P&P3 News Roundup: The Janeites Strikes Back
Fellow Janeites, it’s happened.
The reviews are being reviewed: Alert Janeite Kirsty sent in this post by a blogger who has had enough.
As deeply fond as I am of Jane Austen’s novels, and of Pride and Prejudice in particular, I don’t pretend that they’re without their flaws. Austen’s romances are cerebral and mostly passionless, and her characters’ world is no wider than her own limited, proscribed existence. The wonder of Austen’s fiction is the fact that she took these coldly moral tales, combined them with her warm wit and keen powers of observation, and came up with a miniature of humanity in all its glory and silliness. Some things, some aspects of human existence, are missing, but in much the same way that we don’t turn to Tolkien for complicated and flawed characters, and we don’t read George Eliot when we’re after a barrel of laughs, it’s wrong to try and impose those aspects on our reading of Austen. For better and worse (but mostly for better), she is what she is–one of the finest authors in the English language, and well worth a first, second, and third look.
Now this is the type of Gritty Realism we AustenBloggers like to see!
Down in New Zealand, English professor Joanne Wilkes waxes poetic on the enduring appeal of Witty Jane.
Alert Janeite Claire sent in this snarking article from the New York Times, in which an inanimate object’s love for Keira Knightley is declared:
In “Pride and Prejudice,” the latest movie version of the Jane Austen classic, out next month, the camera follows her around like a besotted puppy. It flings itself out of windows and over furniture and through walls just to be close to her. When she’s not there, it frantically rushes around whimpering, sliding off the rest of the cast in anticipation, and when it finally gets her on the sofa or backs her into a corner, it just licks her all over, in an ecstasy of devotion.
Sorry Mr. Camera, I think Miss Knightley (as well as most other people of the feminine persuasion) prefers significant others with a noticeable heartbeat.
The Pace Press, however, is not so easily infatuated as Mr. Camera:
I’d love any excuse to encourage the public to see and become familiar with a Jane Austen tale, particularly one that is so revered, I’d have to tell everyone; instead of wasting your $10 to see this drained and cheap Hollywood imitation, go rent the ‘95 BBC mini-series. You can’t go wrong there. Can you truly tell me that you want to go see a movie where the tag line is, “Sometimes the last person on earth you want to be with is the one person you can’t be without”?
Um . . . no comment.
Alert Janeite Cinthia wrote to us about the Spectator’s opinion on the film, which finds a comfortable balance between obsessive admiration and downright snark:
Overall, fans of the book and mini-series should be generally pleased with the film. It was a good adaptation of the classic novel and will help any Austen fan get past their prejudice and be filled with pride.
And that, dear readers, is diplomacy in action.
October 21st, 2005 at 8:57 pm
“Cerebral and mostly passionless”?!!!!
No, no, no! I can’t take it! I just can’t take it when people say that Austen’s writing is passionless… As if the work is sterile, has no emotion. The passion isn’t obvious, and if it were, the work would be Bronte instead and not half as moving… The Bronte passion is forced, fake, staged. Jane is honest and human and heartbreaking. Where do people get this “passionless” cr@p?!
(storms off camera)
October 21st, 2005 at 8:58 pm
Umm… The “C” word above is not an email. Oops.
October 22nd, 2005 at 4:07 am
That’s not the first time I’ve gotten that reaction to my choice of the word ‘passionless’, and now I’m wondering if I should have made it clear that I was talking about sexual passion, eroticism. I agree that the overblown, ‘Oh, Heathcliff!’ type of Bronte passion is staged and inhuman, but there is another kind of passion in Bronte fiction that’s always struck me as necessary and real. In Jane Eyre, for example, you genuinely believe that Jane wants to have sex with Rochester. It adds a necessary component to their conversation after the wedding debacle, and helps us understand why Jane would consider, even for a moment, running off and becoming Rochester’s mistress.
It’s not something we see in Austen’s fiction. Even when her characters are in love, longing for someone, there’s no sexuality in the air. I would have expected to feel something like that in Persuasion, at the very least, but it’s just not there, sometimes to the books’ detriment. I’ve read P&P a dozen times over a dozen years, and I still don’t understand why Lydia runs away with Wickham - when clearly the answer is that he’s hot and she’s hot and bothered. But that answer is something I had to supply, not something Austen put there.
October 22nd, 2005 at 8:32 am
Cub Reporter Tasha has clearly learned at the feet of the master.
(and last night I saw the Victory fire a broadside. Neener Neener Neener. More soon.)
October 22nd, 2005 at 8:33 am
P.S. Abigail: I understand what you mean. Again, more later.
October 22nd, 2005 at 12:45 pm
This is just the beginning, Mags. The coup has begun!
(Actually, my admiration of your blogging abilities is increasing exponentially, and I’m impatiently awaiting your return - as well as still being horribly jealous!)
October 24th, 2005 at 9:35 am
Mmm… Okay, it’s true, I didn’t realize you were talking about sexual passion, and while I don’t think Jane Austen is totally devoid of sexuality, I agree it’s not exactly sexy writing.
Regarding Persuasion, I’ve got a theory that despite the happy ending, the book is a tragedy, and is defined as such in complement to Northanger Abbey, a comedy. I don’t think Persuasion should have included more sexuality than it has (admittedly very little) for this reason. In some ways, it’s too late for Anne and the Captain - they have bypassed the hotblooded physical relationship stage, and the time lost cannot be regained.
October 24th, 2005 at 4:33 pm
pardon me… anne is 27 and the captain not much older. “bypassed the hotblooded relationship stage”??
who are you? marianne dashwood? ;o)
seriously, i believe jane austen stuck truly to her maxim to write only about emotions, happenings, dealings which she herself experienced. (i think, that is why we never read direct reply of “love-making” when one of her heroines accepts the man she loves)
she was not concerned about (outspoken) violent sexual passion. at least not in her writing. i don’t understand why that seems to be seen as a flaw.
there’s enough passion in the books, anyway.
October 24th, 2005 at 6:27 pm
Well, let’s face it, ladies, when your’re over 25, you’ve “bypassed the hotblooded relationship stage”.
You then reach the times of felt slipper and a shy kiss…
I always thought that the relationship between Anne and Wentworth was so strong, that even the years of separation didn’t kill their affection for each other.
And I don’t think that this was only a platonic love…
Persuasion has even a more “happy ending” than Sense and Sensibility… or Mansfield Park.
Anne got her Captain after all this years and his love is still strong! And she didn’t stop loving him as well. What more can a woman want?
October 25th, 2005 at 9:01 am
I didn’t mean that Anne is too old sexual passion, but rather that there is a very precious type of relationship that happens in the first throes of love that Anne and the Captain have missed, lost. I think the writing toward the end of Persuasion has a lot of regret, lost innocence, missed opportunities, and despite the happy reunion, the end of Persuasion is pretty tragic.
October 25th, 2005 at 12:28 pm
I don’t understand why it is tragic? Of course, they’ve missed several years, but they can catch up on everything. And they are no longer young fools, so maybe they can appreciate their feelings for each other much more.
That is the point in Persuasion, they have been separated for several years, both with broken hearts. But even that didn’t kill the passion…
But of course their love is not like that when they were both young.