Quanto mais nostálgicas e românticas se tornam as noções que apresentam sobre mundo idealizado de Austen, mais claramente podemos perceber as carências que fazem com que assim o percebam. Portanto, o objetivo desta tese é apresentar uma leitura de The Jane Austen Book Club através da aproximação com a obra de Austen, e assim entender o que as personagens de Fowler estão procurando, e por quê. A premissa é que essa busca revela muito a respeito do mundo contemporâneo. No âmbito da literatura, tomando Austen e Fowler como autoras que revelam os protocolos de leitura de suas épocas, espero explicitar algumas das razões do fascínio exercido por Austen sobre o leitor de hoje. Para tanto, utilizo como apoio teórico o contraste entre os conceitos de modernidade sólida e modernidade líquida propostos por Zygmunt Bauman, especialmente em relação às considerações sobre os termos fluidez, ética, velocidade, desimpedimento e medo. / Almost two hundred years separate Karen Joy Fowler from Jane Austen. The latter is a great English literary icon, author to six of the best treasured novels in English literature, admired for her style, wit and subtlety in the delineation of her characters and their social relations. The former is a contemporary awarded American Sci-fi and Fantasy writer, author to the novel The Jane Austen Book Club, which is the corpus of the present dissertation. In spite of the wide distance in time, subject matter, and even in literary stature that separates them, both authors are deeply involved in the investigation of human nature and human bonds. The Jane Austen Book Club not only pays homage to Jane Austen, it also offers a rich contrast between life as it was, in the 18th Century, in Austen’s rural England, and as it is now, in Fowler’s present-day sunny California. In Fowler’s novel we meet six interesting characters who undergo different kinds of personal crises. They form a book club and meet monthly, during half a year. In each meeting, they discuss one of Jane Austen´s novels. Each of them is in charge of leading the discussion on one of the novels. Fowler’s book is divided in six chapters, respectively: Jocelyn with Emma, Allegra with Sense and Sensibility, Prudie with Mansfield Park, Grigg with Northanger Abbey, Bernadette with Pride and Prejudice, and Sylvia with Persuasion. The way they interact with their assigned novels tells much not only about them and their circumstances, but also about the world in which they live. The more nostalgic and romantic their notion of Austen’s idealized past becomes, the clearer we can identify the circumstances in present-day life that provoke such reactions. The aim of this dissertation is to present a reading of The Jane Austen Book Club through an approximation with Austen’s work, so as to understand what Fowler’s characters are looking for, and why. The premise is that their quest tells about the world we live in nowadays, and about the difficulties we have in dealing with personal relations. To approach the contrast between the solid fictional world of Jane Austen and the liquid fictional world of Karen Joy Fowler, I rely on the theories presented by Zygmunt Bauman, especially on his use of concepts as fluidity, ethics, velocity, disengagement and fear.

Quanto mais nostálgicas e românticas se tornam as noções que apresentam sobre mundo idealizado de Austen, mais claramente podemos perceber as carências que fazem com que assim o percebam. Portanto, o objetivo desta tese é apresentar uma leitura de The Jane Austen Book Club através da aproximação com a obra de Austen, e assim entender o que as personagens de Fowler estão procurando, e por quê. A premissa é que essa busca revela muito a respeito do mundo contemporâneo. No âmbito da literatura, tomando Austen e Fowler como autoras que revelam os protocolos de leitura de suas épocas, espero explicitar algumas das razões do fascínio exercido por Austen sobre o leitor de hoje. Para tanto, utilizo como apoio teórico o contraste entre os conceitos de modernidade sólida e modernidade líquida propostos por Zygmunt Bauman, especialmente em relação às considerações sobre os termos fluidez, ética, velocidade, desimpedimento e medo. / Almost two hundred years separate Karen Joy Fowler from Jane Austen. The latter is a great English literary icon, author to six of the best treasured novels in English literature, admired for her style, wit and subtlety in the delineation of her characters and their social relations. The former is a contemporary awarded American Sci-fi and Fantasy writer, author to the novel The Jane Austen Book Club, which is the corpus of the present dissertation. In spite of the wide distance in time, subject matter, and even in literary stature that separates them, both authors are deeply involved in the investigation of human nature and human bonds. The Jane Austen Book Club not only pays homage to Jane