Excellent Women | Barbara Pym #ComfortRead

I'm struggling to write reviews at the moment (my Covid Chronicles posts are the writing exception), but I am slowly reading through a few books. One that I've just finished is Some Tame Gazelle by Barbara Pym. It was her very first book published in 1950. I was curious to see what I had to say about her other books, that I had read quite a while ago. 

Turns out it was seven years ago!

I posted my first Barbara Pym review on the 4th June 2013. It was for Excellent Women, her second novel published in 1952. I give you a revised peek into a gorgeous book and a beautifully conceived reading week below.

I am a recent convert to the charming world of Pym.
By recent, I mean just 3 days ago! 

Barbara Pym has been on my radar for a while though. But it wasn't until I joined in The Classics Club Their Eyes Were Watching God sync reading two months ago that I made the first move. 

My copy of Their Eyes Were Watching God is one of the designer collection put out by Virago Modern Classics. I loved it so much (book and cover) that I researched to see what other titles were still available in the range.
Excellent Women was one of them...so I snapped it up.

It has been sitting on my bedside table for two months now tempting me with it's delicious cover by Orla Kiely. When I saw that Thomas at My Porch and Amanda at Fig and Thistle were hosting a Pym reading week in honour of her 100th birthday I saw it as a sign to finally give in to temptation. 

I'm so glad I did. 

Excellent Women has turned out to be a charming, drawing room period piece full of grace and at times, quite biting humour. 

I've seen many references that compare Pym's writing to Jane Austen.
As a long-time Austen fan I can see the similarities - the humorous observations, the details describing the lives of women in the particular period that the two women wrote of. But Austen's ability to weave her plot lines, dialogue and characters into such tight, dare I say, perfect stories is a stand out difference. 

Perhaps Mildred is the post war Charlotte Lucas with a choice of two Mr Collins'. Except Mildred, unlike Charlotte, has more options - Mildred does not have to accept Julian or Everard (if they ever make an offer that is). Mildred can work, she can be independent, she need never be a burden on siblings or nieces and nephews. 

I see Pym's gentle, everyday stories of 'good' women fitting more into the Anita Brookner and Alice Munro writing style.

All four authors share the ability to show us the quotidian events that affected their characters in the times that they lived. 

I keep coming back to this point, because I often read reviews that complain about the lack of feminist rhetoric in Austen and Pym in particular. But that's not the world their characters lived in. Their women were strong, intelligent (mostly) and loving (usually). Their opinions and ideas were based on the world they lived in. They accurately reflected their class, their education and their experiences. 

Mildred's gentle, loving church upbringing meant that she was never going to be one of the bra-burning generation. Some of the most poignant moments in Excellent Women are when Mildred is forced to come face to face with more modern ideas and people. She is the classic fish out of water. 

Mildred was part of that large group of women who remained unmarried after WWII due to the tragic loss of so many (marriageable) men. She worked, lived independently, dreamed her romantic dreams, but ultimately developed a pragmatic, busy and self-contained life to disguise any loneliness or despair that might have crept in. She accepted her lot in life with grace and forbearance.  

I lived a single, fiercely independent life for 18 years (before finding my very own Mr Knightley/Captain Wentworth). I know the joys and freedoms of single life and I also know it's downsides. I know the private deals you make with yourself.

Mildred's experience is authentically drawn by Pym. My heart aches for Mildred - her determination to make the best of things is heart warming and heart breaking in the same breath. 

There is definitely more Pym on my horizon.

And indeed there was!

An Academic Question on the 8th June 2013
Jane and Prudence on the 8th July 2013

The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things by Paula Byrne

The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things has been sitting on my TBR for a few years now. I was fortunate enough to be gifted it during an #AusteninAugust competition with Adam @Roof Beam Reader, and I hang my head in shame that it has taken me so long to finish it.

My only excuse is that I save it to read during August. I digest about 5-6 chapters each year, sometimes jumping ahead to read sections that relate to the Austen I'm reading that year as well. This year I am not rereading any Austen's (shock! horror!). Instead I'm reading Moby-Dick (and finishing off The Count of Monte Cristo for another readalong). However, I still decided that this year was the year to finally finish The Real Jane Austen. with or without an accompanying Austen reread.

Byrne has created a delightful biography of Jane Austen with lots of insightful commentary about her novels by linking them to various objects that belonged to Jane, her family or were specific to her time. She tells us that each chapter will begin 'with a description of the image that sets its theme.'

From a water colour of Lyme Regis to Jane's vellum notebooks and a royalty cheque, Byrne 

follows Austen on her travels, which were more extensive than is often recognised, and it sets her in contexts global as well as English, urban as well as rural, political and historical as well as social and domestic. These wider perspectives were of vital and still under-estimated importance to her creative life.

It's a whimsical yet very personal way to reconstruct someone's life story. I've read a lot about Austen over the years, but I still learnt a lot by reading this book. Mostly by how Byrne connected the dots between known events in her life, her various story lines as well as historical elements. She wove all these disparate threads together to create a rich, perceptive and captivating portrayal of our Jane's life.

