Alert Janeite Sylvia M. wrote to tell us that Company Pictures has a page on their Web site for the upcoming television adaptation of MANSFIELD PARK. The site says that the film will be 90 minutes long and lists the producers: Suzan Harrison, George Faber (who was one of the producers of P2), and Charles Pattinson.

Following Sylvia’s example, we checked the Clerkenwell Films site looking for some info on the upcoming production of PERSUASION, but found nothing more than a news announcement. The item did confirm that the film will be a two-hour television adaptation.

Octagon Films, which is working on both BECOMING JANE and the new NORTHANGER ABBEY film, does not seem to have a Web site. Hmph.

We also heard from Laura Diann, who created the Northanger Abbey Film Page and also maintains the online magazine at the JA Centre at Bath. She heard from a young actress named Emma McMorrow who tried out for the role of Catherine Morland but did not get it; undaunted, Miss McMorrow is trying out for Marianne Dashwood in S&S3. If Miss McMorrow is reading this and would like to contact us directly with news and gossip about the casting of the various films, she may click Contact over to the right!

The news comes to us slowly….

We missed this article somehow, but saw it on the JA Centre at Bath newsletter today. Laura Thompson discusses the popularity of Jane Austen’s work in a modern world, related to the release of the new Headline editions of the novels.

As a young girl in love with buying books, I recall spending £1 on a bargain edition of Jane Austen’s Persuasion. The cover showed Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth silhouetted, in a clinch, with the moon behind them glowing in the shape of a heart. The blurb read something like: “Will Anne ever again be held in the arms of the man she loved and lost?”

HA! Could it be as truly, awfully delicious as….this cover? (more…)

*ducks as Armitage Army snaps to attention* No, not THAT John Thornton, apparently. But we could not resist the photo.

(Dorothy is hanging over our chintz-upholstered computer chair, muttering something about “sapphire laser beams of love.” Shoo, woman! Off with you, and do not come back without a pot of freshly brewed Orange Pekoe! Really, one simply canNOT get good help these days.)

Despite the obvious, um, distractions, we think the photo somewhat apt. Elizabeth Gaskell’s John Thornton would probably be just as much of a killjoy as this guy if he set out to parse some P&P.

Elizabeth’s inability to act makes her a sympathetic figure, true, but it also means that her actions must be–by virtue of her world’s logic–largely inconsequential to the plot. It’s difficult not to see Darcy as the superior partner in what is ostensibly a relationship between equals: Darcy acts on Elizabeth’s behalf, true, in resolving some of the most serious subplots and complications, but what does Elizabeth do for herself?

Um, she maybe learned to not judge people by one’s first impression of them?

Just, y’know, taking a stab.

There’s something unsatisfying about Elizabeth’s ultimately limited range of actions, and there’s thus something that jars us with the benevolent, “all’s-well-that-ends-well” tone of the conclusion. There’s something unsatisfying at the very heart of Pride and Prejudice, a necessary irresolution to its central conflict.

Jars what with the who of the huh?

We’ve always seen the end of P&P as something great because it brings together two people who not only complement one another’s personalities perfectly but will improve one another in the joining. As Jane herself wrote:

She began now to comprehend that he was exactly the man who, in disposition and talents, would most suit her. His understanding and temper, though unlike her own, would have answered all her wishes. It was an union that must have been to the advantage of both; by her ease and liveliness, his mind might have been softened, his manners improved, and from his judgment, information, and knowledge of the world, she must have received benefit of greater importance.

But then, we’re just a lowly B.A. with a blog.

Austen’s primary virtue is her precision. Could we really ask her to be so imprecise in her ultimately grim portrayal of the world faced by eighteenth-century women? Is it really proper to offset the dark streak that runs through the conclusion of Pride and Prejudice–the incomplete satisfaction of our hopes, our expectations–with a happy ending that satisfies us on a plot level, but that ultimately obscures a darkness, a dissatisfaction present in Austen’s reality itself?

Well, that explains a lot of sequels, we guess.