Jane All Over the Place (or: She’s Everywhere)
We really are trying to be Zen about Becoming Jane, and are pleased to see all the attention that Jane Austen and her work are receiving as a result of the film.
WUBR Radio’s On Point did a show about Jane Austen, featuring Austen scholars Claudia Johnson of Princeton University and Jenny Davidson of Columbia University and Lev Grossman of Time, whose article about Jane Austen we linked to a few days ago. There’s even a tiny shoutout to AustenBlog in there. We had some trouble listening with the onboard media player, so downloaded it as a podcast. Thanks to Alert Janeite Ruth for the link!
Ann Maloney embraces her inner Janeite in the New Orleans Times-Picayune.
Some have said that Austen became a writer because she couldn’t find “Mr. Right,” but I believe that she wrote because she was a natural-born psychologist, an astute and witty observer of the human condition.
Her well-drawn characters are not purely noble. They jump to conclusions and make terrible mistakes and awfully bad choices. They compromise and settle to get what they need.
Read the novels when you are 14 and they are romances. Read them at 25 and they are treatises on the struggle of being an intelligent female in a male-dominated society. Read them at 45 and relish the social satire and the complexity of the human condition.
I like to imagine that when I die and go to heaven (presuming I do), I will discover a dusty trunk in the seaside room that God has set aside for me. When I look inside that trunk, it will be filled with Austen novels I’ve never read.
Now that would be paradise.
Indeed! Thanks to Alert Janeite Lisa for the link.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has an article about Jane Austen the Hollywood phenomenon.
But in Austen’s case, audiences can’t seem to get enough and supply is growing to meet demand: Some 40 feature films and television shows or series have been based on her works. (No. 1 Shakespeare has 400 features alone, with Dickens not a close second.)
Wow!
And lastly, here’s one for the Darcy fans: an appreciation of Mr. Snooty McJerkpants 
from The Buffalo News.
He has a funny name: Fitzwilliam Darcy. His occupation is even worse: “gentleman.” (Ugh.) He’s cold, aloof, stoic and proud to the point of arrogance. “Haughty, reserved and fastidious,” in fact, are some of the kinder words Jane Austen used to describe Darcy in her novel, “Pride & Prejudice.”
There doesn’t appear to be much to like about this gentleman, Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, one of the two central characters in Austen’s book. (The other is the intelligent and witty Elizabeth Bennet, whose silly family and lack of money act as a wall between her and Darcy.)
But Darcy isn’t all bad. He is the embodiment of tall, dark and handsome, after all. He’s also loyal to a fault and willing to do whatever it takes to protect and help those he loves.
Go read it. You know you want to.
August 14th, 2007 at 6:36 am
Why do some commentators insist of referring to Elizabeth as plain? Read up people - “…there is one of her sisters sitting down just behind you, who is very pretty,”. She’s not Jane, but that doesn’t mean that she’s not a looker.
August 14th, 2007 at 7:07 am
Yes, very nice. But of course I found a sentence I have to take issue with…
“Elizabeth Bennet, as Jane wrote her, was plain”.
I beg to differ! Where is that ever implied? I agree that, except for her lively dark eyes, and light, graceful figure, Austen leaves Lizzie’s looks somewhat in the dark. But if Bingley is pointing Darcy in the direction of Jane’s sister as a dancing partner, referring to her as “also very pretty”, that’s enough for me! And the fact that the only good thing Miss Bingley could find to say about her was that she had ‘tolerable teeth’ - well, we all know what kind of little worm of emotion that comment springs from.
August 14th, 2007 at 8:54 am
Heh, heh… looks like our posts crossed AmandaJ!
I think it’s because non-discerning readers take the only ‘extensive’ description of her given by anyone in the book at face value:
“I must confess that I never could see any beauty in her. Her face is too thin; her complexion has no brilliancy; and her features are not at all handsome. Her nose wants character; there is nothing marked in its lines. Her teeth are tolerable, but not out of the common way; and as for her eyes, which have sometimes been called so fine, I never could perceive any thing extraordinary in them. They have a sharp, shrewish look, which I do not like at all; and in her air altogether, there is a self-sufficiency without fashion which is intolerable.”
Although it seems incredible to me, it apparently doesn’t seem to strike them that the fact that it’s Miss Bingley speaking might make the accuracy of the description doubtful at best.
August 14th, 2007 at 1:00 pm
Hey.This is a really interesting blog about jane austen.there are many things,which i didn’t know about her or some projects.i have a german fanpge and it would be great,if you meet this site^^.i love jane austen,but much more the character of fitzwilliam darcy
August 14th, 2007 at 3:07 pm
I think I’m getting really tired of all this Darcy talk. Out of Jane’s heroes, I think I will always prefer Mr. Tilney because he is more like someone that I could be friends and lovers with and I don’t feel that way about Darcy. And despite all the Firthness (and I really do like Colin Firth) I don’t think he truly captured Darcy, nor do I think that anyone could. Fantasizing about Darcy is just as bad as men who fantasize about hyper-beautiful females because it completely distorts how we view people in the real world. It’s no wonder that people have “bad love lives” when the expectations wrought on by unrealistic visions of beauty and happiness are always floating around. Am I allowed to be this cynical at 20?
