The Egalitarian Bookworm reviews Kandukondain Kandukondain, a Bollywood reinterpretation of Sense and Sensibility–not unlike Bride and Prejudice, but more of a “real” Bollywood film.

The verdict? In short, it was a lovely film and the actors and actresses were completely fantastic, but it couldn’t hold up to Ang Lee’s adaptation of the novel. The plot rambled too much, and it lacked those social back-and-forths that give Austen her oomph. I know it’s a different form of movie, but Austen doesn’t get its zest from plot and plot alone. The tension wasn’t amped up as much as it could have been. The best part of the movie was the sisters– they played off each other perfectly and summoned the spirits of their literary inspirations.

Austen-purism aside, there’s something so wonderful and vital about those Bollywood music scenes where the couples wear flowy clothing and dance freely, in front of beautiful natural backdrops and across the turrets and papapets of castles and ruins. It’s something no US director could do unironically. At the risk of projecting my Western understanding onto the form, those scenes hearken back to what Romantic with a capital R is all about. Shelley would be proud. As would Kate Bush.

We’ve had this film on our Netflix queue for ages; probably should move it up.

All of you book fanatics (and you know who you are) might find this site useful: booksprice.com. The site searches a wide variety of online booksellers and presents you with the best price. For instance, a search for Jane Austen brings up a list of different editions of her novels, which is really helpful if you’re searching for a certain edition. They have DVD search and music search as well, and you can even set up an RSS Price Watcher feed to watch the price of a particular book or edition.

Also you might find something really fun like the rather hilarious cover of an edition of Persuasion that is included with this post…not the funniest cover of an edition of Persuasion ever, but close.

Joining Persuasion, Donald J. Gray, editor of the Norton Critical Edition of Pride and Prejudice, gives the novel the Page 99 Test: “Open the book to page ninety-nine and read, and the quality of the whole will be revealed to you.”

Interestingly, Professor Gray writes about both his own edition of the book AND the 1813 second edition of the novel.

Either passage will prepare a reader for a novel about the tactics of courtship – the schemes and hopes of mother and sisters, the apparatus of social events (calls and balls) in which young people meet one another, or (in the Norton edition) fail to meet, the play of forwardness (in the 1813 edition) and socially enforced passivity (in the Norton passage) in the game of courtship. Things look more promising in 1813 – there will be a ball, at which the couple in the courtship will meet. In the passage of the Norton edition the dark and risky aspects of the game come forward: Jane (and Elizabeth) can do nothing but wait, the sister of one family schemes against the courtship while the sister of the other family is at this moment at least distant and helpless, and can offer only affection to solace the “painful thought” of disappointment. A novel, then, about romance and courtship, played out within the complications and comforts of family, and the provisions of social custom. In 1813 the reader wonders: what is going to happen at the ball? After reading the passage in the Norton edition, the reader thinks: This is a hard way to conduct romance; is it all going to be ok?

We like the way he compares and contrasts the two editions–and love that he consulted an almost-first edition!

Goucher College will break ground today for a new multi-use facility to be called The Athenaeum, which will house, among other things, the library’s special collections, including the Jane Austen Collection. The plans for the new building are pretty impressive! The Athenaeum will open in autumn 2009.

Since AustenBlog has many new visitors, we take this opportunity to direct our Gentle Readers to Alberta Burke’s notebooks, which Goucher College has scanned and placed online for the enjoyment of all Janeites. The notebooks are sort of the analog predecessor of AustenBlog. Don’t miss all the little tidbits about the 1930s Helen Jerome Broadway production of P&P and the filming of P&P 1940 (girlfriend tried to score a shooting script)! Be warned, a Janeite can spend hours and hours just clicking away here. The notebooks are a small part of Mrs. Burke’s lifetime collection of Austeniana, which includes first editions, letters, and other items, all of which were donated to Goucher, her alma mater, upon her death in 1975. Mrs. Burke’s husband, Henry Burke, was one of the founders of JASNA.

