Alert Janeite Lisa sent us an article in The Times about Andrew Davies’ appearance at the Hay Festival, in which he reveals some of his opinions on Jane Austen, as well as some plot points for his upcoming adaptation of Sense and Sensibility. Now, Mr. Davies is known for a perverse enjoyment in Winding Up the Janeites, so keep that in mind as you read.

Davies, best known for his television adaptations of Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and Charles Dickens’s Bleak House, said: “Austen never really had men in her books on their own, or men without women. I don’t think she really understood them. She didn’t draw out her male characters enough.”

Maybe because the main characters of her books are women? Just an idea.

In his latest project, an adaptation of Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, he plans to remedy matters by hardening up the male characters. “I’ve had to work up the guys to make them stronger,” he said. He has written up the main character, Willoughby, as a “shit”, as he put it.

“I got fed up with that screen version where all the women swooned over him,” he said, referring to the 1996 movie directed by Ang Lee that starred Greg Wise as Willoughby.

In the film, written by Emma Thompson, Willoughby was very much a charmer, just as Wise proved to be in real life. He met Thompson on the set, they fell in love and then married.

He understands that Greg Wise is a real person and Willoughby a fictional character, right? That Greg could be a good guy and play a bad guy in the movies? But then, we soon learn that Mr. Davies apparently is a very literal sort of chap. (more…)

We sort of vaguely recall reading and snarking this article from The Daily Telegraph, but can’t find it in the archives. Frances Wilson (who writes for the Telegraph) has an article in the New Zealand Herald about why Jane Austen is not as great as we all think. How kind of her to offer to educate us ignorant masses! (more…)

Persuasions On-Line, JASNA’s online journal, has issued a call for papers for a special edition to concentrate on Global Jane Austen.

We invite essays on “Global Jane Austen” for a special edition of Persuasions On-Line. Austen, who never traveled outside England, has nonetheless wielded enormous literary and cultural influence across the globe. Austen societies can be found on at least five continents, and her novels have been the inspiration for films set in India as well as California. In addition, novelists in many languages have attempted to translate or transpose aspects of her plots, themes, and techniques into entirely different settings. What is the secret of her global appeal? What are the limits of translation across cultures?

Papers are due July 15, 2007 (see link for details) so make haste!

Some autumn dates have been added to Karen Eterovich’s one-woman-with-audience-participation play, Cheer From Chawton. The dates are: Friday, October 26, 2007, at Hanover College in Hanover, Indiana, and October 31 and November 1-2, 2007, at Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa.

We forgot to link this a while back, but JASNA has posted reviews from four Austen-related books on its Web site. JASNA members received these reviews in the latest issue of JASNA News. For those who are not JASNA members, the reviews are for Deirdre Le Faye’s (rather spendy, but we would love to own it) A Chronology of Jane Austen and Her Family, Jane Austen’s Textual Lives: From Aeschylus to Bollywood by Kathryn Sutherland, Chick Lit: The New Woman’s Fiction Edited by Suzanne Ferris and Mallory Young, and three new titles from the Juvenilia Press: Jack & Alice, Lady Susan, and The Three Sisters.