AustenBlog . . . she’s everywhere » 2004 » August

26 August 2004

In the steps of Jane Austen

Filed under: Nonfiction — Mags @ 11:14 pm

The new book Educating Alice: Adventures of a Curious Woman by Alice Steinbach, a book of essays about trips taken by the author over the period of a year, includes a chapter related to Jane Austen.

Seven more chapters ensue, whisking us off to Kyoto to learn about traditional Japanese culture; to Florence to take a course called “Art in Florence”; to Winchester to walk in the footsteps of Jane Austen; to Havana to meet Cuban artists and average Cubanos; to Avignon to study and admire French landscape architecture; to Prague to engage in a creative-writing seminar; and to a Scottish sheep farm near Loch Lomond to learn the rudiments of training Border collies to herd sheep.

Comments Off

Jane Austen, Rock Star

Filed under: Jane in the News — Mags @ 11:10 pm

A band called One Ring Zero has produced an album of reinvented klezmer music with lyrics by some of today’s best-known writers. The author of the review muses that Jane Austen would have been a pretty good addition to the august company.

This brings up an interesting point: can writers of novels and poems write decent pop lyrics? I imagine that anything William Faulkner or Hemingway might have produced would not even pass muster, while Charles Dickens or Jane Austen might have somehow become the Brill Buildings of their times.

We love that idea.

Comments Off

Miramax business setbacks won’t delay BRIDE AND PREJUDICE

Filed under: Uncategorized — Mags @ 12:47 am

Miramax has shelved a couple of previously scheduled films, but BRIDE AND PREJUDICE will open on Christmas as scheduled.

And the company has three films debuting on Christmas day: Mike Nichols’ Proof, Gurinder Chadha’s Bride and Prejudice and Lasse Hallstrom’s An Unfinished Life.

It would be interesting if the film does well a few years after Harvey “John Thorpe” Weinstein shelved the big-screen Northanger Abbey project because, in his oh-so-humble opinion, the Jane Austen renaissance was over. Had he consulted the crack staff at AustenBlog Research and Testing Labs, Ltd., at their fabulous high-tech secret location, he might have been disabused of that notion. Or maybe not.