Jane Austen: Her Heart Did Whisper by Manuela Santoni, translated by Matteo Benassi
Special thanks to Thomas Allen & Son for sending a copy for review.
Summary:
In a time of formal dances, courtyard courtships, and strict ideas about a woman’s role in the world, Jane Austen looked at the England around her and created unforgettable art. Before she was the beloved author of Pride and Prejudice and other classic novels, Jane Austen was a young woman wrestling with society’s expectations and challenges of the heart. Her own story involves choices that changed literary history—and perhaps even the choice to walk away from love. This graphic imagining of Jane Austen’s youth includes her creative awakening and her much-speculated-upon encounters with Tom Lefroy, a brash law student. Jane Austen: Her Heart Did Whisper is a vision of the thrills and pains of young romance, the bonds of sisterhood, and the decisions that make a person who she is (Goodreads).
Thoughts:
I have always been a long-time fan of Jane Austen’s writing. She was an author who defied the confinements as a woman of her era and wrote with unique, sparkling wit. When I got the chance to review a graphic novel depicting the early stages of her writing career, I was over the moon! Much of her life remains a mystery, so I hoped to get a picture of how other authors envisioned it to be.
The illustrations were particularly well done as every picture of Jane Austen in the novel has a bit of a defiant, bold air about her. The background of the panels painted good imagery of London in the eighteenth and nineteenth century – a dreary and heavily restricted time. I enjoyed how the illustrations flowed seamlessly between Jane Austen at the time she was suffering from illness as a middle-aged woman and her recollections of her youth. The symbolism of the shoes at the end of the story was particularly memorable. As the tight-fitting heels of Jane Austen’s time were made to prevent ladies to stray away from their homes, the story concludes with Austen taking them off, which shows how progressive she is. Hence, I thought it was a fitting and satisfying ending.
Something unique about this graphic novel was that the pictures were in black and white. Though most people expect graphic novels to be in full colour, I thought that the lack of colour enhanced the story. As most information about Jane Austen’s life is from speculation by contemporary authors, the gray tone is appropriate. Also, since the story is told from Jane Austen’s memory of her younger years, the black and white is effective.
What ultimately prevented the graphic novel from receiving a higher rating from me was that it left out certain key parts of Austen’s life that I felt were important. Her early education at day schools was not developed in the story, as well as her inspiration for her other novels besides Pride and Prejudice, such as Emma and Sense and Sensibility. I would have loved to learn about another perspective on her schooling. On another note, not many men were included in the story. Although that part of the novel is a triumph on feminism, her brothers were still an important influence in shaping her writing. I feel that the novel focuses too much on her infatuation with Tom Lefroy and neglects some of the key aspects of her early life. However, this can be up to the reader’s interpretation as well.
All in all, I thought that this graphic novel was a good break from reading some longer works. I would definitely recommend it for other Jane Austen fans because it leaves room for imagination about her early life!
Reviewed by Christy C.