Newsweek profiles Aishwarya Rai, star of BRIDE AND PREJUDICE. In the interview she discusses Bond, bikinis, Bollywood, and of course, BRIDE AND PREJUDICE:

…I definitely think the Hindi film industry offers wonderful, feel-good cinema. Movies like “Lagaan” [where Indian villagers beat the British at cricket] or “Devdas” [a tale of star-crossed lovers] and movies that have reached that kind of caliber have had the world audience reacting to their feel-good element and their focus on family values. When we were on the set [of BRIDE AND PREJUDICE], Martin [Henderson], my co-star in “Bride,” kept saying: “There’s just this innocence to the emotion of love in this movie, which makes it very pure.”

Mr. Darcy’s wet shirt is even famous amongst rugby fans.

In that spate of second-half English scoring, those rolling mauls become the most exciting sight on national television - in a thoroughly Neanderthal way - since Pride and Prejudice produced Mr Darcy in his shirt dripping wet from a river.

River?

A Cornell student reviews the video game Donkey Konga, and further shares with his readers that:

If I was stranded on a desert island, I would want three things: a gun, Pride and Prejudice, and Donkey Konga.

We couldn’t resist sharing such a charming idea, though we would like to point out that Jane Austen’s Complete Novels can count as your one desert island book. And according to The Scotsman, putting the Complete Jane on your holiday gift list “shows refinement.” Here at AustenBlog World Headquarters, we are nothing if not refined.

The Winter 2004 issue of Persuasions Online has been posted on the JASNA Web site with a good selection of articles. We are certain that you Mr. Darcy fans (you know who you are) will be delighted to read “‘One has got all the goodness, and the other all the appearance of it’: The Development of Darcy in Pride and Prejudice” and there are several articles for us Persuasionites as well. Those of us who enjoy reading books about and inspired by Jane, as well of those bemused by her continuing popularity, will be fascinated by Barry Roth’s annual Jane Austen Bibliography.

In other JASNA news, the topic of the 2005 Essay Contest has been posted: “Jane Austen’s Letters in Fact and Fiction,” probably not coincidentally the topic of the 2005 Annual General Meeting in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The contest is open to high school, undergraduate and post-graduate students. The 2004 essay contest winners have been posted on the Web site, and you can read the winning essay as well.

The Omaha World-Herald tells us that there will be a Jane Austen Birthday Tea this Saturday, December 4, from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Omaha Public Library. (Free, but bring your own tea cup!) We thought it might be a JASNA-related event, but a perusal of their Web site reveals that there is no regional group in Nebraska (quel dommage!). Thus, if any Omaha Janeites are reading this, consider yourselves informed! And write to JASNA and ask if you can form a regional group!

The New York Post has chosen Emma as its latest title in its classics series. According to the article, one may procure a copy of the book for $5.99 from participating retailers with a coupon from the newspaper (though the coupon doesn’t seem to be included on the online edition of the paper).

The Grand Rapids Press points out that the first sentence of the novel The Good Wife Strikes Back by Elizabeth Buchan echoes the famous first line of Pride and Prejudice:

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that one person’s happiness is frequently bought at the expense of another’s.”

With a wry nod to Jane Austen, so begins “The Good Wife Strikes Back” (Viking, 304 pages, $24.95), the follow-up novel to Elizabeth Buchan’s best seller, “Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman.” Her latest book, while not quite as good as “Revenge,” is still quite good — and funny.

POLLYANNA, this week’s “Masterpiece Theatre” production, showed Pollyanna reading Pride and Prejudice to her aunt.

We missed this by almost a week, but November 22’s World of the Day on Merriam Webster Online used an example from one of Jane Austen’s novels.

feign - FAYN - verb
1 : to give a false appearance of : induce as a false impression
2 : to assert as if true : pretend

Example sentence:
“Had Edward been intentionally deceiving her? Had he feigned a regard for her which he did not feel?” (Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility)

We apologize for the lack of content lately; it’s been a slow news week, perhaps because of the long holiday weekend in the U.S. (Happy Thanksgiving to our U.S. readers!)

According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Gurinder Chadha will host a preview of BRIDE AND PREJUDICE in St. Louis on Monday, November 29. The article doesn’t have any particulars, but the columnist’s e-mail address is in the article if you are in the area and care to follow up. It might be some kind of fundraising event.

Speaking of B&P, the Miramax Web site still lists the film as opening on December 24. Fandango lists it as opening December 25, but showtimes are not yet available. Keep your fingers crossed!

The Arizona State University Web Devil has an article about a recent “Pride and Prejudice” ball.

Christina Cullers stood in her green empire-waist dress and tried to explain her love for grand balls. “It’s the only dancing I get to do, and I can be graceful,” the 14-year-old said.

The tan, brown-haired girl, a ninth-grade home-school student from Glendale, joined in with more than 100 women who also were dressed in long gloves and puff-sleeved gowns at a recent ball in Phoenix. They curtsied to the men, who bowed and tipped their top hats accordingly.

The light music began to play and dancers weaved in and out in simple patterns. They pretended it was the 1800s, but in reality it was October. The 150 to 250 participants were not in a real ballroom in newly-formed America, but at a gym in Phoenix. Still, they were making history come alive.

The next event is a Victorian ball, unfortunately for Regency enthusiasts.

*waves lavender-scented hankie at publishing wonks reading AustenBlog* (if there are any!)

How often does your next Great Idea get handed to you on a silver platter, eh?

A collection of short essays by various writers inspired by moments from Marcel Proust’s “In Search of Lost Time” is so attractive and intriguing an idea that one hopes it spawns a publishing trend. (Next up, “Anna Karenina”? “Pride and Prejudice”?)

Excellent notion!

The Daily Review has reviewed the current production of EMMA in Berkeley.

