pastiche

Why should she feel so awkward about it? she asked herself. Why was she, an honest person, ashamed to say, "Listen up, folks, I've never read a word of Jane Austen and I don't intend to"? What was wrong with that?

She'd be branded a philistine. Who cared?

These kids would despise her. So what? There wasn't a law, you can't be a decent person, or count yourself as having a brain, unless you've read all the works of Jane Austen. Think of all the people in the world who had never even heard of Jane Austen.

Lucky them.

writing jane austen, Elizabeth Aston