Lyme Regis and the Dorsetshire Coast (1784) Copleston Warre Bampfylde

Byrne also brought everything together in a logical, cohesive and entertaining way. Jane would have approved wholeheartedly!

For example, the first chapter on early family life began with a shadow profile by William Wellings depicting the adoption of Jane's brother, Edward Austen, at age 12. Byrne used this artwork to introduce Jane and her family to her readers as well going into the influence that the Knight family had on the Austen's for years to come. While an East India shawl in chapter two highlighted the international connections that Jane had via her aunt Philadelphia and her brothers who went into the Navy.

Introduction of Edward to the Knights (1783) William Wellings

Jane's voice is clearly heard on every page, via her letters and her novels. It has been a lovely way to fill in the blanks of Jane's life and to flesh out certain events within her stories.

I will finish with some points I want to have to hand for future Austen reread's.

• William Cowper was JA's favourite poet (Tirocinium = Mansfield Park). He wrote about everyday life & scenes of English countryside.
• Catharine, or the Bower replicates 'almost exactly the fate of her own aunts' - Philadelphia and Leonora.
• Admired Fanny Burney's Cecilia and Camilla & Maria Edgeworth's Belinda. (Cecilia = P&P).
• 'heroine-centred novels of courtship' 
• 'coming-of-age novels in which guardians & parental figures are often flawed. The heroine is not taught a lesson: she learns from her own mistakes.'
• 'one of the ideas that she was interested in was how people in the same situation act in very different ways.'
• There are only 5 surviving letters from JA's time in Bath. This has caused much 'misunderstanding and speculation.'
• Emma = mind games & manipulation, adults behaving like children, plain-speaking vs verbal ambiguity.
• 'moments of emotional intensity' are 'mediated through the witnessing presence of small children.'
• excess of Romantic feeling mocked in NA, S&S and Sandition.
• 'the sophisticated Austen device of seeming to be both inside and outside her characters, with the author sympathetically animating their thought processes while simultaneously directing her irony against them.'
• the power of words...and rewriting and editing.
• realism
• Sir Walter Scott on Emma in the 1815 Quarterly Review.
• Persuasion is full of 'damaged characters'...'deeply affected and afflicted' by life.

Highly recommended for all Jane fans.
Book 19 of 20 Books of Summer Winter

Sydney 16℃

Dublin 19℃

The Annotated Persuasion by Jane Austen & David M. Shapard

I have read Persuasion so many times I've lost count.

It's pretty much the same story for all of my Austen's. 

I reread them for comfort as well as the pure pleasure of spending time with a good friend.

But as with all long-term friendships, a time comes when you realise that maybe you're starting to take each other for granted. You stop being curious and simply accept their presence in your life. It can take a concerted effort to reinvigorate the relationship, add some pizzazz and spice things up with a new twist!

For Jane and I that time had come. It was time shake things up and delve deeper to learn something new about each other. But how to see something so familiar through fresh eyes? What else could I possibly have to learn about JA that I haven't already come across in the numerous bio's and books I've read about her over the years?

The only thing I hadn't tried before was combining the non-fiction with the fiction - reading about the times, the places, the language, the history as they influenced JA in writing a particular story.

 Which is why I have decided to make the next couple of years my Annotated Austen Extravaganza!

I've never read any annotated version of anything before, so I approached this first attempt a little cautiously. In case annotation was something that I didn't like, I decided to start with a well-known, much-loved story. A story that wouldn't be spoilt for me by any adverse conditions or reactions to a different format.
Just like Captain Wentworth, I was half agony, half hope!

Would all this extra information distract from the reading experience or would it enhance my enjoyment of the story as well as make me admire JA's abilities to craft a story even more?

To cut a long story short, yes.
Yes, I enjoyed reading the annotated version of Persuasion, but I did have some reservations.

At times it did disrupt the flow of the narrative, and often times I thought this disruption was unnecessary. Since I have read JA so many times, I understand her use of language and the different meanings of certain words between now and then. The definitions therefore annoyed rather than edified.

But I loved the extra background detail about JA's reading habits, her literary influences and her relationship with Stoicism. I enjoyed having connections made between events in her own life and events within the book. I poured over the old pictures and drawings of dresses, carriages and maps of the local area.

We all know that Persuasion is not without it's flaws - Shapard discusses these thoughtfully, as one who also loves this work and it's author as much as we do. His aim is not to tear it down or judge harshly, but to wonder what may have been if JA had had more time to edit and revise Persuasion.

Reading The Annotated Persuasion was a bit like a first date. Awkward at times, but with a lot of good will, intentions and hope. As we relaxed into each other's company, annotated edition and I got to know each other better,  and it feels like the start of a promising new relationship.

#AllAboutAusten

#AnnotatedAustenExtravaganza
#CClist2

Austen on Screen Take 2

Last week I indulged in a little walk down the red carpet with Jane Austen. I quickly realised it was going to take more than one post to adequately explore my love affair with Austen on the screen. The Pride and Prejudice adaptations were so numerous and I found I had so much to say, that I feared I would have to do the same for all of Austen's books! But when I sat down to think about which movies I had actually seen, I realised that I had only seen one or two versions of the other books. So today is all about Jane on screen minus P&P.

