universities in the neighborhood, located a few metro stops from Santiago's huge, impressive main square, the Plaza de Armas, and close to La Moneda, Chile's equivalent of the White House.

Taylor and Anne, on the other hand, would bear watching. Taylor had an adventurous hippie chick quality to her, and Anne, the only East Coast student, was smart and pleasant but reserved. A Chilean in the making?

From the war literature class, Sarah, who was dating a Colombian and had spent long stretches of time in Latin America, already seemed on her way to going native. I was pleased to discover that Brooke, who also had something of the hippie chick about her, was a fellow Pennsylvanian. Michelle, the most bubbly and cheerful, was a Californian and Emily, sweet and polite, the one Canadian.

Our first field trip, I announced, would be to Santiago's largest cemetery, where we could visit the graves of famous Chileans. “Cemetery” isn't always a word that makes people happy, but as Ramon had predicted, the students knew which part of the sentence really counted:

“Field trip! Yay!”

Two weeks later the anticipated day arrived. The students were especially curious to see the grave of Salvador Allende, since we'd discussed the 1973 coup against Allende in both classes. Despite the CIA's support of the coup, the typical U.S. perspective now is that Augusto Pinochet, who held power until 1989, was a dictator.