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My Jane Austen Dilemma

I have a dilemma.

I don't like Jane Austen.

Ever since I was in high school, I've tried to like her. I really have.

I can't count how many times I've started and stopped reading Pride and Prejudice.

I've tried numerous ways to trick myself into liking her.

At the library where I work, I run a book club, and I've selected almost every one of her books in the hopes that I would stumble across one that appeals to me.

The closest I came was Sense and Sensibility, but even that one remains unfinished to this day--gathering dust on my bookshelf.

So, you may ask, why do you keep trying to like Jane Austen?

Partly because Jane Austen always seemed like someone I should like.

I enjoy the movie versions of her books (again, Sense and Sensibility) and the plots and characters themselves intrigue me.

It's the actual reading of the books themselves that I can't seem to conquer.

I've had people tell me it's because I'm a boy, and that Jane Austen is a "girl" thing, but obviously I don't put much weight into that. Anyway, I love Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, and those are supposed to be "girl books" too.

It wasn't until college when I had a professor I admired greatly tell me that he didn't like Henry Miller and never would that I began to feel okay about not loving Miss Austen and her works. How silly to think that just because lots of people like something, I should too. Maybe I felt like I was a bad English major for not loving one of the most popular authors in literature.

Still, every once in awhile, I'll see an advertisement for yet another remake of Emma or hear about the movie version of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and part of me can't help but wonder--

What am I missing?

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