SO. Having not read the novel—you know how we can be about modern Austen take-offs around here—I keep trying to suss out what I think about this, purely via the trailer. Part of me wonders about the codification of Austen fans as such a Type: sad single women (who may or may not knowthey’re sad) so engaged in a fictional universe as to ignore the non-fictional one, particularly the handsome men inevitably trying to get their attention. (Which is an obnoxious assumption, but also…if only.) This isn’t a new phenomenon, but I find it interesting that we’re essentially one step below Trekkies in our identification by the outside world. Another part of me assumes we’ll be subverting this paradigm, hopefully in smart and interesting ways. The rest of me is silently screaming JANE SEYYYYYYMOUUUUUR IN A MOOOOOOVIE! So there you go.
2. From reader Sophie: Caroline Bingley’s chicanery to appear on England’s money! We’ve all heard by now that our Jane’s been chosen to appear on the new British ten-pound note. Less widely recognized is that Jane’s portrait—the Cassandra one—will be paired with what looks like a statement of sincere enthusiasm for books, but is actually Caroline Bingley’s thinly veiled attempt at convincing Darcy that she’s into reading. On one hand, this seems like the kind of thing a basic Google search could have caught; on the other, I kind of like it. It seems kind of appropriate for Caroline to elbow her way into everything, no?
3. Jane Brocket, chronicler of all things cozy, has just finished Mansfield Park for the first time, with—what else?—mixed feelings. Her main concern is that Jane builds a cast of complex and well-realized characters, only to bow out on them in the end: “the bad ‘uns must be punished and the good ‘uns rewarded, and the stock endings go against all our carefully raised expectations and vested interests.” What do you think, readers? Could, or should, Jane have done better by Fanny & Co.?
Oy, that trailer makes me NOT want to watch the movie. Even though the book was mediocre at best, I’m annoyed watching the trailer that all of the outer stuff (like the cardboard cutout of Darcy, stuff all over the walls, etc.) is not actually in the book. What irritated me about the book was that the character was actually embarrassed for anyone to see her P&P DVDs. And as you know, that’s just…well, stupid and unreasonable.
But Jane Seymour…I do love her so. Though perhaps not enough to see the movie. (Except maybe on $5 night at UA Emerybay *ahem*.)
1. I don’t think Austenland is going to alter my view that The Jane Austen Book Club is the only good screen representation of the experience of being a Janeite. Still, I loved JJ Feild as Henry Tilney in Northanger Abbey, so maybe I’ll check it out.
2. Brb, changing my name to ‘Austenacious reader Sophie’. Seriously though, I think a swift Google search (probably for ‘Jane Austen quotes’) is what got the Bank of England into this pickle in the first place. No doubt they were looking for a snappy one-liner, not understanding that it’s not really what Jane is about. She and her characters often make bold statements like the one that in future years is going to make me sigh every time I use a £10 note, but we can seldom take them at face value.
Still, I like to think Jane would be amused by the whole debacle. By far a more apt quotation would be from Mr Bennet: ‘For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?’
3. I think Jane Brocket makes a good point about the inadequacy of a straightforward ‘happy ending’ in a book as complex as Mansfield Park. But isn’t Austen always pretty self-aware about the limitations of her endings? Often the final chapters seem to be a process whereby the narrator moves the characters around until they’re arranged just how she wants them, a lot like the final page of Belinda by Maria Edgeworth where one of the characters actually places the others in a physical tableau so that the novel can finish. Like Lady Delacour, Austen has always seemed to me to understand that her final arrangement is only a parting snapshot, and that her characters will go on living even after the rewards and punishments have been doled out.
Just my two cents. By the way, I’d love to know if any of you have read Belinda, as in many ways it’s an interesting precursor to Northanger Abbey and to Austen’s work more generally.
austenacious 
Oy, that trailer makes me NOT want to watch the movie. Even though the book was mediocre at best, I’m annoyed watching the trailer that all of the outer stuff (like the cardboard cutout of Darcy, stuff all over the walls, etc.) is not actually in the book. What irritated me about the book was that the character was actually embarrassed for anyone to see her P&P DVDs. And as you know, that’s just…well, stupid and unreasonable.
But Jane Seymour…I do love her so. Though perhaps not enough to see the movie. (Except maybe on $5 night at UA Emerybay *ahem*.)
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1. I don’t think Austenland is going to alter my view that The Jane Austen Book Club is the only good screen representation of the experience of being a Janeite. Still, I loved JJ Feild as Henry Tilney in Northanger Abbey, so maybe I’ll check it out.
2. Brb, changing my name to ‘Austenacious reader Sophie’. Seriously though, I think a swift Google search (probably for ‘Jane Austen quotes’) is what got the Bank of England into this pickle in the first place. No doubt they were looking for a snappy one-liner, not understanding that it’s not really what Jane is about. She and her characters often make bold statements like the one that in future years is going to make me sigh every time I use a £10 note, but we can seldom take them at face value.
Still, I like to think Jane would be amused by the whole debacle. By far a more apt quotation would be from Mr Bennet: ‘For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?’
3. I think Jane Brocket makes a good point about the inadequacy of a straightforward ‘happy ending’ in a book as complex as Mansfield Park. But isn’t Austen always pretty self-aware about the limitations of her endings? Often the final chapters seem to be a process whereby the narrator moves the characters around until they’re arranged just how she wants them, a lot like the final page of Belinda by Maria Edgeworth where one of the characters actually places the others in a physical tableau so that the novel can finish. Like Lady Delacour, Austen has always seemed to me to understand that her final arrangement is only a parting snapshot, and that her characters will go on living even after the rewards and punishments have been doled out.
Just my two cents. By the way, I’d love to know if any of you have read Belinda, as in many ways it’s an interesting precursor to Northanger Abbey and to Austen’s work more generally.
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I’ve never even HEARD of Belinda! But now I’m intrigued.
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It’s pretty good, although I should warn you that it has a deeply unsatisfying love triangle and some really weird stuff in the middle.
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