It’s just occurred to me that Lydia is a dead ringer for Mrs Elton in Jane Austen’s Emma.
i am also convinced that Jane would have loved Tattle!
Ears perk up...attention has been caught...
Oh boy this is SO up my street!
She is SO Mrs Elton...I also see a touch of Aunt Norris (Mansfield Park). Augusta Elton was painfully
‘nouveau riche’, boastful and rather common (**av). Her ‘eye roll’ faux pax were deliciously written. Many a head was delighted to secrete itself into a set of hands and shake from side to side at the grasping nature of this character.
Perfect modern day example would be the TIC TOK ‘
with diamonds’ cringefest. This is exactly how Austen would have written her... Another example would have been the Chanel brooch pinned to the ski suit half mast on the right hand side AND she couldn’t ski. Soooo many wrong things at the same time there...Austen would have had an absolute field day with that too.
Aunt Norris was deliberate in her unkindness. She belittled and shamed others and thought far too highly of herself for her own good. She considered herself a paragon of virtue though. So you could melt these two stand alone characters into a wonderful pastiche. Et Voila as they say in Victor Hugo books...
As for Jane Austen liking gossip and commentary! She thrived on it! All of her characters are wonderfully sculpted through her eavesdropping and listening skills. Her unkinder critics may say she had a life of little incident. This may be slightly true, however she possessed immense wit and was very clever with the lexicon of sarcasm and irony in particular. I would argue strongly for her beautifully paced power of understatement too. So if she were alive today, we can be sure she would find herself happy to frequent our portals. If you listen intently you may just hear her gently tip-toe in from time to time...her shadow may well pass a casement window as her squeaky quill pen echoes down the draughty halls of time...
mightyhikes.macmillan.org.uk