After my first reading of Austen's books in my teens, Emma and Mansfield Park were my least favourite books. Emma was too annoying and Fanny was too nondescript. The romance wasn't as obvious as it was in Pride and Prejudice either, and during my teen years, it was all about the romance!

However my view of Emma changed completely when I saw the 1996 movie starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Jeremy Northam for the first time. (Note the strategic use of the word 'first' - I have now watched this movie more times than I can remember!)

Douglas McGrath's lively, endearing take on this rather annoying, manipulative young lady hooked me in, along with his other brilliant casting choices. When I first read Emma at 17, I dismissed Mr Knightly as being 'too old' and therefore not worthy of my romantic considerations. Jeremy Northam's charming, thoughtful, generous portrayal of Knightly changed all that. A reread of Emma not long after my first viewing of this movie, revealed that I had been fooled by Emma's own descriptions and beliefs as she professed them, early on in the book. During a more observant reread Emma's flaws and misconceptions are easier to discern. But don't get me started on the joys and merits of rereading Jane Austen!

Toni Collette played the ingenue Harriet Smith a little self-consciously, but since Harriet is meant to be self-conscious and lacking in self-confidence it worked. Sophie Thompson's Miss Bates was truly inspired. She captured her silly, dithering nature but also the kindness and heart behind this lonely woman. Ewan McGregor's Frank Churchill was played beautifully too. The scene where he and Emma are singing a duet is hilarious every single time, just like the scene where Emma is nasty to Miss Bates hurts every single time. Mr Knightley's "badly done, Emma, badly done!" almost reduces me to tears as my own 'badly done' moments come flooding back to haunt me.

And that is exactly why Jane Austen is still so relevant today. Her characters may be wearing old time clothes and speak in an old fashioned manner to our modern sensibilities, but her characters behave and act in very familiar ways. Her characters have that unmistakable ring of authenticity as we recognise ourselves and those we know between the pages.

I have yet to see the Kate Beckinsale TV version of Emma from the same year, the 1972 or 2009 BBC series either - it's nice to have something to look forward to.

Modern adaptations can be ghastly experiences for those of us who truly adore a book, but sometimes everything conspires for the good. Clueless was one of those times when they got it very right.

Alicia Silverstone's modern day Emma (Cher) makes it obvious what JA was trying to say about youth and privilege and our ability to bend and twist reality to suit our own purposes. The movie highlights Emma/Cher's innocence and her ego. Cher teeters from lovable to loathsome and back to lovable again, and in Clueless we see Emma for the coming of age story that it actually is.

I avoided all Mansfield Park screen versions until this year. Only a few short years ago MP was still my least favourite Austen and the thought of watching sappy Fanny on screen for 2 hours was more than I could bare! But the reread changed everything. I suddenly saw (if you can call the 20 years of life and reading experience that led to this change, sudden) the incredible structure and beauty of Austen's craftsmanship. I had completely failed to see or appreciate the technical brilliance of MP the first time and I had completely failed to see or appreciate Fanny for who she really was.

Sadly Frances O'Connor also failed to appreciate Fanny for who she really was back in 1999 when this movie was made. At the start, the director clearly states that the movie is only 'based on the novel of the same name'. He went on to include a lot more about slavery and plantation life than JA ever would (even though she had very strong opinions about them in real life - but that's another post). All of which is fine, but Fanny is shy and reserved and timid. She is self-conscious and fearful and lacks a sense of belonging. O'Connor plays Fanny with far more energy, confidence and sass than Fanny could ever dream of - perhaps more appealing to a modern audience, but completely changing the story arc for Fanny. Instead of being a journey towards belonging and morality and learning to stand up for herself, we have this particular Fanny doing the same things at the end as she did at the beginning. There can be no story arc for this Fanny who has way too much pluck to belong here!

There is also an earlier BBC TV series of Mansfield Park to watch out for, but everything I've read suggests that MP is still due for a good screen interpretation.

The 1986 Northanger Abbey movie is the only on-screen version I've seen. It has attracted a lot of haters over the years, but I loved it. It captured the silly, romantic, gothic fluff that I believe Austen was aiming for. A lot about this novel is written tongue-in-cheek and this particular screen version embraces the parody with gusto!

Eerie music oozes over every scene, fog and mist cast shadows and mystery everywhere and all the characters a stereotypes, beautifully drawn, from the doe-eyed ingenue, the sexually aware BFF, the hoon brother and the amused romantic hero. It's delicious. Yes, it misses out lots of the details from the book, but all movies have to make that concession. The ones that work for me are the ones that stay true to the characters.

One day I will check out the 2007 version, but it doesn't look as lush and atmospheric as the 1986 one.

The 1995 Persuasion is another favourite. Amanda Roots completely owned her interpretation of Anne Elliot. 