Bath Tourism is offering a free mp3 audio walking tour and map of Jane Austen’s Bath on their Web site. According to the press release:

The main highlights of the tour include the Pump Room - the social heart of the city during Austen’s time where people registered on arrival in the city and took the water; the Assembly Rooms - where people would gather to play cards, dance and take tea; the Royal Crescent - the most impressive address, where people enjoyed promenading and generally being seen; Queen Square - where Austen stayed for a period; Gravel Walk - the location of a touching love scene in the novel ‘Persuasion’; and the Jane Austen Centre - the ‘must see’ exhibition celebrating the life and works of the great novelist.

You will have to fill out a page of information to enable the download. The audio tour can be played on any mp3 player; download it before you leave home and you’re all set to experience Jane Austen’s Bath.

(Go ahead, say it. You know you want to. “Party on, Garth!”)

The Dolphin Hotel in Southampton is for sale. The article says that Jane Austen celebrated her 18th birthday there; we are not sure that is true, but according to Irene Collins’ excellent book Jane Austen: The Parson’s Daughter, Jane spent the end of 1793, when she would have turned 18, in Southampton and danced at a ball at the Dolphin.

The Australian television show The Chaser’s War On Everything investigated a recent survey that eight out of ten women prefer Mr. Darcy to Brad Pitt. (Requires Real Player or Windows Media Player; choose the Mr. Darcy clip. ETA: At YouTube)

The Gentleman-at-Large can take some comfort in knowing even Mr. Darcy’s proposal was rejected the first time around.

The Guardian reports that the National Library of Scotland’s John Murray archive (about which we’ve blogged previously) is desperately searching the sofa cushions for the last £5 million payment for the archives. (All the money is going to nonprofit organizations, incidentally.)

There’s a fascinating tidbit of correspondence about Emma, which Murray published.

Other files include a sales ledger showing that only 29 copies of Austen’s Emma had been sold and questioning whether it was worth continuing with it.

One wonders how in the world this fellow (who also told Charles Darwin to write a book about pigeons) built a publishing empire.

icLanarkshire reports that Sir Sean Connery his own bad self has pledged his support to the project. No details as to precisely what sort of support that entails, but one imagines Q rustling up some nifty preservative gadget in his fabulous high-tech laboratory. (Oooh. We just realized that Tuesday Next’s uncle Mycroft is Q! Bookworms, anyone?)

Alert Janeite Tony A. sent a link with performance dates and times for Paul Gordon’s musical adaptation of Emma, being staged by TheatreWorks at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts.

One of Jane Austen’s most delightful heroines, Emma is an effervescent ingénue whose matchmaking mischief inevitably misfires. Obsessed with romance, but clueless about her own feelings, she must navigate the course of true love with a generous heart as her only guide. A 19th century masterpiece brought to joyous life, this sumptuous world premiere mixes brilliant dialogue and a tuneful score in a funny and fulfilling chamber musical.

The show will run from August 22 through September 16, and tickets are $35-62.

Apparently there was a student production of Pride and Prejudice staged at the University of Rhode Island last weekend, which was duly reviewed by the student newspaper.

The problem when evaluating Pride and Prejudice is its 19th century setting and lack of action. As a conventional and somewhat stereotypical college student, I am used to fast-paced television shows and flashy, exploding things in movies.

Then what the Frank Churchill are you doing reviewing theater, Beavis? “Oh, that Harold Pinter, that Tom Stoppard, that Eugene O’Neill, their plays are all talk, talk, talk! Can’t they blow something up already?”

The other theme of the play deals with the effect of gossip in Victorian times.

Ah! That explains it. This would be the Oscar Wilde adaptation of Pride and Prejudice.

Jane Austen news has been slow of late, so here is a diversion for you: a quiz on Persuasion from Persuasions No. 15, the journal of the Jane Austen Society of North America. There is a link to the answers, but see how you do without them first. (Anyone who can tell who Miss Larolles is without looking gets a thousand points that don’t mean anything.)

Erine wrote to tell us that she has created a set of earrings based on Emma as well as a “Coming-Out Ball Necklace.” If you would like to purchase any of her creations, e-mail her at austen DOT inspirations AT gmail DOT com (read it out loud; it’s an e-mail address) or leave a message at her Livejournal, using either of the links in this post.

