Ode to Jane Austen

Jane,

Fuck you, my dear. Fuck you. Don't get me wrong, Ms. Austen (may you rest in peace), I love you like the sun which caresses the pages of your books while your words enchant me with impossibilities and felicities unrealistic. And while I love you so, I hate you. I despise you to the depths of my soul. This is quite unfair, you protest, or I imagine you do. But, on the contrary, I assure you it is not. My assessment of detestation is quite fair.

My dear Jane, you see, while I am sure a Victorian heart such as yours could not help but write captivating prose such as would ensnare any woman's being so that she becomes enraptured with romantic fantasy, therein lies your folly. For while I don't doubt that the chivalrous nature of your heroes is doubtful inspired of thin air and therefore must have some shreds of truth according to your time and station, at the core of the matter of male characterization and romantic plot, it is all utter bullshit. And this why I hate you, dearest, for screwing women over for nearly two centuries.

Your words are delicious and your prose decadent and at each denouement unearths a man unrealistic and unattainable. I do want to believe that you have known such a man, such a man who will toss propriety to the wind and stake all futures on a moment of inordinate and delirious romance. I want to believe. Yet I have to admit that this man does not exist, in your century nor mine. Never did a man ride to his beloved at dawn with no promise of affection to declare his unabated love and desire. Never has a man borne a sentiment as strong as a bewitching body and soul. Never have I heard such. And never has any woman.

Yet you persist with this storytelling that so enraptures our kind, so enraptures so we all unabashedly desire such men. How dare you coerce us to such disappointment. And that is where I call bullshit. I adore you, Ms. Jane Austen. I would love to wrap my soul in your pages and shape a future built of Darcys and Knightlys. Gladly, in a moment would I enthrall myself with such fantastical and romantic diversion.

Yet such fantasy only ends in disappointment, as I hope you would understand, my dear. I would much rather see men as they are and choose to appreciate them or leave them be. But this expectation of the impossible is simply unacceptable. And I pity the men in your wake as well. For what man of flesh and blood can live up to the ciphers you craft out of words?

So for this, darling, I say fuck you. May you rot in hell and angry women plague you for all time.

With all my love,

your friend