Bath and Lyme feature strongly in this movie too with all the rain, grey skies and chill winds that one would expect. This is one of JA's most socially conscious novels and the movie goes to great lengths to show this off. Beautiful estates, country homes, naval quarters, inns, sumptuous town apartments and run-down rooms in the poor part of town. 

Ciaran Hands played the rugged Captain Wentworth with proper naval aplomb and the scene where our two lovers finally kiss has the added bonus of a noisy, colourful circus passing by with clowns backflipping and jumping for joy in the background. 

I've never bothered to check out the 2007 version, as this one continues to satisfy me every time.

The same goes for Sense and Sensibility. Ang Lee's 1995 movie is such a satisfying version of the story that I've never felt the need to look elsewhere.

Yes, most of the actors are way too old for their parts, but one can forget and forgive this for their faithful interpretation of their characters. I've gone into my feelings about this movie in much greater length before, so I wont go over old ground, except to say that I love the almost final and very emotional scene with Elinor and Edward so very much.

Adaptations and bio-pics are a curious thing. I had such high hopes for Becoming Jane, but was so disappointed to see that apparently all of Jane's good ideas and lines came from a man!!

Lost in Austen was far more successful. It was fun with lots of interesting comment about modern life versus Regency life. I'd happily watch this again one day.

One I have still to see and would really like to, is the recent movie version of Love and Friendship.

Austenland and Miss Austen Regrets are two I have also been recommended...for one day.
Do you have a favourite JA book or movie or TV series?

Austen on Screen

There are so many versions of Jane Austen's books available to watch on the big and little screen, that it would take more viewing time than I currently have to do justice to all of them. But over the years, I've given it my best shot!

Today's post is all about Pride and Prejudice and some of it's screen adaptations.

My love affair with Jane on the screen began during my HSC year when our local ABC TV replayed the 1980 BBC production of Pride and Prejudice starring Elizabeth Garvie and David Rintoul. The screen play was written by Fay Weldon and consisted of five 55 minute episodes.

No Austen production can ever hope to include every single scene or nuance as written by Jane. Some choose to stay as faithful as they can to the original, while others pride themselves on their modern reinterpretation of the story.

The 1980 version of P&P is a faithful retelling with some fabulous characterisations. Perhaps because it was my first P&P, it has remained my favourite despite all attempts by newcomers to convert me to their way of thinking. Elizabeth Garvie will always be my ideal for Lizzy Bennet and Malcolm Rennie, in particular, will always be the odious, smarmy Mr Collins (although now that I've spotted that Matt Smith took a turn in Mr Collin's shoes in the 2016 P&P&Zombies parody, I may have to search out that production next)!

Tom Hollander in 2005 played the role too sly and knowing for my liking, although he did make me laugh. David Bamber (1995) and Rennie captured Collins' obsequiousness far better.

The 1980 version did have one glaring problem though. It obviously lacked the big budgets that other productions enjoyed. There were not many extras or sumptuous costumes and some of the scenes felt like an echoey stage. 

But I loved how my feelings for Mr Darcy grew and changed right along with Elizabeth's. When David Rintoul first walked on screen, I thought, oh no, they've got that VERY WRONG! But by the end, I thought he was the most handsome, dashing young man EVER!

I was prepared to love Colin Firth as Darcy. What's not to love, right? And Matthew Macfadyen - mmmmm! But both failed to replace David Rintoul as my preferred Darcy. 

Firth had the misfortune to be in my most hated version of P&P (controversial I know). I could barely sit through episode one without screaming at the screen! By halfway through the second, I gave up in disgust. I was so disappointed. I had hoped that the extra episode (it had 6) would mean they would include more of the scenes cut from previous versions due to lack of time. 

But no! 

Instead they added scenes that never ever existed in the first place (I'm looking at you Fitzwilliam in your wet t-shirt!). Andrew Davies is a highly regarded screenwriter and I'm sure he thought he was doing the right thing by sexing up Pride and Prejudice, but this particular Jane Austen purist was horrified. 

And don't get me started on how annoying Jennifer Ehle was! She rubbed me the wrong way from the opening sequence. She overdid the playful, lively wit thing. She came across as being self-conscious, rather smug and self-satisfied. Which is better (just) than the giggly girly Elizabeth that Keira Knightley went with in the 2005 movie version.

Oh dear!
What were they thinking?
Deborah Moggach (screenwriter) and Joe Wright (director) turned P&P into a YA rom-com.

Apparently (according to wikipedia) Moggach started off being faithful to the original dialogue, but Wright encouraged her to deviate from the text (because he didn't think that people spoke like that back then!) as well as changing the family dynamics and the time period to an earlier one. I can live with that, but I cannot bare a Lizzy who titters!

Elizabeth Garvie is still the only one who has got the balance right between Lizzy's wit, intelligence and maturity.

I viewed the 1940 movie version starring Greer Garson and Lawrence Olivier after a friend told me that it was her preferred version. (I had lent her my copy of the 1980 P&P and she hated it - Greer Garson was her epitome of Lizzy and she found Garvie too dull). 

