Some of our Gentle Readers have expressed their opinions very decidedly about the usual “Jane Meets The Mummy” sort of taglines are assigned to books and films in order to help the big-picture-thinkers easily grasp the idea. Still, sometimes such juxtapositions are helpful, and sometimes just funny.

We were bemused when we received an advance copy of The Rules of Gentility by Janet Mullany. The tagline on the back cover reads, “Pride and Prejudice meets Bridget Jones’s Diary!” As has already been pointed out, that strikes us as a trifle redundant, but we waded in nonetheless. We were a little disappointed to discover that the book really doesn’t have anything more to do with Jane Austen than an opening line that plays on “It is a truth universally acknowledged” and the Regency time setting. The book doesn’t meet the AustenBlog criteria for Austen-relevancy for a formal review, but we quite enjoyed it as a fun Regency-set romp. We would describe it more as (here we go with the juxtaposition) if Georgette Heyer had written Bridget Jones’s Diary and set it in the Regency. It’s lighthearted and fluffy but not completely brainless, a bit raunchy but not explicit; it has a modern feel that nonetheless works well within the period setting with only a tiny suspension of disbelief required, and we just loved the hero and heroine, with all their faults and failings (hmm, perhaps that is where the Jane Austen comparisons come in). We think many of our readers will find it delightful.

With the recent spate of Austen-related books, it’s inevitable that the greedy speculators will start trying to come up with ideas to cash in. (Because everyone writing them so far has done it for completely altruistic reasons. Yes, John Halperin, we are looking at you.) We found one such example at the SoMA Review, where John D. Spalding thinks he’s hit on the perfect formula for a million seller: Jane Austen Meets Jesus.

That’s when inspirado struck and I saw my door to fame and fortune: I would write a Jane Austen book. To be sure, any volume with Austen’s name in the title could put me in caviar and Cristal for life,

HA HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAAAAAA! *wipes tears*

Oh, sorry.

but think bigger than that, I prodded myself. Then it hit me: “Jane Austen Meets Jesus.” A title combining two of the biggest selling names in publishing, along with a movie deal, just might be my $200-million-dollar-winning Powerball ticket.

Immediately, the book started to write itself. Here’s the story: Jane Austen travels back to first-century Palestine to see if Jesus measures up to Mr. Darcy, her paragon of manhood from “Pride and Prejudice.” Jesus may have been the savior of world, but was he tall and noble, sweet-tempered and charming? And, true, Jesus may have known how to turn water into wine, but did he know, for instance, that when he met a lady in the street he was supposed to wait for her to bow before tipping his hat to her?

Check out the whole post, it’s hilarious, especially the Jane/Jesus Showdown.

Normblog takes a penetrating look at Henry Crawford.

Late on in her discussion of Mansfield Park, Claire Tomalin writes thus of Henry’s running off with Maria Rushworth:

The fitting up of Henry Crawford with a piece of standard fictional delinquency - an offstage seduction, like Willoughby and Wickham before him - suggests rather less commitment to this part of the story on Austen’s part than to the fully narrated chapters in which his charm, kindness and irresponsible flirting are on display.

This may be no more than an exercise by the critic of her right to say where she does and where she doesn’t find the novelist’s treatment of a character consistent or compelling. However, if it is meant by Tomalin to say that Henry Crawford ought to be understood and judged by us shorn of the fictional delinqency with which she says Austen has fitted him up, I think we are, as readers, bound to demur. Henry Crawford’s only existence is the one he has been given by Jane Austen in Mansfield Park. For the purpose of taking a view of him and of his character, as of Fanny Price’s responses to him, there is no other Henry Crawford meaningfully available. There is, in Fanny’s world, no Henry purged of his late delinquency, nor of his intended recreational wooing that could have turned out to be a cruelty to the target of it, herself.

Indeed. No matter how attractive he is, and no matter how much of a wanker Edmund might be, Fanny is much better suited to Edmund.

Also we think that for Mr. C., the chase is the thrill. Maria fell for him easily, so he quickly became bored with her. Fanny doesn’t fall for him easily, and he must work to get her, so he does. Once he meets up with Mrs. Maria Rushworth, she is cold to him, she is married, she is once more a challenge, and he must pursue her. It’s not so much that Henry Crawford is inconstant, we think, as self-absorbed.

We’ve blogged about this before, but it looks like it’s under a new name now (second link not safe for work). (You can click on “more” safely, but not the second link.) (more…)

Novelist Kate Atkinson chose Persuasion for one of her not-Desert Island books.

Persuasion by Jane Austen: “So much the triumph of romance as well as of patience and virtue.”

Thanks to Alert Janeite Lisa for the link.