My other fandom
Mar. 3rd, 2008 06:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
matrilMost of my favorite books and movies are in the fantasy genre, but there's one big exception to that: Jane Austen. I've been on a bit of an Austen kick lately, re-reading the books, watching the 5-hour Pride and Prejudice for the tenth time, and lamenting that I somehow managed to miss most of Masterpiece Theater's Complete Jane Austen (the films were always starting right when we were putting the kids to bed! Grr!). Anyway, I thought I'd ramble a bit about how I first got hooked into these quaint little novels about love and marriage in Regency-era England.
So, back when I was in high school, we rented the movie Clueless, which I found mildly entertaining. Then my mother explained that it was loosely based on a Jane Austen novel. My interest was peaked. So I picked up Emma and absolutely loved it. It was just so much fun, and I was amazed at how much variety and humor could be created in such a limited setting. I eagerly went on to the next one available, Sense and Sensibility, and loved that as well. Our copy was in a two-novel volume, the other one being Pride and Prejudice, so I read that next. I recall reading it on the airplane on a trip to visit my grandparents. I could hardly put it down. At my grandparents', I discovered my aunt's collection of Jane Austen movies and watched all the ones of the books I had read thus far. I would often let my curiosity get the better of me and peek at the ending, but the wonderful thing about Austen novels is, even if you know who's eventually going to be with whom, it's still fun to find out how it happens. (I still wish I'd let myself be surprised, but oh well.) After P&P, it was on to Northanger Abbey (which I giggled the whole way through), Persuasion (which, horror of horrors, I wasn't able to read until after my family rented the movie, but somehow I still enjoyed the read afterwards), and Mansfield Park. The last one was the only novel I wasn't wildly enthusiastic about; it was rather staid for my tastes. But altogether I finished high school as a solid Jane Austen fan. I suspect my fannishness was probably greatly supported by the fact that I was never assigned any of her novels for any of my classes. I read them on my own time, for my own enjoyment. They never felt like a chore to read; they were so much fun!
Which one was my favorite? Usually whichever one I was currently reading. ;) But I might venture, perhaps, to say that Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion top the list most consistently. The former I have read more times than I can count; I never tire of watching Elizabeth go from despising to loving Mr. Darcy. :sigh: I don't generally have much liking for romantic comedies or chick flicks; they're too often predictable, irritating and insulting to both genders. But I'll watch a Jane Austen movie any day. She wrote the original romantic comedies, and she did it much better than anyone does today. Pride and Prejudice might very well be the template for the modern romantic comedy - boy and girl meet, sparks fly, misunderstandings abound, but when the truth comes out, they get together. It's just so much better than the modern stuff. They always seem to posit the idea that the tension between the man and the woman arises from supressed physical attraction and tension and blah blah blah. Not so with Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy. There is a real attraction between them, but their tension comes from more interesting things - well, from pride and from prejudice. And they don't just clear up their misunderstandings and get together without any change - both of them do a lot of growing and developing as they come to really know each other, and they both come out of it better people.
I did catch pieces of two films of the Complete Jane Austen, and alas, I wasn't particularly impressed. Persuasion made Anne far too frantic and wide-eyed. What I love about the novel is the understated quality of her outward behavior, with the tumult going on underneath where no one realizes it. And they hacked to pieces the best scene in the whole book when Anne is talking about a woman's ability to go on loving when all hope is gone and Captain Wentworth is secretly listening and writing just about the most romantic letter ever....I don't see why in the world they would change that moment; it's so perfect. The other bits I saw were from Mansfield Park. They made Fanny far too perky and bubbly. I can't quite blame them, since I found the book somewhat dull, but it's not canonical. ;) Anyway, I wish I had seen the others, especially the new Sense and Sensibility. I enjoy the Ang Lee/Emma Thompson adaptation, but I'm always up for more Austen. :) Besides, I consider Andrew Davies's adaptation of P&P to be pretty much the best adaptation of anything, ever. Five hours? It zips along like a mere two. ;)
I've run out of ramble.
