We begin to suspect that The Times is just posting stuff to mess with us now. A response to the article from last week about female comic authors, including Jane Austen, provoked a response from one Des MacHale, pointed out to us by Alert Janeite Tony A.

Over the years, many have made this claim to me but when challenged to produce a passage, a paragraph – even a sentence – of Austen’s that would evoke in me a laugh, or even the semblance of a smile, they fail miserably. Their next line of defence is usually that Austen’s alleged wit is too subtle for me to appreciate, or that all her works are pervaded with a witty essence of some undefined kind. In the many volumes of Wit I have edited, containing more than 20,000 humorous and witty quotations from many sources, I failed to find anything by Austen worthy of inclusion.

So let us be certain we perfectly understand Mr. MacHale: because Jane Austen doesn’t write humor that can be boiled down to a one-liner, she’s not funny? Okay!

Well, Norman Geras of Normblog disagrees.

Well, I must be reading different books from him. Whether or not her humour makes it into his collections, I think you’d have to be wilfully grouchy to miss it.

Precisely!

In an unrelated posting, we happened across a post on One Minute Book Reviews that says it in a rather more long-winded but still pithy way:

To say as much is to risk suggesting that Jane Austen’s world is basically a rather trivial and frothy one. But no discerning reader of hers could hold such an opinion, for she is a serious writer of comedy. In her world the relative unimportance of economic, professional, and political problems permits a concentrating of attention upon personal relations and the quality of living that they make possible. The issue is uniting of moral and social graces, the reconciliation of form and spontaneity.

Oh, and Mr. MacHale? You want funny lines? We’ll give you funny lines.

By this time the report of the accident had spread among the workmen and boatmen about the Cobb, and many were collected near them, to be useful if wanted, at any rate, to enjoy the sight of a dead young lady, nay, two dead young ladies, for it proved twice as fine as the first report.

One of our favorites, but it works better in context; juxtaposed with the drama of Louisa Musgrove’s fall on the Cobb, it provides a welcome moment of relieving laughter.

Elinor agreed to it all, for she did not think he deserved the compliment of rational opposition.

Another favorite; but perhaps one has to experience Robert Ferrars’ rattle to truly appreciate it.

“As far as I have had opportunity of judging, it appears to me that the usual style of letter-writing among women is faultless, except in three particulars.”

“And what are they?”

“A general deficiency of subject, a total inattention to stops, and a very frequent ignorance of grammar.”

How many Henry Tilney lines could we post? He’s got a million of ‘em. Go ahead, post your own favorites!

Alert Janeite Aad wrote to tell us that DFW (Dutch Film Works) wrote to say they will be releasing the DVDs of the “Austen Season” films in the Netherlands in autumn 2007. No specific date, and it is unclear if MP07 will be included in the set.

Alert Janeite Carmen let us know that The Jane Austen Book Club film has an official Web site as well as a MySpace page. Not much at either one yet, but we’ll keep an eye on ‘em.

Journalists are often accused of having seen film adaptations of Jane Austen’s novels rather than reading the novels themselves. What then can we say to this?

ASK a woman to describe Fitzwilliam Darcy, the obstinately ineligible stiff who thaws under the lively wit of Elizabeth Bennet in “Pride and Prejudice,” and watch her eyes take on a lustful sheen as she conjures up the image of Colin Firth in the BBC adaptation of Jane Austen’s novel, plunging shirtless into an icy English pond.

Shirtless?

(And everyone knows it wasn’t really Colin diving into the pond, right? He told Bridget Jones so, remember?)

Thanks to Alert Janeite Lisa for the link.

Emma Campbell Webster, author of Lost in Austen: Create Your Own Jane Austen Adventure (Being Elizabeth Bennet in the UK), to be published in August 2007, has set up a blog where she’ll channel Jane Austen to comment upon modern culture. A fun idea, but we can’t help but think that Jane Austen would be more likely to say to Paris Hilton, “Run mad as often as you chuse, but do not faint” or just advise her to wrap up well about her throat coming home from the Rooms at night.

Ms. Webster also is in the process of setting up a Web site that will contain more about the book.

We discovered Cassandra’s Sister by Veronica Bennett, a young adult biographical novel based on the early life of Jane Austen.

Young Jane — or Jenny, as she is called — is a girl with a head full of questions. Surrounded by her busy parents and brothers, Jenny finds a place for her thoughts in the companionship of her older sister, Cassandra. Theirs is a country life full of balls and visits, at which conversation inevitably centers on one topic: marriage. But the arrival of their worldly-wise cousin disrupts Jenny’s world, bringing answers to some of her questions and providing a gem of an idea. Veronica Bennett invites us into a society where propriety and marriage rule hand in hand, a milieu in which Jenny finds inspiration to write the masterpieces PRIDE AND PREJUDICE and SENSE AND SENSIBILITY — a world where a clever young girl will one day become the beloved Jane Austen.

Considering it seems to start out with the guillotining of Jean Capot de Feuillide, we’re a little astonished this is directed at the kiddies, but then we were a precocious child who read Crime and Punishment at 14, so probably no great harm in it.