In the’90s there was an absolute Austen craze that has yet to totally fade away. As a result of all that enthusiasm, we have two movie adaptations of “Emma” relatively fresh in our minds. There’s the 1997 Gwyneth Paltrow version, which boasts abundant charm, and Alicia Silverstone in “Clueless,” one of the sharpest Austen adaptations this side of Emma Thompson’s “Sense and Sensibility.”

In both movies, the Emma character has an innocence and naivet that explains her lapses into vanity, snobbishness and self-delusion.

In the stage version, Emma (played by Grace, who was fighting a bad cold on opening night) comes across as more calculating and worldly. The result is an Emma who is mean and not terribly bright — hardly someone you want to spend an evening with. Nor do you much care if she ends up in the arms of semi-dashing Mr. Knightley (Wyka).

Not bad lit crit for a theatre critic.

ETA, November 23: The Berkeley Daily Planet likes it, but the reviewer cheerfully admits to an unfamiliarity with the source material:

Certainly anyone determined to see a rendition of the “real” characters and the wit that they reme mber from Austen will find the play an irritating failure. But if you can rid yourself of such expectations, this production definitely has its own charms.

Well, there you go. If any AustenBlog readers have seen the production, we’d love to publish your review!

Another author compared to Jane Austen. . .

Is all this literary? Heavens, no. Harding isn’t trying to be Virginia Wolfe or Margaret Atwood.

Jane Austen? Well, maybe. Except that Harding is harder on her characters than on the society which has spawned them.

But if you’re searching for some literary predecessor to what Harding does in her first novel, Austen is your best bet.

Except, of course, “The Journal of Mortifying Moments” is written in fluid 21st-century prose, and it uses the obvious to its own advantage.

Is it just us or does the novel sound rather Bridget Jonesish?

The Kansas City Star has chosen The Jane Austen Book Club as one of its 100 Notable Books of 2004. It was also one of the three books that panelists expanded upon.

This simply structured novel is front-loaded with literary tricks and allusions. Six members of a California book club have six meetings over six months to discuss the six novels of Jane Austen. Hearts are broken, then mended, in this playful book that weaves savvy discussions about Austen and her fiction with winking wit and wisdom about the times in which we live.

The San Jose, California Mercury News has an article about fundraisers that give the opportunity for readers to meet authors, including a luncheon at which Karen Joy Fowler, author of The Jane Austen Book Club, appeared. The luncheon raised $150,000 for a good cause. Anyone else having a flashback to the library fundraiser in the novel? Wonder if Prudie danced at this one?

The San Francisco Chronicle reviews the Aurora Theatre Company’s stage production of EMMA. There are some more reviews of the play at the theatre company site. We’d love to publish a review from an AustenBlog reader, so if you see the play, send in your review!

Hard to tell from this interview, in which Mr Andrews discusses his role in BRIDE AND PREJUDICE. Perhaps “acquaintance” would be a better word. Probably for the best that the truth remains evasive, for the AustenBlog Editrix would likely be obliged to call for her vinaigrette and fan were it true, especially after last week’s episode of LOST. . .

You’ve also got “Bride and Prejudice” coming out shortly. How would you describe your role in that film?
I’ve not seen the film but I know it’s the top film in England. And it’s completely different [than] anything before. It’s certainly very different to “Easy.” I don’t know if you saw “Bend it Like Beckham,” but it’s the same director. She goes for a very broad family-oriented commercial film where everyone has a lot of fun, I think.

It’s a musical. You know, I’m singing and dancing in it in front of 40 dancers. It’s a very different character. He’s happy and elated to be alive.

Which “Pride and Prejudice” character are you the equivalent of?
It would be Mr. Bingley.

Were you familiar with Jane Austen?
I was familiar with Jane Austen, but in a modern context on three different continents. Apart from the very obvious links in India of arranged marriages, dowries, I don’t really see myself such strong links with the novel.

What training did you have for the musical numbers?
Oh Christ, well they had the choreographer, Saroj Khan, who does all those Bollywood films and is the best in her field. And I had to train nine hours a day for about 40 weeks trying to get this s**t done. It’s like traditional Indian dance coupled with M.C. Hammer from the early ‘90s, which has to be seen to be believed.

Would you display your dance skills in a club?
Absolutely not.

Do you play it with an Indian accent?
He’s a British Indian. Him and the Darcy character, played by Martin Henderson, go over to India and meet these girls. I guess my character falls in love and wants to get married, but Darcy tells him not to because she’s got an avaricious, grasping mother. And he also falls in love with a girl, but he can’t admit it.

Definitely at least an acquaintance! Now if you’ll excuse us while we read his interview about LOST. . .

According to contactmusic.com, Colin Firth is hoping that a new film version of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE will deflect some of the Darcy fans’ attention away from him and toward Matthew Macfadyen.

Firth, 44, says, “Mr Darcy became a bit of a monkey on my back. and I’d like to pass the baton on to someone else.”

You think that, Colin, if it gives you comfort.

Robert Bell, a professor at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, has been named the Outstanding Baccalaureate College Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education. According to the press release, Dr. Bell “teaches courses on Jane Austen and George Eliot, Shakespeare, and James Joyce, as well as general courses on poetry, the history of the novel, and English literature.” The AustenBlog Staff extends its congratulations to Dr. Bell. Who says the motto of liberal arts majors is “do you want fries with that?”

Hayley Mills, whom AustenBlog Readers of A Certain Age will remember from such films as the original version of THE PARENT TRAP, will appear this weekend in a one-woman play that includes readings from Jane Austen’s work. The play is called “A Rare Pattern” and is part of Chamber Music Plus Southwest in Arizona. The shows are on Saturday, November 20 in Phoenix and Sunday, November 21 in Tucson. Send in a review if you get to see it!