You’ve got questions? We’ve got answers.
A few weeks back, we solicited your questions—Austen-related or not—and the Austenacious team will be answering them in upcoming posts.
This week we have a double header!
1) Reader Megan asks:
Why doesn’t Edward Ferrars throw off Lucy Steele early on in Sense and Sensibility? She’s horrible. Is she just Austen’s MacGuffin, or is there a good reason for his dedication to this succubus??
Mrs. Fitzpatrick answers:
Poor old Lucy Steele. Players never get any respect, know what I mean? Reader Miss Moore asked a version of this question several months ago, and I answered in Ask Mrs. Fitzpatrick: Is Lucy Steele evil or dumb? (For the click-lazy, the short answer is that Edward was like Lucy’s job, therefore she wasn’t going to throw him away until she got another one, and therefore there were laws and conventions ensuring that he wouldn’t throw her away.)
Having said that, though, there are an awful lot of stories in English literature that rely on this gambit of a man getting into an engagement, changing his mind, and not being able to just tell the lady to get lost—I’m looking at you, P.G. Wodehouse. Unlike Bertie Wooster, though, Edward doesn’t get creative in getting Lucy to break off the engagement. But of course the existence and secrecy of it does form a good part of the tension in the story. Austen didn’t have to have Lucy there to keep Edward and Elinor apart, because Mrs. Ferrars objected to Edward marrying Elinor anyway, and there was the lack-of-money complication. But she did get a lot of use out of her. Does that make Lucy Steele a Quasi-MacGuffin? Better experts than me will have to say.
2) Reader Mrs. Davis asks (via Facebook):
Are you going to see Austenland?
Mrs. Fitzpatrick answers:
I polled Team Austenacious on this, and the answers were “No!,” “Hell no,” and “Only if everyone else is going and I’m bored that night.” Bit of a secret, but we actually aren’t all that into these endless spinoffs/adaptations/etc. And I’m smelling a lot of meh coming off the reviews. For example, the Las Vegas Weekly explains that ‘Austenland’ is a tacky insult to Austen fans. And when the City of Tack calls something tacky. . .
Closer to home, I asked a friend what she thought, and got this: “It was cute. You can wait until it’s on Netflix, I’d say. 🙂 I had a couple cocktails before seeing it and it was girls night so perfect movie for that. It could use more character development. I wonder if the book is better?” I haven’t read the book, but Miss Osborne did. She was not impressed. And I’ve heard, though I forget where, that the movie carefully removed any subtlety the book might have had. However, if we’re bored in the future you may see a(nother) drunken Austenacious live-blogging event. That does sound kind of fun, actually.
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