As we have mentioned before, we rather enjoy Elizabeth Aston’s series of Austen pastiches, but we realize they are not going to be every Janeite’s cup of tea–even those who generally enjoy Austen paraliterature. The latest book in the series, The Second Mrs. Darcy, is no different. We enjoyed it as much as the first three, and perhaps even more than the preceding volumes; we found the heroine, Octavia Darcy, the most likable heroine yet, and the plot intelligent and engaging; but like the first three, it just has nothing to do with Pride and Prejudice, other than a few place names and mentions of certain characters. Some might find that offensive; we cannot, try though we will; but if the book were of lesser quality, we could not vouch for our complacence.

Octavia Darcy is left nearly penniless when her husband dies of tropical fever in India. Mrs. Darcy had been sent to India by her family to find a husband, which she did in the widowed Captain Christopher Darcy, cousin of Fitzwilliam Darcy of Pemberley. She failed to produce a son, and his estate was left to a cousin, George Warren, the stepson of the former Caroline Bingley. Fortunately, a rich cousin on her mother’s side of the family leaves Octavia a fortune, and she returns to England in style, setting up a house in town and associating with a set of Whigs: among them the rich, the eccentric, the artistic, and the politically ambitious (and what Lady Catherine de Bourgh would have thought of such goings-on we cannot begin to imagine), including Lord Rutherford, leasing Netherfield Hall in Meryton after his nearby family estate burns down. Octavia and Rutherford butt heads over politics and assist in a romance, until George Warren threatens Octavia’s fortune. (more…)

A couple of “She’s Everywhere” type items for a slow news night.

Alert Janeite Robin pointed out that Aishwarya Rai, the star of Bride and Prejudice, got married over the weekend. Bet she didn’t have Naveen Andrews doing his “Indian M.C. Hammer” bit at her sangeet, though (a shame). We’ve been dancing around singing “No Life Without Wife” and “A Wedding Has Come To Town” all weekend. Give you joy, you crazy kids!

Alert Janeite Kirsten sent us a link to an article about spring in New York that starts with a very familiar-sounding sentence!

We have a new-book roundup post planned for sometime this week when we actually surf away from Cute Overload and Go Fug Yourself and a few fascinating Internet trainwrecks, er, debates going on right now and DO it. So hang in there, and thanks to those who have sent links to new books–they’ll be in the roundup. In the meantime, you can go read some of our semi-coherent ranting about Becoming Jane Austen over at Molland’s.

Talk about your anticlimaxes. Bidding on the “Rice Portrait” did not meet the owner’s specified minimum price and failed to sell. jasna.org has information about the bid amounts.

After lackluster bidding for two and a fraction minutes by two in-room bidders–which started at $280,000 and reached $350,000–the portrait was withdrawn, clearly having failed to meet its reserve price. Christie’s had estimated the sale at $400,000 to $800,000.

Before the sale, Alert Janeite Lisa let us know that the Guardian’s “Comment is Free” had a short piece by Angus Stewart, British president of the International Association of Art Critics, who is convinced that the portrait is one of Jane Austen.

The Rice Portrait shows us what we sense, that young Jane Austen had a turbulent spirit. Her juvenilia, including the History of England, are evidence of an intelligent adventurer who was to shrug off any harness. And the portrait shows nothing of the prim and the proper, but much that conveys the immediate hunger of a girl smouldering for life.

We look at the sweet young lady in the portrait and get none of that, really. But to each his own. We also like the comment from “LawrenceUS” in response to the piece:

There are no references to the painting in any letters or documents from around 1790, when the painting supposedly was done. There are no references to it in any letters or documents in the years leading to 1831, during which period second cousin Col. Thomas Austen supposedly gave the painting away. There are no records or mentions until the 1880s, when someone says, Oh! I have a painting of Jane Austen that Col. Austen gave my stepmother!

Precisely.

NPR also had a piece this morning (which we somehow missed–hangover from Downy high, we suppose) in which Clive James and the reporter said, among other things, that many considered the girl in the portrait “too pretty” to be Jane Austen; after all, if Jane Austen had been pretty, she would have gotten married! Which is crazy, considering Jane pretty much actively chose to not marry. Mr. James said “I think the sensible consensus is that it isn’t her, but is a nice picture.” We agree. It’s a lovely portrait.

Alert Janeite Lisa found a page for the film Sense and Sensibilidad at the producer’s Web site with a synopsis of the plot.

