Sarah J. Makowski: On Language and Writing

Since childhood, I’d dreamed of living in England, the birthplace of my literary heroes. I’d walk through Bath arm-in-arm with Anne Elliot. I’d run into the Pevensie kids on the train to London. Like Bridget Jones, I’d get a publishing job, commuting daily from my thatched Tudor cottage nestled inside a secret garden. Who knows? One day I might spot a cold, wet Jane Eyre huddling in the bushes near the footpath. We’d discover we were long-lost cousins over a pot of tea.

Instead, I landed in Germany, the gruff-tongued homeland of my even gruffer father. Growing up, Dad’s inability to speak proper English was embarrassing for a Mid-West girl who daydreamed in ye olde England. Dad pronounced things strangely, and his sentences were odd. He put words in the wrong order, adding complications and omitting articles. Notes to school were speckled with sharply-spiked capitals from a far-off land.
He was so clearly not from here.

Poor Dad. I’d never felt drawn to his native language. Still, a generous scholarship to Berlin, a college romance, and the promise of affordable healthcare can make a girl do unexpected things. I stayed in Germany. Two decades later, I’m still here.

Now it’s me who screws up the word order in my new home.

Imagine my surprise when Dad came to visit. I expected him to shine. I would see him in his natural element for the first time, immersed in the language of his childhood. He’d lean on the nursery rhymes sung to him, the prose that lulled him to sleep, and the conversations of his school days. His heavy accent would be at home.

That didn’t happen

It had been too long. A cold war, a wall, and censored letters meant that Dad was lost. His Berlin was destroyed. Living abroad had robbed him of his linguistic birthright. His missteps now went both ways. He didn’t speak proper English, and his German was antiquated. Like me – an obvious foreigner, his wording was awkward.

He had lost his mother tongue. Like many immigrants, Dad was no longer from here nor there.

As petty as it sounds, I found this terrifying. Language had always been my safe place. For kids like me, summer meant local library reading programs, not the beach. English class was the best because it gave me extra excuses to disappear with a book. While some peers found my extensive vocabulary off-putting, books allowed me glimpses into other worlds.

I solemnly vowed that I would never lose my words.

The longer I live abroad, the more determined I become. I immerse myself in English prose at every opportunity. Podcasts accompany me on the way to work, and business trips are remembered for the books I read in transit. Waiting rooms are opportunities for an undisturbed chapter. I couldn’t tell you how many hours I spent reading aloud to my (now) bilingual son. We have an agreement; he’ll make sure I have access to NPR at any future nursing home.

Dad lost his language because he had few opportunities to engage with it. Today’s digital world means that needn’t happen. The rhythms of my mother tongue are just a download away.

These encounters lead me to become a writer. I recogniszd that certain books welcome me over and over, remaining fresh. My book, Bitches in Bonnets: Life Lessons from Jane Austen’s Mean Girls, is a love letter to Jane Austen. More than any other author, her works continue to resonate with me. In Bitches, I examine her six novels of English country life through a twenty-first-century lens, identifying intersections with today’s female experience.

Austen’s magic? Her uncanny knowledge of human nature, which modern social science is just beginning to catch up with. She describes just enough for us to identify with her characters’ experiences without losing us in too much detail.

Like many others, her books have accompanied me for decades. Her work meets me where I am, divulging new knowledge. As a teenager, I was obsessed with the romance between Lizzie Bennet and Mr. Darcy. Elinor Dashwood buoyed me up during office drama with other women. Fanny Price taught me to stand my ground. While I will always hate Mrs. Norris, the indignities of aging have granted me new sympathy for Lady Catherine de Bourgh and Mrs. Bennet

Writing has made me closer to books. The more I immerse myself in the words of others, the stronger my own writing feels. Experiencing authors like Austen experimenting with language, I listen and read in new and different ways.

I no longer pine to live in ye jolly olde England. Through books, it’s always right here with me.

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Originally from Michigan, Sarah J. Makowski earned her Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Aachen. Her debut book, Bitches in Bonnets: Life Lessons from Jane Austen’s Mean Girls (Prometheus), explores how Jane Austen anticipated modern social scientific findings on female behavior. Called “a must read for Jane Austen fans,” Bitches in Bonnets is a conversational, personal look at Austen’s flawed but loveable female characters. “Hilarious, yet deep and dark at the same time,” Bitches in Bonnets encourages readers to examine their own actions in both literature and life.

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