the abilities of the nine-hundredth abridger of the History of England, or of the man who collects and publishes in a volume some dozen lines of Milton, Pope, and Prior, with a paper from the
Spectator,
and a chapter from Sterne, are eulogized by a thousand pens,there seems almost a general wish of decrying the capacity and undervaluing the labour of the novelist, and of slighting the performances which have only genius, wit, and taste to recommend them." What writers speak of as "only a novel," she concludes, is, "in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour are conveyed to the world in the best chosen language'' (pp. 3738). The rival sides are clearly and unsurprisingly marked: there are essayists and novelists; they are men and women; and Austen, overturning the usual ranking, proudly embraces the second group. Fay Weldon is proud to follow her.
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At the end of
Letters to Alice
which is, after all, only a novelorder is reestablished as in Austenian comedy. The young heroine has not married but published; she has reconciled with her family, and let her hair grow in brown; and maverick Aunt Fay is planning to dine with her sister and even her brother-in-law (of whom we can trust her to continue to take a dim view). Has Aliceas the English teachers ask, about Emma
learned
anything? Well, her novel is an enormous successpossibly because Fay has instructed her to rewrite and to think of her audience, but possibly because it is a novel simple and silly enough to please a reading public that lacks discrimination and taste. "You have sold more copies of
The Wife's Revenge
in three months than I have of all my novels put together (well, in this country at least. Let me not go too far)," Fay writes in her last letterkeeping a rein on her auntly enthusiasm, and keeping her dignity and distance, and edging her happy romantic ending with irony, as Austen does. A niece, however lucky and happy, does well to keep mindful of the importance of aunts.
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 | 1. See, e.g., Michael Malone, review of Fay Weldon's
Life Force, New York Times Book Review,
April 26, 1992, p. 11; William Phillips, review of Doris Lessing's
The Fifth Child, Partisan Review
1 (Winter 1989): 143; James Lardner, "Books,"
The New Yorker,
April 13, 1992, p. 104.
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| 2. "Nancy Drew: 30's Sleuth, 90's Role Model,"
New York Times,
April 19, 1993.
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