Author Kate Atkinson: Friend of Jane
Cristina from BrontëBlog wrote to tell us that Kate Atkinson, the author of the novels Behind the Scenes at the Museum, Human Croquet, Emotionally Weird and Case Histories, lists Pride and Prejudice as No. 3 on her Top Ten Novels list.
The Mozart opera of novels and again a transcendent union of structure and content in which unhappy marriage is the reward for those who show a weakness of character and lifelong happiness is a province reserved only for those “who truly know themselves.”
December 30th, 2005 at 10:34 am
11. The Good Soldier
by Ford Madox Ford, a novel about the wanton destruction caused by passion and bad behaviour, written with the greatest delicacy and precision. –Kate’s list
This is only a second or third order Austen reference, but I go ahead anyway. (Despise me if you dare!)
Readers and viewers should recall the BBC production in the early ’80s starring Robin Ellis and Jeremy Brett. And O! Elizabeth Garvie in a small part as The Girl (Nancy). I reread the last 100 pages or so of the novel at the end of ‘03 hankering for a DVD of P&P1 and of TGS* as well.
*Nothing in the works there as far as I can tell.
P. S. A very interesting retrospective of Lolita appeared recently, but Mags hasn’t given permission to breathe a word so off-topic
December 30th, 2005 at 11:00 am
P.P.S.
Kate giving a story collection in her list of novels gets her a hoohaw!
And while I’m at it (being off-topic) let me mention Kingsley Amis for Lucky Jim on the, say, top ten comic novels in English, eh?
December 30th, 2005 at 11:31 pm
At moments like this I always hear the Red Leader (I think it was the Red Leader) from STAR WARS saying, “Stay on target! Stay on target!”
December 31st, 2005 at 1:40 pm
AH, SUCH A FRAGRANCE
Elizabeth Garvie as the definitive Lizzie* (P&P1) means Garvie-doings will ever have an Austen aroma. May I say?
Furthermore, as I commented on Thursday, her working the Austen lode even in the present day (in “Pride & Prejudice–A Celebration of Jane Austen”) may more endear her. Then again, mebbe it’s just me.
*Of course, spelt this way so as to indicate congruence with “Garvie”
February 13th, 2006 at 9:14 pm
It’s such an idiosyncratic list that it’s hard to take seriously. She means to say, her favorite 10 books. e.g. Slaughterhouse Five above P&P and Middlemarch. Come on! But whatever turns you on. I do love The Good Soldier as well, but it’s not up there with the two mentioned above, or Ulysses for that matter. The Great Gatsby, yes, but not Huckleberry Finn, the other great American novel? And no Dickens? And of all James’ great novels, a very small one indeed is picked. Well, I guess that shows my preferences. And that’s all these lists ever do. As one critic said, once you cross the line into greatness, it doesn’t matter what is greater or greatest.