However I found the 1940 movie more like a Victorian melodrama than JA's Regency social satire. Greer played a sophisticated, aloof, drawing room Lizzy rather than Garvie's more nature-loving, down to earth, free-spirit.  

A two hour movie can never do full justice to the book. Too many things have to be left out or assumed. I'm hoping that one day, someone will get it all right, because so far, no-one has got Bingley right.

Bingley is meant to be Darcy's foil, not his fool, which is how he often gets played (Simon Woods 2005 was the worst culprit). Certainly none of them have been handsome enough (except for the dashing zombie slayer Douglas Booth, although I'm not really sure that this particular version counts).

It's also hard to get Mrs Bennet's silliness and nerves just right. She has to be silly and nervous, but also pretty and charming enough for us to see how Mr Bennet could have fallen for her in the first place.

I liked the more moderate version of Mrs Bennet that Brenda Blethyn showed us in the 2005 movie, but she was so moderate in the end that it was hard to see the Bennet's as an incompatible couple - which is the whole idea behind their relationship.

Wickham and Lydia are also difficult to capture on the screen.

Wickham has to be dashing and charming enough to attract Lizzy, but there also has to be something insincere and obvious about him that alerts the more suspicious viewer. Our 1980 Wickham was too innocuous and Orlando was too smarmy in 2005. No-one has got Wickham's ability to deceive and manipulate just right. And no production has got the pairing of Wickham and Lydia right either.

The 1980 Lydia was the perfect blend of silly, bitchy and head-strong, but she would have walked all over her innocuous counterpart. Julia Sawalha was annoying enough as Lydia and Jena Malone had lots of exuberance and flirtatious ways, but no-one has mastered Lydia's conniving side. 

The 1980 Mrs Bennet had the best relationship with her Lydia. It was obvious to see why this particular Lydia had grown up the way she did, indulged and petted by her very sympathetic mother.

Lady Catherine de Bourgh's haughty, condescending snobbery was well captured by Judy Parfitt in 1980. Normally I like Judy Dench in anything, but she felt miscast in the 2005 movie. I would have loved to see her tackle Mrs Bennet instead. However, an eye patch wearing ice queen Catherine as played by Lena Headey (of Game of Thrones fame) could easily become my pick of the bunch! Without having actually seen this movie yet, I feel like I can say that it was a truly inspired casting choice! I'm intrigued.

Nobody likes Miss Bingley. I don't believe you're not meant to. She not's very nice. Too brittle, too prickly and too superior. Yet curiously Marsha Fitzalan's version of Caroline created some sympathetic touches. She played her desperation so openly and so vulnerably, that you couldn't but help feel sorry for her. Anna Chancellor was already famous for her 'duckface' turn in Four Weddings and a Funeral by the time she got to Miss Bingley. A perfect, though less compassionate match. The 2005 movie Caroline was completely unmemorable.

As the eldest daughter in a large family of girls, I've always felt an affinity for Jane Bennet. Her ability to hide her feelings (unless you know her well, then you can read her like a book), act the patient peace-maker and trust in the goodness of others can make her seem like a sap. But she has courage, strength of purpose and a sense of responsibility that the Lydia's of this world will never appreciate.

Our 1980 and 2005 Jane's captured her gentleness and determination well. However, the 2005 Jane should never have fallen for that fool of a Took, Bingley and I would have preferred to see the 1995 Jane tackle Lydia instead. There was something about the way her smile suggested something different to her eyes, that made me think she could play Lydia's manipulative ways to a tee.

(I went round and round in circles on pinterest trying to find who I could credit for putting together the P&P character collages, to no avail. If it's you, please let me know so that I can rectify this oversight.)

There was also a 1958 BBC TV series of 6 episodes airing for half an hour each. It starred Jane Downs and Alan Badel. Sadly, it is believed that the entire series has been lost. Another production in 1967 honoured 150 years since the death of JA.

To show that I'm not a complete killjoy about adaptations and modern reinterpretations, let me rave for a minute about my love of Bridget Jones' Diary.

It was hilarious yet poignant and oh so big-hearted from start to finish. Casting Firth as the Darcy character was one of those sublime moments of right person, right time, right everything. Taking our much loved characters into the modern world clearly meant that Mrs Bennet was always going to have an affair with some gross TV presenter, and instead of a tribe of siblings, our modern Lizzy has to have a band of best friends to be her confidants.

I'm not so much a fan of the two sequels though. I watched The Edge of Reason out of curiosity, but failed to get excited about Bridget Jones' Baby at all.

JA has given the modern script writer the bones of such a clever, classic story, that they really have to work hard to stuff it up.

Even a fun musical version out of India in 2004 worked. The themes and characters of P&P are so universal that No Life Without Wife is the only obvious response to a 'truth universally acknowledged'.

I enjoyed the movie version of The Jane Austen Book Club more then the book itself, from memory. Jimmy Smits may have had something to do with that! Emily Blunt was not on my radar back then, so I'd like to re-watch this one day just to see her do her thing. This is not strictly a P&P adaptation either, as Joy Fowler's characters are influenced by all of JA's books over the course of the story.

