Miss Austen Regrets

Miss Austen Regrets

Sunday night The Complete Jane Austen took a break from the adaptations and turned to biography. It's hard to say whether it was good or not. Interesting? Yes. Accurate? Who knows. The thing about having a personal biography about Jane Austen is there is so little about her personal life. Now, we know about her family, schooling, upbringing, and her general relationships. But it's her intimate, personal life that is such a mystery. The thoughts that she must have some great love story in her past to be able to write so many touching and lasting novels on the subject. But the world will really never know. Austen's family burned her personal journals and many of her personal letters after her death--doesn't that in and of its self make you think she had some big secret?

Were there regrets with this adaptation? I never knew Jane Austen, but I know her heroines. She's lovable, because she's Jane Austen. But here she was painted like a great big teenager who was trying to persuade her niece to marry for love--make that love with a fortune. She was a tired, dying Jane Austen with the weight of the world on her shoulders. They throw a past proposal in the mix that I hadn't yet heard of. Tom Lefroy is mentioned a few times. {As a side note: My personal bet is for Tom Lefroy. Any guy who name's his daughter Jane Christmas (Christmas was when Tom & Jane met) still has a thing for his former love interest. Of course, only one or two letters from that period survive.} Jane's mother was painted as a monster, her brothers as men incompetent with money, and poor old Cassandra was the lonely housekeeper.

The older Jane Austen seems largely annoyed, opinionated, independent, jaded, and jilted. The movie seems to say she wrote wonderful novels, attempted to be a woman who provided for her family, but was never really in love. It wasn't the best picture of my Austen. Or at least not the one I'd like to see. {If you're interested in a younger version of a Jane Austen film biography check out Becoming Jane. It's the younger, flirty, independent, opinionated, but yet still forming Jane Austen.}

I finished!

So tonight...I finally finished reading Persuasion! Oh yeah...it was really good. The PBS adaptation was good, but not accurate. The novel much better. Jane Austen is wonderful!

What happened to Mansfield?

Needless to say, if you've seen my three previous posts, Mansfield Park was a complete disappointment. There was so much left out of the movie. It jumped around, lost all humor as well as passion, and I didn't really care for the characters. Overall, it was lackluster.

My husband asked what I thought about it and I told him that it didn't even seem like a Jane Austen adaptation. I couldn't tell the difference between Aunt Norris and Lady Bertram. Fanny never went back to Portsmouth. Julia and Maria definitely weren't built up to be the silly, foolish sisters that they were. And overall, it was all so rushed.

This clip is from the last bit of the movie. Edmund's realization that it's really Fanny he loves happens all to quickly. And I think the most disappointing thing about the whole movie is that Fanny seems to be this secondary character with little to say and no depth, except occasionally running around the house and the lawn. It's a sad, sad adaptation.

Where is Miss Price?

Fanny seems to be simply a secondary character instead of the heroine. Where did she go?

The Crawfords

I hate them. They are disgusting.


This is definitely moving way too fast. Mean and scheming siblings.


Honorable Edmund. Poor Fanny. Way too fast. And, Miss Mary Crawford, there is definitely a cure for selfishness.

It's 20 minutes into the movie and they're like half way through the novel. Oh my goodness. Horrible. Bertram is almost back and he just left. Fanny has said like two words...this is pretty, but worthless. Students, don't use this film as Cliff Notes.

My Mansfield

It's rushed already...skipped ahead...mixed up the events...Oh my goodness! Far too fast...in less than 5 minutes the Crawford's have already showed up!

Tonight: Mansfield Park

This is the big night! We'll see how Masterpiece Theater does with Mansfield Park. I'm hoping it's good. It's my favorite Austen novel. The videos I've seen on YouTube look good, but some of the comments and reviews I've read aren't so good. I think one of the main problems will be shoving Austen's largest novel into 1 1/2 movie.

Mini Review: Northanger Abbey

(Sorry, there wasn't any good Northanger Abbey videos.)

So, Sunday night we watched Northanger Abbey and I enjoyed it. I still think it was short for an Austen novel, but it did keep up with the fast tempo of Northanger Abbey. I enjoyed the interaction between Catherine and Mr. Tilney. And Isabella had her rightful place as the untrustworthy, annoying friend while General Tilney fulfilled his role as the creepy older gentleman whose agenda remained unknown until nearly the very end.

