Antoinette May Hernson 209 286-1320 toni@antoinettemay.com BOOK WORM Travels with Jane: a literary romp For a year in the life of Dr. Amy Elizabeth Smith, “all roads lead to Austen.” Not Austen, Texas, mind you, but Jane Austen, the writer. Amy, a resident of Angels Camp and a creative writing prof at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, is a Janite through and through. “Pride & Prejudice.” “Sense and Sensibility” “Emma” “Persuasion.” Even “Northanger Abbey.” Amy, who has taught for nearly 20 years, knows them backwards, forwards and inside out. Consider a smattering of Austen characters: Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever and rich. Lady Catherine, cool and conniving. Lizzie Bennet, proud, judgmental but loyal. And, of course, Mr. Darcy, proud, too, but so desirable. And that’s just for starters. “After nearly 200 years, Jane Austen just won’t stay on the page,” Amy marveled to me at a recent interview. “She incarnates again and again through sequels ad spin-offs —Bridget Jones, Bollywood, zombies, etc. No question but that Austen has the power to move her readers. People not only connect with the characters, they morph them into living acquaintances. A male friend of Amy’s who was going through a rough divorce, confided, “I thought I’d married a Lizzy Bennet but instead picked a Lydia. “A student complained to Amy, “My sister is an uptight Elinor, she makes me crazy!” To me, it has always seemed that Jane Austen novels invariably centered around female protagonists desperately seeking suitors. I said so, too, but Amy had a ready answer. “If you think about it, Herman Melville’s stories are mostly about sailors, she pointed out. “He wrote on and on about ships without being criticized for it.” Marriage was for many in the early 18th century an economic necessity, she reminded me. Finding a husband was serious business. Immersed as she was in North American “Jane-mania,” Amy began to speculate about the extent of Austen interest in other countries and cultures. What about Latin America? Could

Latins relate to the rarified English country life of the early 19th century? Could they identify with any of its stylized manners and mores? Sabbatical time was approaching and she determined to find those answers for herself. Amy took an intensive language course in Antigua during her winter break. When she returned to UOP, it was to practice daily until the school year was over and “her” year began. Hard as Amy worked, much as she wanted to make the journey, doubts crept in. Only to think, a year away from home and family trying to navigate foreign lands—six of them —using a new language. But that was only the beginning, the purpose of it all was to attempt to convince several dozen people in six countries to join book groups. Not just any book group, either. It had to be a Jane Austen book group. “Would you like to read a novel by Jane Austen?” she would ask, adding more slowly, have you got four or five friends who would also like to read it too and then discuss it? The not so simple request worked again and again. In Guatemala and Ecuador the book groups read “Pride and Prejudice.” The Mexican and Chilean groups read “Sense and Sensibility.” Amy even gave an academic lecture in Spanish on “Mansfield Park in Chile. In Paraguay and Argentina, the groups read and discussed “Emma.” Jane Austen is not about plots, she explained to them. “She’s about the subtle commentary of the narrative perspective, the cutting inflections, the linguistic smirks.” “All Roads Lead to Austen,” the memoir that Amy wrote about her Latin American adventures is reminiscent of the popular, “East, Pray, Love,” but Amy is far less self indulgent as an author. It’s hard to write a memoir and not lapse into me, me, me, but Amy manages to avoid that trap just fine. Possibly this is because she is so genuinely interested in the people, scenes and events going on around her, and so adept at getting them down on paper. Her facility as a writer to not only describe scenes, but to bring them to life, renders the narrative exceptional.

Amy’s traveling book club journey was not just about physical landscape. She explored the geography of the human heart as well—her own heart. Amy had never been married. She was 43 the day she entered an Argentine bookstore looking for a study group and found instead a husband. Amy’s “Mr. Darcy” turned out to be Hugo Reyneso, book store manager, she met while trying to establish a book club in Argentina. At 48, had also never been married. Not only was he not seeking to be but he didn’t even particularly care for Amy. Hugo was in fact, pretty grumpy. “I nearly blew it,” he says today. “I can’t believe how close I came to ruining everything.” But that was only the beginning. Lesser loves might have faltered at all the paper work required to get Hugo into this country and to allow the couple to marry. Four years after the mutual “yes, let’s do it,” the couple said “I do” April 29th at the Frogtown Fairgrounds. Hugo, who is now working as a Spanish translator, is an ardent Janite from way back who wholeheartedly supports Amy’s cultural experiments. When Amy returned to the States, she was eager to tell people about the book groups she’d formed. Some disapproved. One man accused her of superimposing European culture on Latins. Flabbergasted, Amy turned to her new husband, Hugo. “Was I in fact a Yankee Imperialist Pig-dog? When Hugo was both annoyed and amused. “Sounds like he’s confusing you with the CIA,” he told her. “So Latina cultures are so feeble that we can’t enjoy a Jane Austen novel without our literary world collapsing. Somebody needs to learn a bit about Latin America.” One can learn a lot from Amy’s “All Roads Lead to Austen.” VITALS: You can buy “All Roads Lead to Austen” at any bookstore or from Amazon. The price is $14.99. A great Christmas gift or possibly a stocking stuffer for yourself. Mark your calendars, Amy Smith will be leading a workshop in “Literary Non- Fiction” at the 8th annual Gold Rush Writers Conference, May 3, 4 and 5th in Mokelumne Hill.