The IMBd list for Pride and Prejudice adaptations suggests that I am woefully behind with my screen love of P&P - they have 32 possibilities and I've only viewed (or part viewed) ten.

And when I say love, I probably mean hope. No movie, TV series or adaptation has come close to doing Austen's story justice. Some actors have done a magnificent job, some of the sets have been gorgeous but I'm always left a little flat in the end. My hope of seeing Pride and Prejudice alive on the big screen as I've imagined it and felt it all these years has still not been achieved. But like Jane Bennet, I'm always optimistic.

UPDATE

 8th September 2018

Last night I watched Pride & Prejudice Zombies.

It was so much fun and may even become my favourite P&P adaptation!

I'd love to see this cast of characters play their roles in a more traditional P&P - everyone nailed it.

But I particularly loved Mr Collins, Lady Catherine, Mrs Bennett and Bingley.

Darcy's failed proposal scene to Elizabeth was an incredibly sexy ninja battle and I never got tired of seeing the Bennett sister's unsheath their blades for battle with the undead!

As a bonus for those of us who have watched many P&P adaptations, many times, there were parodies of much loved (by some) scenes (such as Darcy diving into the lake), rooms that looked very, very familiar rooms, certain famous lines from other Austen books, a number of scenes paying homage to other well-known screen versions (the wedding scene from Ang Lee's S&S) and a lovely cross-referencing moment when Lady Catherine (aka Cersei from Game of Thrones) arrives to threaten Elizabeth with a body guard as big and as loyal as The Mountain.

Tremendous fun; highly recommended...and much better than the book version by Seth Grahame-Smith, which I got tired of very quickly. It's a concept that works better visually I think.

#AusteninAugust
#AllAboutAusten

August? Austen?

Over the past few years I've participated in Adam @RoofBeamReader's Austen in August with a great deal of pleasure, but he has decided not to run with it this year. I understand completely.

Every September/October I angst over whether or not I will go ahead with my very own AusReadingMonth in November...and AusReadingMonth is a much more low-key event than Adam's Austen in August ever was.

I've been reading an Austen a year since I was 17. It used to be my summer holiday pleasure when I was a teacher. Every January (I'm in the southern hemisphere remember) I would reread at least one Austen. I now look forward to reading Austen in August every year and plan my (very loose, free and easy) reading schedule around this idea.

I've also discovered some wonderful like-minded blogger friends via Austen in August and I enjoy catching up with them every year to chat about all things Austen. I know there are other Austen events doing the rounds and perhaps it would be good for me to spread my wings and meet new bloggers. But half the pleasure of Adam's Austen in August is the people I've got to know.
So I throw this open to all of you - would you still like to read an Austen in August with me this year? Very casual, very informal, but very Austen.

I could throw up a linky for posts and reviews. I could create a hashtag for twitter chats and Insta pics. Would you be interested?

My plan is to read my brand new Annotated Persuasion this year. I have some short stories left in my volume of Austen's Juvenilia as well. What do you think? Would you like to add your name to my dance card?

My previous Austen posts:

My favourite classic (2012)

Lyme Regis (2012)

How to make negus (2013)

Jane Austen (2013)

Finding Mr Darcy (2013)

Philosophy in the Garden (2013)

Mansfield Park (2013)

Letters to Alice on First Reading Jane Austen (2013)

Pride and Prejudice plus other stuff (2013)

Baby Lit Primers (2014)

The Jane Austen Community (2014)

Sense and Sensibility (2014)

Emma (2015)

Jane Austen quotes (2017)

Lady Susan (2017)

Love and Freindship (2017)

The Watsons (2017)

Northanger Abbey (2017)

#AllAboutAusten

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

Adam @RoofBeamReader once again hosted #AusteninAugustRBR as well as a #CBAM2017 readalong for Northanger Abbey.

I've read Northanger Abbey a couple of times, many years ago, but it wasn't really one of my preferred Austen's.... until I saw the wonderful 1986 BBC TV film starring Robert Hardy, Katharine Schlesinger and Peter Firth, about ten years after it was made. The film is deliciously gothic and quite true to the book. All the characterisations feel spot on, the costuming is splendid and the music suitably eerie. Bath & Katharine's huge eyes also have a huge part in the story! It is my all-time favourite Austen TV adaptation.

It is now impossible for me to read Northanger Abbey without having these faces and places vividly in mind. Which was actually a huge achievement given that this particular reread of NA occurred poolside in Bali on a recent holiday.

Austen's brother sent Northanger Abbey off to the publisher's for the first time, in 1803. It was her first completed novel. Austen was only 22 when she began this novel, but thanks to a foolish publisher who didn't realise what a gem they had on their hands, it languished unpublished until the Austen family bought it back again in 1816. Austen revised the book in the last two years of her life (changing the heroine's name from Susan to Catherine) and it was finally published posthumously in 1817.