Sense & Sensibilidad is a latina version of Jane Austen′s classic novel set in modern-day Los Angeles. It is the tale of two sisters: Mary, a young beauty who chooses passion over logic and Nora, a law student whose fixed moral compass keeps her from following her desires. They are uprooted, along with their mother, from their luxurious lifestyle in San Marino when their father suddenly passes away. Out of money and out of options, the women move into their great aunt Aurelia′s modest, but lively home in the Latino-centric Boyle Heights neighborhood. The women find themselves thrown into a world that, despite their heritage, seems completely foreign. However, over time, they uncover the joy, laughter and beauty of the culture they once fought so desperately to hide. In the process they find the one thing that eluded them: love.

Hey, wait a minute! Where’s the burgeoning sexual and romantic discovery? We thought S&S was about burgeoning sexual and romantic discovery. The BBC says so, so it must be true.

Note the cast is TBA. Can we get some love for the gorgeous and talented America Ferrera as Nora? Pleeeeeeeaaaaaase? There’s a nest of Ugly Betty fans here at AustenBlog/Molland’s ready to represent for our girl!

Sylvia L. shared a funny story with us via e-mail…she had found a lovely volume of three of Jane Austen’s novels: S&S, Emma, and NA. The book was Volume 2 of The Illustrated Works of Jane Austen, but she was unable to find Volume 1, presumably containing the other three novels, on amazon.de. She wrote to the publisher and asked for the ISBN, and discovered why she had been unable to find the book using the normal search fields. (Pay close attention to the title and the author’s name.)

Congratulations to LauraGrace, who knew that the phrase “a neighbourhood of voluntary spies” is from Jane Austen’s novel Northanger Abbey.

“If I understand you rightly, you had formed a surmise of such horror as I have hardly words to — Dear Miss Morland, consider the dreadful nature of the suspicions you have entertained. What have you been judging from? Remember the country and the age in which we live. Remember that we are English, that we are Christians. Consult your own understanding, your own sense of the probable, your own observation of what is passing around you. — Does our education prepare us for such atrocities? Do our laws connive at them? Could they be perpetrated without being known, in a country like this, where social and literary intercourse is on such a footing, where every man is surrounded by a neighbourhood of voluntary spies, and where roads and newspapers lay everything open? Dearest Miss Morland, what ideas have you been admitting?”

LauraGrace’s name was drawn to win a copy of The Wicked Wit of Jane Austen, compiled by Dominique Enright. Congratulations to LauraGrace and many thanks to all who entered the contest.

Today is the big day when we find out if some sucker with more money than sense an adventurous Janeite decides to give the Rice Portrait a new home.

The Toronto Globe and Mail covers the controversy, and to our astonishment commits actual journalism in the attempt, rather than simply regurgitating the the rather sketchy AP article from a couple of weeks ago.

While Christie’s addresses the controversy in the sale literature, it throws its weight behind the portrait’s legitimacy.

“We know so little about children’s costume at this period, so to dismiss the portrait on the grounds that the costume looks like it’s a bit later in date doesn’t seem very credible,” said Piers Davies, a Christie’s expert in Old Masters.

“So what the heck! Let’s give it a pass and call it authentic! Antiques Roadshow THIS, b*****es! HA HA HA HA HAAAAA!”

(Note to self: probably should not post when we’re up late doing laundry. We get a little intoxicated on the scent of vanilla and lavender Downy.)

“It’s not credible to me that [the portrait] is Jane Austen,” said Marsha Huff, the president of the Jane Austen Society of North America.

Some contemporary Austen academics have lined up in support, including Claudia Johnson of Princeton, who is writing a book about the portrait.

The Rice family tried to offer the portrait for sale in 2004 but withdrew it when it failed to earn the asking price of $3-million.

The portrait is expected to auction for $400,000-$800,000. This is going to be very interesting indeed.

An exchange of letters in the Basingstoke Gazette gives a tiny glimpse into the life of the young Jane Austen dancing at the Basingstoke Assembly. The first letter is from a gentleman looking for information about a document in his possession, a contract for the sale of “The Restaurant in Winchester Street, Basingstoke” to Thomas Burberry, as in the plaid. How does this concern AustenBlog, you may well ask? The letter ends with a query:

Also, I wonder if this is the same renowned restaurant frequented many years earlier by that other Basingstoke area luminary, Jane Austen?

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