Austen, it also offers a rich contrast between life as it was, in the 18th Century, in Austen’s rural England, and as it is now, in Fowler’s present-day sunny California. In Fowler’s novel we meet six interesting characters who undergo different kinds of personal crises. They form a book club and meet monthly, during half a year. In each meeting, they discuss one of Jane Austen´s novels. Each of them is in charge of leading the discussion on one of the novels. Fowler’s book is divided in six chapters, respectively: Jocelyn with Emma, Allegra with Sense and Sensibility, Prudie with Mansfield Park, Grigg with Northanger Abbey, Bernadette with Pride and Prejudice, and Sylvia with Persuasion. The way they interact with their assigned novels tells much not only about them and their circumstances, but also about the world in which they live. The more nostalgic and romantic their notion of Austen’s idealized past becomes, the clearer we can identify the circumstances in present-day life that provoke such reactions. The aim of this dissertation is to present a reading of The Jane Austen Book Club through an approximation with Austen’s work, so as to understand what Fowler’s characters are looking for, and why. The premise is that their quest tells about the world we live in nowadays, and about the difficulties we have in dealing with personal relations. To approach the contrast between the solid fictional world of Jane Austen and the liquid fictional world of Karen Joy Fowler, I rely on the theories presented by Zygmunt Bauman, especially on his use of concepts as fluidity, ethics, velocity, disengagement and fear.

Quanto mais nostálgicas e românticas se tornam as noções que apresentam sobre mundo idealizado de Austen, mais claramente podemos perceber as carências que fazem com que assim o percebam. Portanto, o objetivo desta tese é apresentar uma leitura de The Jane Austen Book Club através da aproximação com a obra de Austen, e assim entender o que as personagens de Fowler estão procurando, e por quê. A premissa é que essa busca revela muito a respeito do mundo contemporâneo. No âmbito da literatura, tomando Austen e Fowler como autoras que revelam os protocolos de leitura de suas épocas, espero explicitar algumas das razões do fascínio exercido por Austen sobre o leitor de hoje. Para tanto, utilizo como apoio teórico o contraste entre os conceitos de modernidade sólida e modernidade líquida propostos por Zygmunt Bauman, especialmente em relação às considerações sobre os termos fluidez, ética, velocidade, desimpedimento e medo. / Almost two hundred years separate Karen Joy Fowler from Jane Austen. The latter is a great English literary icon, author to six of the best treasured novels in English literature, admired for her style, wit and subtlety in the delineation of her characters and their social relations. The former is a contemporary awarded American Sci-fi and Fantasy writer, author to the novel The Jane Austen Book Club, which is the corpus of the present dissertation. In spite of the wide distance in time, subject matter, and even in literary stature that separates them, both authors are deeply involved in the investigation of human nature and human bonds. The Jane Austen Book Club not only pays homage to Jane Austen, it also offers a rich contrast between life as it was, in the 18th Century, in Austen’s rural England, and as it is now, in Fowler’s present-day sunny California. In Fowler’s novel we meet six interesting characters who undergo different kinds of personal crises. They form a book club and meet monthly, during half a year. In each meeting, they discuss one of Jane Austen´s novels. Each of them is in charge of leading the discussion on one of the novels. Fowler’s book is divided in six chapters, respectively: Jocelyn with Emma, Allegra with Sense and Sensibility, Prudie with Mansfield Park, Grigg with Northanger Abbey, Bernadette with Pride and Prejudice, and Sylvia with Persuasion. The way they interact with their assigned novels tells much not only about them and their circumstances, but also about the world in which they live. The more nostalgic and romantic their notion of Austen’s idealized past becomes, the clearer we can identify the circumstances in present-day life that provoke such reactions. The aim of this dissertation is to present a reading of The Jane Austen Book Club through an approximation with Austen’s work, so as to understand what Fowler’s characters are looking for, and why. The premise is that their quest tells about the world we live in nowadays, and about the difficulties we have in dealing with personal relations. To approach the contrast between the solid fictional world of Jane Austen and the liquid fictional world of Karen Joy Fowler, I rely on the theories presented by Zygmunt Bauman, especially on his use of concepts as fluidity, ethics, velocity, disengagement and fear.