Northanger Abbey is a lighter, funnier novel than most of Austen's other novels. Like many of her Juvenilia, it is a parody of the many gothic and romance novels in vogue at the time. Austen may be having fun here, but many of her well-known, heavier hitting themes also make their first appearance.

Women's issues are front and centre - their economic plight, the marriage market and rational thought versus rampant sensibility. One wonders if this particular passage was part of Austen's later revision (as she was also finishing off Persuasion) or whether Anne Elliot's famous speech about the representation of women in books and history was inspired by this much earlier example of feminist thought.

History, real solemn history, I cannot be interested in....
I read it a little as duty, but it tells me nothing that does not either vex or weary me. The quarrels of popes and kings, with wars or pestilences, in every page; the men all so good for nothing, and hardly any women at all - it is very tiresome.

Northanger Abbey also explores the idea of first impressions - that people and events may not be what they seem at first and that imagination should not be confused with real life.

It was this loss of innocence as Catherine made her tentative first steps into adult life, that really affected me with this reread. I could sense her desperation to be 'grown-up' - to know stuff and to not be thought silly - but at the same time being confused and uncertain about what was the right way to behave.

I also really, really appreciated the humour this time around - so much so that I had to read several passages out loud to Mr Books, as he lay dozing on the banana lounge next to me. If you have never read any of Austen's books out loud, I urge you to try one day. Reading them out loud brings out the humour as well as highlighting how perfectly each sentence has been constructed.

How can you not laugh at the buffoon John Thorpe with his interminable talk about horses and carriages? His obsession with speed and specifications are surely the harbinger's of our modern day hoon in their hotted up wheels! We've all been stuck at a party sitting next to the guy who thinks everyone else is as fascinated by his mode of transport as he is!

The flipback book series from John Murray do not seem to have taken hold, which is a shame, because they are prefect travel companions. Made with the same soft paper they use in bibles, flipbacks fit in the palm of your hand, are super light-weight and the fonts are surprisingly readable.

I have three of the Austen's on my shelf - they not only take up very little space, but they're also very pretty.

Top Ten Tuesday Jane Austen Hidden Gems

The Broke and the Bookish host a weekly meme called Top Ten Tuesday.

Each week they nominate a topic to encourage those of us who love a good list to get all listy.

This week it's all about Jane Austen...

It would be easy to list my top ten favourite Austen quotes, but this week on TTT, it's all about hidden gems. 

So I've trawled through my memory and google quotes to find the lesser known Austen quotes that reveal hidden depths and show off her sparkling wit.

My Top Ten Hidden Gems from Jane Austen

1.

Persuasion

2.

Letter to Cassandra

3.

Sense and Sensibility

4.

Mansfield Park

5.

Pride and Prejudice

6.

Lady Susan

7.

Letter to Cassandra

8.

Mansfield Park

9.

Northanger Abbey

10.

Emma

Which one is your favourite Jane Austen quote?

The Watsons by Jane Austen

Jane Austen's unfinished work, The Watsons (c.1804) is an exercise in frustration on many levels. The story is unfinished, unedited and unpolished, yet somehow it still sparkles with Austen's trademark wit and brilliance.

What could this story have been, if Austen had finished, edited and polished it?

Sara Morante (2012)

Just as we settle into the new story and work out who all the people are and how Jane feels about them....it ends.

Was this a first draft written in one or two sittings? Did she have plans for how it would end? Why did she stop writing? And why was The Watsons left to languish on the unfinished pile?

Theories and speculation abound. Apparently she told Cassandra that her plan was for Papa Watson to die, forcing Emma to live with her older married brother. The unexpected death of Jane's own father around this time may have made this story line too personal and painful to continue.

But, perhaps, the most simple explanation of all, is that dear Jane simply did not live long enough. She only just finished Persuasion in time. Maybe, her next project would have been to reassess The Watsons? Or finish Sandition?

The fragment that we do have of The Watsons has so many familiar Austen-esque themes, settings and characters.

Money, education, social class all get a look in. We have 3-4 families in a neighbourhood (the Watsons, Edwards and Osbornes) with varying social status. They visit each other to attend balls and flirt. Emma is the youngest of six, but was sent away to live with a wealthy, but childless aunt and uncle (just like Jane's older brother in real life, or Fanny in Mansfield Park). However, an unfortunate second marriage on behalf of the aunt, forces Emma to return to her birth family. She has now been educated beyond that of her siblings and she struggles to understand their ways.

There's the lordly, aloof Osborne (Mr Darcy prototype?), the humble, authentic parson, Howard (Edward Ferris perhaps?) and the caddish Musgrave (Wickham/Henry Crawford?) all vying for the female attention. We see bad behaviour on display at the local ball and Emma's kindness in response. Silly, husband-hunting siblings (Lydia?) and Mary Edwards flirting with Sam Watson and a dashing young officer at the same time (Isabella Thorpe?)

