Austen’s characters: Love them — or just love to hate them????

When the natives get bored on the Facebook Jane Austen Fan Club — and they seem to get bored perilously easily — some member almost always pipes with “Poll!!! Who’s the worst mother/villain/sister/adulterer/whatever in Austen’s novels?”

Polls are conducted… opinions shared… and sometimes some seriously vicious judgement calls get handed down.

According to some, Mrs Norris’s wickedness is positively Hitleresque, while John Willoughby puts Stalin in the shade. The judgements are just that over-the-top.

Which got me thinking. Are these fans-of-Austen as judgemental in real life as they are on Facebook’s Austen Fan Club? Do they slam down their own neighbours and acquaintance the way they do the Willoughbys, the Isabella Thorpes or the Lucy Steeles???

A few of them just might. I’m very glad not to live on the same street as do some of these severe (and mostly youthful) Facebookers, because they’d undoubtedly buzz round my London suburb hissing, “That Alice McVeigh’s parallel parking is an international disgrace — and she mows her lawn even less often than old Mr Jones living at number 27 — though he has the excuse of a bad knee. And her bottle and can recycling on Mondays… Heavens! Even more cans than the Smiths at number 42, and we all know what a problem the…