So, back when I was in high school, we rented the movie Clueless, which I found mildly entertaining. Then my mother explained that it was loosely based on a Jane Austen novel. My interest was peaked. So I picked up Emma and absolutely loved it. It was just so much fun, and I was amazed at how much variety and humor could be created in such a limited setting. I eagerly went on to the next one available, Sense and Sensibility, and loved that as well. Our copy was in a two-novel volume, the other one being Pride and Prejudice, so I read that next. I recall reading it on the airplane on a trip to visit my grandparents. I could hardly put it down. At my grandparents', I discovered my aunt's collection of Jane Austen movies and watched all the ones of the books I had read thus far. I would often let my curiosity get the better of me and peek at the ending, but the wonderful thing about Austen novels is, even if you know who's eventually going to be with whom, it's still fun to find out how it happens. (I still wish I'd let myself be surprised, but oh well.) After P&P, it was on to Northanger Abbey (which I giggled the whole way through), Persuasion (which, horror of horrors, I wasn't able to read until after my family rented the movie, but somehow I still enjoyed the read afterwards), and Mansfield Park. The last one was the only novel I wasn't wildly enthusiastic about; it was rather staid for my tastes. But altogether I finished high school as a solid Jane Austen fan. I suspect my fannishness was probably greatly supported by the fact that I was never assigned any of her novels for any of my classes. I read them on my own time, for my own enjoyment. They never felt like a chore to read; they were so much fun!
Which one was my favorite? Usually whichever one I was currently reading. ;) But I might venture, perhaps, to say that Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion top the list most consistently. The former I have read more times than I can count; I never tire of watching Elizabeth go from despising to loving Mr. Darcy. :sigh: I don't generally have much liking for romantic comedies or chick flicks; they're too often predictable, irritating and insulting to both genders. But I'll watch a Jane Austen movie any day. She wrote the original romantic comedies, and she did it much better than anyone does today. Pride and Prejudice might very well be the template for the modern romantic comedy - boy and girl meet, sparks fly, misunderstandings abound, but when the truth comes out, they get together. It's just so much better than the modern stuff. They always seem to posit the idea that the tension between the man and the woman arises from supressed physical attraction and tension and blah blah blah. Not so with Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy. There is a real attraction between them, but their tension comes from more interesting things - well, from pride and from prejudice. And they don't just clear up their misunderstandings and get together without any change - both of them do a lot of growing and developing as they come to really know each other, and they both come out of it better people.
I did catch pieces of two films of the Complete Jane Austen, and alas, I wasn't particularly impressed. Persuasion made Anne far too frantic and wide-eyed. What I love about the novel is the understated quality of her outward behavior, with the tumult going on underneath where no one realizes it. And they hacked to pieces the best scene in the whole book when Anne is talking about a woman's ability to go on loving when all hope is gone and Captain Wentworth is secretly listening and writing just about the most romantic letter ever....I don't see why in the world they would change that moment; it's so perfect. The other bits I saw were from Mansfield Park. They made Fanny far too perky and bubbly. I can't quite blame them, since I found the book somewhat dull, but it's not canonical. ;) Anyway, I wish I had seen the others, especially the new Sense and Sensibility. I enjoy the Ang Lee/Emma Thompson adaptation, but I'm always up for more Austen. :) Besides, I consider Andrew Davies's adaptation of P&P to be pretty much the best adaptation of anything, ever. Five hours? It zips along like a mere two. ;)
I've run out of ramble.
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Date: 2008-03-06 03:48 am (UTC)I've heard from some other friends that the new adaptations left a bit to be desired - I mean, chopping up The Letter scene? That's just shooting yourself in the cinematic foot right there. And the Spunky New Fanny is also all kinds of wrong, though I have to say it would take a very skilled scriptwriter to make a faithful adaptation that would interest modern people; morality has shifted so much in some odd ways. I mean, I can't imagine even the most isolated Utah Valley denizen objecting to amateur theatricals.
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Date: 2008-03-07 01:15 am (UTC)Mansfield Park is problematic for a lot of reasons. Adultery is still pretty generally seen as bad, but who gets appalled by a bunch of young people putting on a play? Nobody, that's who.
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Date: 2008-03-07 03:27 am (UTC)P&P is great fun to read aloud - A. and I did it a few years ago, and I remember my brothers and I reading it again when we were in our teens (something that probably didn't come up during their Marine hitches :)). The dialogue is so incredible. As for Mansfield Park, I know that technically the reason is that they're disobeyed Sir Thomas's wishes and that acting was seen as a low-class, vaguely compromised sort of profession, but it's still hard to be upset about it. Of course, it is possible to be upset about the play they chose - have you ever tried to read Lovers' Vows? Appalling melodrama - Sir Thomas should have axed the play on the grounds that it was so terrible, not that playacting is Horribly Immoral :).
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Date: 2008-03-16 05:25 pm (UTC)Why yes, this comment is almost two weeks behind. I've been out of town and am skimming to catch up. And of course I had to read your entry about the wonderfulness that is Jane Austen!
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Date: 2008-03-16 11:57 pm (UTC)