The ill father was a common theme in her later writing (Mr Elliot and Mr Woodhouse) although they were often more hypochondriac than really unwell. Mr Dashwood was obviously ill enough to die in Sense and Sensibility and this was Austen's intention for Mr Watson too. S&S was started six years after her own father's death and it's possible to wonder if her plans for The Watsons morphed into this very similar story of four women suddenly thrown at the mercy of their male relatives after the death of the husband/father figure.

The frustrating part is that we will never know.

Several modern authors have attempted to finish The Watsons, but I cannot go there. I will have to live with my frustration and disappointment.

The Watsons was not Austen's finest work, but the kernel of excellence was evident. Jane showed with Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice that she was perfectly capable of starting again or thoroughly overhauling an old story to find a better way forward.

If only....

I found these gorgeous images (above & below) on Sara Morante's blog that she prepared for a Nordica Libros edition of Los Watson in 2012. The video is a visual treat - do yourself a favour and click play!

1787-1793 - Short works & juvenilia written

1790 - Wrote Love and Freindship

1794 - Began Lady Susan

1795 - Wrote Elinor and Marianne

1796 - Began First Impressions

1798 - Begins Northanger Abbey (known as Susan, then Catherine)

1800 - moved to Bath

1804 - Begins The Watsons (and Northanger Abbey submitted to publisher, but not published)

1805 - Jane's father dies suddenly (Lady Susan finished)

1808 - Moved into Chawton House with her mother and Cassandra

1809 - Begins work on Sense and Sensibility

1810 - Sense and Sensibility finished

1811 - Begins Mansfield Park (Sense and Sensibility published, First Impressions revised)

1813 - Pride and Prejudiced published

1814 - Mansfield Park published (begins work on Emma)

1815 - Emma published (begins work on The Elliots/Persuasion)

1816 - Jane becomes ill (finished Persuasion)

1817 - Begins work on The Brothers/Sandition (Jane dies July 18) Northanger Abbey & Persuasion published

#AusteninAugustRBR

Love and Freindship (sic) by Jane Austen

My Jane-ite credentials will hopefully be confirmed by my declaration that I have two copies of Love and Freindship (sic) on my bookshelf!

One is in my lovely cloth bound Penguin Classics (2014); the other is part of my treasured Folio Society Jane Austen boxed set from 2003. Between the two books, I believe I have the entire collection of Jane Austen's teenage writings plus the various half-finished works that she left behind when she died.

Love and Freindship is a juvenile story written by Jane Austen in 1790. She was only 14 yrs of age at the time (which may explain why she misspelt friend and friendship throughout the story)! It was supposedly written for the amusement of her family. According to Christine Alexander who wrote the Introduction in my Penguin Classics edition,

Literature was a shared activity in the Austen household; it was fun and enlightening.

I like to picture the Austen family sitting around the fire together, reading stories aloud to each other, trying to impress and make each other laugh with their cleverness and wit. I suspect Love and Freindship would have produced plenty of chuckles and quite a few guffaws.

Love and Freindship: Deceived in Freindship and Betrayed in Love is a laugh out loud parody of many of the romance novels in vogue at the time. It features elopements, exaggerated reversals of fortune, long-lost relatives, outlandish coincidences, pathetic deaths and lots of ill-timed faints!

Beware of fainting fits...Though at the time they may be refreshing and Agreeable, yet believe me they will, in the end, too often repeated and at improper seasons, prove destructive to your constitution... 

Beware of swoons, dear Laura.....A frenzy fit is not one quarter so pernicious; it is an exercise to the Body and if not too violent, is, I daresay, conducive to Health in its consequences - Run mad as often as you chuse, but do not faint - .

Laura is our hapless heroine. She is sentimental to the max and proud of it! Her friend Isabel, has asked Laura to give a detailed version of the 'Misfortunes and Adventures of your Life' to Isabel's daughter, Marianne, to satisfy her curiosity and to 'prove to her to be a useful Lesson.'

What follows is a series of hilarious, ridiculous letters full of the trials and tribulations of Laura's attempts at, well, love and friendship.

Unlike Lady Susan, who you end up feeling a grudging respect for, Laura is just too silly for words. Her naivety and shallowness are a danger to society and all those around her.

You may perhaps have been somewhat surprised my Dearest Marianne, that in the Distress I then endured, destitute of any Support, and unprovided with any Habitation, I should never once have remembered my Father and Mother or my paternal Cottage in the Vale of Uske. To account for this seeming forgetfullness I must inform you of a trifling Circumstance concerning them which I have as yet never mentioned - . The death of my Parents a few weeks after my Departure, is the circumstance I allude to.

We see in Love and Freindship that Jane Austen's views on sensibility and romance were formed at an early age. She was aware, as Alexander reminds us, of the 'false values and absurd conventions of sentimental fiction'.

Elinor Dashwood and Anne Eliot's rational, sensible approach to life and love is something that Jane clearly favoured all of her life. It's pleasing to be able to trace the more mature, sophisticated exploration of these ideas in Sense and Sensibility and Persuasion from this earlier, lighter story.

Love and Freindship is a high spirited, fun read and instructive, in more than ways than one!

#AusteninAugustRBR