Alert Janeite Lisa sent us this diatribe by Julia Braun Kessler in the California Literary Review, complaining! With many exclamation points! About how the recent popularity of Jane Austen has “killed” her! Jane Austen, that is!

Who’s to blame? You could say, the rout commenced decades ago. Oddly enough, it came from her avid readers, an avalanche of admirers, well-intentioned people, frenzied wooers, worshipers, and fawning fans. Their adoration, their awe, their banal veneration constructed a jerrybuilt palace of confusion around the novelist’s slender opus.

As Karen Joy Fowler wrote, “Surely no one else’s fans have been scolded so often for so long over the wrong-headed ways they love her. Even Austen herself has been appropriated for this project. She would be so ashamed of you, her fans are told. You’d embarrass her.”

We found all this a bit heavily ironic coming from the authoress of a few Austen paraliterature titles, but to her credit, Ms. Kessler does disclose this partway through the article.

More than enough in all that to defeat any author, living or dead! Still, there are others to hammer nails into the coffin. These are the societies of her dedicated, would-be associates. Devotees, protectors, proprietors! Scribblers professing to know her intimately better than anyone in the world. They spew out articles year after year, tomes reviewing her life, her art, her love life or, lack of one. Lit-critters, onliners, footnoters, getting kicks and promotions at colleges and school in whatever country they produce such gems. Austenites, pop up and out, like the cat in the hat, now here, now there, now everywhere!

Or maybe we’re just being, you know, fans who like to write about their favorite author. Just a guess.

Proprietary too are such would-be experts! They fret and worry their goddess to shreds. They debate, dissect, cavil, quibble over each nuance or snub. HANDS OFF! to anyone they have not themselves certified, those self-appointed judges of what makes Jane run.

Um, isn’t that exactly what you are doing? At least here at AustenBlog, we don’t get snobby about such projects in general. We examine each on an individual basis and evaluate its quality individually. And sometimes our readers disagree with us. Shocking, but true.

How often need we be hit by that first line from Pride and Prejudice? Must we continue to suffer from the likes of: “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a corned-beef sandwich on rye will be in want of a pickle!” (displayed in a Delicatessen window)

Well, we’re right there with you on that. It does get a little tired after a bit. Though we do like a nice garlicky dill pickle with our deli sandwich.

What about pausing for a generation of benign neglect? Who knows, but that her genius could shine through the murky din and reappear pure and delightful once more.

Guess she’s tired of writing paraliterature, then.