On the whole I enjoyed it more than Persuasion, but Northanger is a much different type of story than Persuasion. One thing I wish there had been more of was the element of the Gothic that's in the novel in the movie. The Gothic elements that were there, mainly Catherine's novel fantasies, were flighty, sparse, and awkward. I enjoyed the film and would recommend it. Though I am so looking forward to Mansfield Park on Sunday. That is my favorite novel and the video clips I have seen do look good.

Oh, I hope so.

Northanger Abbey

Tonight, only 10 minutes from now, Jane Austen continues. The film tonight is Northanger Abbey. This was the second (or maybe third) Austen novel I read, with Mansfield Park being the first. One of the things I love about Austen is just how smart her novels are. So many people think she just writes beautiful love stories, but she makes such a commentary on society of her time. Gothic novels. Northanger Abbey is argued by some to be one of Austen's most clever novels making fun of the gothic novel of her time while having it be a compelling story within the parody.

"Northanger Abbey is fundamentally a parody of Gothic fiction. Austen turns the conventions of eighteenth-century novels on their head, by making her heroine a plain and undistinguished girl from a middle-class family, allowing the heroine to fall in love with the hero before he has a serious thought of her, and exposing the heroine's romantic fears and curiosities as groundless." (from Wikipedia, Northanger Abbey)


I'm intrigued to see it.


How goes my Persuasion reading? The better part of my reading happened in the beginning of the week. I'm in volume 2, chapter 5. Seven more chapters to go!

Can I just say I love Jane Austen! It's probably going to be like this, people, until April, so if you're not already a Jane Austen fan you'll either love her by then or be utterly annoyed!

I've been persuaded

Monday morning I after watching Persuasion the night before, I decided to reread it. Then I thought, 'Wouldn't it be fun to read each novel as it's aired?' So, that's what I'm doing. Or at least that's what I'm going to try to do. This week I'm reading Persuasion and next week it'll be Northanger Abbey. So far I've read to chapter 10 out of 24 chapters. That means I've only got 14 chapters to finish by Sunday evening! I think I can do it.

I've only been reading during my 10-minute breaks at work and my 30-minute lunch break, which means I've read 10 chapters in 2 hours since Monday. I'd say that's pretty good. I mean, I do have all of Saturday and Monday I have off due to MLK, Jr. Day. (Although I was planning on using that day to put a big dent in my CK Hall of Fame 2008 submission.) Either way I think it can be done. It might be hard to reread a novel in a week when I get to Mansfield Park and Pride and Prejudice, but I'll still try. In February I'll have more time since I'll only be working 16 hours a week instead of 40. I'm so looking forward to that!

Persuasion

If I may, so long as the woman you love lives, and lives for you, all the privilege I claim for my own sex, and it is not a very enviable one - you need not covet it, is that of loving longest when all hope is gone.
- Anne Elliot, Jane Austen's Persuasion

Last night was the first installment of The Complete Jane Austen on PBS. The adaptation of Persuasion was the first of Austen's six novels to be aired. This is my short and quick review. It was good, but not so complete. Persuasion isn't one of my favorite Austen novels, but it's still a good novel. The film went by too quickly not allowing the build-up between Captain Wentworth and Anne. Mr. Elliot (the cousin) was introduced quickly and seemed a little shoved in there. For a 90-minute production it was entertaining and only really lacked in the lack of story development, otherwise it was a good film. Other than Anne and Wentworth, the characters were very minor. Though like I told my husband last night, it was good but if it was my favorite of Austen's novels (like Mansfield Park), I would have been disappointed.

Something about Jane Austen You Should Know

Can I just say how excited I am about about PBS & Masterpiece Theater kicking off The Complete Jane Austen! It's going to be nearly 4 months of Jane Austen movies Sunday nights! They've adapted all six of Austen novels into movies. Pride & Prejudice and Emma are older versions, but I haven't seen their version of Emma. I'm most excited about Mansfield Park (this was the first Austen novel I read and my favorite) and Northanger Abbey. It'll be so much fun!

Sunday evenings @ 9pm on PBS