Rebecca Traister at Salon.com takes a wry look at the recent explosion of Jane Austen in popular culture. As she points out, many of the books (one might even say, including the Editrix’s own humble production) seem to be directed to Janeites who want to escape the modern world and live in a fantasy version of Jane Austen’s world, where we get to wear pretty gowns, dance with handsome men, live in a mansion, and have servants do all the work.

(To read the article, if you’re not a Salon member, just watch the little ad and then click “Enter Salon” and you will be able to read it.)

“It’s all about the dresses,” laughed Rachel Brownstein, professor of English at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center at CUNY, when I asked her about the current bout of Jane-itis. She was only half joking. “Everybody really wants to be Jane,” she elaborated, meaning that they all want “to wear long ball gowns and go to dances and be genteel,” not that they want to live in constant financial jeopardy and die single in their early 40s.

That’s a problem; many of us do tend forget the bad parts.

“We can lay a lot of this at Colin Firth’s door, for good and for bad,” said Margaret C. Sullivan by phone.

Hey now! Don’t worry, we weren’t picking on His Firthness.

“He’s pretty hot, let’s face it,” she continued

Because, you know, he is. (more…)

Alert Janeites Lisa and Tony A. sent us a link to a column from Chauncey Mabe at the Sun-Sentinel, who is despairing of the recent spate of Austen-themed books.

The conceit here — that’s lit-talk for “gimmick” — is that Hannon styles herself such an expert on all things Jane that she can, at will, speak in the voice of the author of Pride and Prejudice. She deploys this party trick to turn one of the greatest authors in the English language into an advice columnist, by way of answering questions posed by modern female readers (questions which, presumably, Hannon also composes).

In other words, Jane Austen as a time-traveling Miss Manners. What induces Plume, Hannon’s publisher, to consider the resultant work — tract? construct? bagatelle? — a novel is not readily apparent. One would have to read the text to find out, which labor I have no intention of doing. It is possible — remote, but … just … barely … uhnh! … possible — that Hannon has produced a wise and witty book that does actually capture the spirit of St. Jane. But I surely doubt it.

Possible, and indeed probable. We confess to a bit of trepidation when we received our copy of that book, many months ago, but were charmed in spite of our tar-hearted spinster self, and quite impressed by Ms. Hannon’s knowledge of Jane Austen’s work. While we have some sympathy for Mr. Mabe’s position, we think he chose the wrong object for his ire. We’ll be posting a little more about Dear Jane Austen in Friday Bookblogging (and giving a copy away as well).

We heard from Dianne Speakman of the Jane Austen Society of Australia, with some of the details of their 2007 Annual Conference, Jane Austen at the Movies, to take place at the Northside Convention Centre in Sydney on Saturday, 1 September, 2007.

Speakers will include Elizabeth Garvie, who played Elizabeth Bennet in the 1980 BBC television production of Pride and Prejudice; Jon Spence, author of Becoming Jane Austen; Gina and Andrew Macdonald, authors of Jane Austen on Screen; a Critics Panel, moderated by arts personality and reviewer Andrea Stretton and including panelists such as social anthropologist and author David Dale and award-winning novelist Susanne Gervay.

The booking form can be downloaded from the JASA Web site. We hope one of the attendees sends AustenBlog a report!

Alert Janeite Lisa sent us a link to an article in an English-language Turkish online newspaper in which the author wonders: could Jane Austen be a Turk?

Bea writes about subjects related to Turkey of interest to foreigners, and she uses as her blog strap-line a quote from the great Jane: “One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other.”

I wonder, could Jane Austen have been an expat here in Turkey? Someone who could write such an apt phrase must have understood what it is like to be a foreigner in a different land.

Of course, the thing that makes Jane Austen so popular is that, although her books are set in early 19th century middle-class England, the themes she deals with are universal. “Pride and Prejudice” is the number-one best-selling classic in my bookstore. Every female reader aspires to be intelligent, witty, attractive Lizzy Bennet who finally gets her man, and the book appeals to sensitive male types, too.

As we keep saying, one of the reasons we’re all still reading Jane Austen’s work 200 years later is that it is a marvelous picture of human nature; people don’t change over the years, or across borders.

Collectible Profiles is now offering Jane Austen’s pound cake recipe (well, probably not HERS, but you know what they mean) and a little fictional diary of Jane Austen. Of the pound cake recipe, they write:

A modern version of a vintage Victorian cake recipe— it is beautifully printed on a 4” x 5 ½” Havilland blue card accented with Jane Austen’s silhouette. Enjoy a modern version of Jane Austen’s favorite sweet, a dense and delicious cake like none you have eaten–unexpected morsels of delight activated by a mystery ingredient!

Oooh!

The diary seems sweet:

Ease back into your favorite chair and slip into an eventful time as you read her entries reflecting on who she is as a woman and author. Enjoy her critical observations of historical figures and world events–the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars as they impact her family. Austen Times includes her thoughts as she travels from Bath to London to visit her publisher about Pride and Prejudice, and Sense and Sensibility.

(Parenthetically, we now have a Van Halen song stuck in our head. *revs power drill*)

Cinematical also noticed the release of the Becoming Jane poster, and had some comments on the subject matter of the film as well.

Here’s hoping the film is somewhat restrained in using Austen’s life as a jumping off point for a bodice-ripping romance that certainly never happened. After all, we’re talking about a family-supervised, above-board acquaintanceship that happened between two society young people in the late 18th century. How much heat could you possible get out of that?

Oh, you’d be surprised what they can do in the movies these days!

Thanks to Alert Janeite ltk for the link.

(as Bridget Jones would say.)

Alert Janeite Lisa sent us a link in The Times about Colin Firth, in which he talks a little bit about probably his best-known role, which is kind of interesting because the article is in the automotive section. (She is indeed Everywhere.)

“I was working at edgy, serious stuff for years,” he says, “but a lot of it wasn’t seen. I remember doing Master of the Moor, playing a character who chopped people’s heads off.

“Yet it is things like Bridget Jones which stick to your skin, and I stepped on a timebomb with Mr Darcy in Pride and Prejudice.”

It was a life-changing experience for Firth, bringing instant fame and an adoring female fan base. Yet he was advised not to take on the role of the brooding Darcy. “I could not have been more wrong for it,” he says. “I am totally unlike Mr Darcy. I talk like a blue streak, I don’t own a horse or acres of property. I’m a secondary-modern schoolkid with no links to nobility. Yet I played this taciturn, dark, sexy guy and everyone remembers it.”

Dorothy? Pray send Mr. Firth the Understatement of the Millennium Award directly.