August 15th, 2007 at 12:31 am
Besides Bingley, there are others in P&P who remark favorably on Elizabeth’s appearance. During her first visit to Rosings, Lady Catherine remarks to Mrs. Collins that Elizabeth was “a very genteel, pretty kind of girl” (Chapter 29).
The narrator also tells us that “Mrs. Collins’s pretty friend [Elizabeth] had moreover caught his [Colonel Fitzwilliam's] fancy very much” (Chapter 31).
And upon Wickham’s introduction to Meryton society at Mrs. Philip’s house, Elizabeth was “the happy woman by whom he [Wickham] finally seated himself” (Chapter 16). Being Wickham, I suspect her found her, at the very least, “tolerable.”
August 15th, 2007 at 10:02 pm
I agree with the thoughts expressed above about Elizabeth Bennet’s appearance.
Actually, what is there NOT to like about Darcy - at least, the Darcy he became after the chastening effect of his first proposal rejection?
Rich, powerful, influential, intelligent and witty, tall and handsome, and with thinking readjusted to give due consideration to others. A more humble spirit.
Whether Colin Firth captured the essence is of course a matter of viewpoint. He was not all warm and cuddly all through the movie. (I’m pretty sure there was a moment in the first part of the movie when he makes a snippy remark about Jane when someone complimented her:”She smiles too much.” I thought that captured the essence of Darcy at that point very nicely.) And Firth captured the essence of the change in Darcy’s viewpoints, I thought, very well. Even before that point, when Firth as Darcy commented that he did not have talent at making easy conversation with people he was not acquainted with, how could one not sympathize with Darcy?
There may be other attractive Austen heroes, but Darcy has it all - that’s why people are fixated on him, I think.
When compared with the other movie Darcys, Firth stands out even more. I saw Laurence Olivier recently on Turner Classic movies- I thought he was pathetic. Matthew Macfayden might have been better if the scriptwriter and director had given him more to work with.
August 16th, 2007 at 8:52 am
This is a bit off the point but I am also a huge fan of Lucy Maud Montgomery. In the Kindred Spirits board the men she wrote are frequently discussed - or rather the lack of “real” men in her works. She perhaps never met a man she was romantically or sexually into, married out of convenience, and that is reflected in her description of Anne’s and Emily’s affairs and in the men they have them with. Gilbert, many feel, never comes alive or feels like he was Anne’s equal. As a lover, he is like a brother to Anne and when they marry, he turns into the dullest husband.
Jane Austen did a whole lot better job with her heroes. Darcy, Tilney, Captain Wentworth, they all appear not only as sexy love interests, but also as human beings who will make good husbands.
Now, why is that…?
August 16th, 2007 at 11:07 pm
I have read most of the Anne of Green Gables books, and I thoroughly enjoyed them. I thought Gilbert was tremendous until he proposed to Anne (in Anne of the Island). After she accepted, most of the tension was lost in subsequent stories, though they continued to be interesting character studies.
My own feeling is that the difference between Montgomery and Austen in this respect is that public clamor forced sequels to Anne of Green Gables; how could you possibly write a sequel to Pride and Prejudice? Many have tried, but evidently none are written with nearly the fire and imagination of P&P. And I have my doubts that even Jane Austen could pull it off. You need conflict and/or uncertainty to make a sequel really work; where could she manufacture it from?
That, I think, was what happened to Lucy Maud Montgomery. She had to write sequels when the main dramatic conflict and uncertainty were gone, once Gilbert and Anne married.
August 18th, 2007 at 2:25 pm
I am suprised that “Mr. Darcy’s Diary” was well written and easy to read.The Author did a good Job!
But why is it that Border’s Books still does not have any copies of Mags book?
James
Montgomery is a distant fifth place,and fading compaired to Jane Austen,Rudyard Kippling and the woman who wrote Little Lord Fauntleroy and the Little Princess (Shirly Temple film)and Edith Nesbit- The railway Children and the enchanted Castle.
August 18th, 2007 at 4:18 pm
James, the bookstore should be able to order the book for you if it is not on the shelves. But many do! I think some of them don’t know what to do with it–is it etiquette, self-help, what? (They should just shelve it with the Jane Austen books, if you ask me.)
August 19th, 2007 at 5:40 pm
CurtB, a very good point. The further you read the Anne series the more lacklustre they become. The problem with the men doesn’t just affect Anne though - Teddy Kent in the Emily trilogy is the most tedious man there ever was; the impression I keep getting is that LMM just had no idea how a lover/husband would or should be like and her men don’t spark because of that.
James, distant fifth on what list? Most sold? Where do you live? Here in Finland of the authors you mentioned only Austen and LMM can be found from most bookshops. Finnish editions of Kipling, Frances Hodgson Burnet (wrote Little Princess and Secret Garden) and most other classics have been sold out a good 50 years ago. We are not big on world literature, even Dickens and Shakespeare and Proust are in the margin here
Guess these are cultural things…
August 20th, 2007 at 2:09 pm
Lisa;
I live in the USA,State of Michigan.Here with many “English” or “British” authors, you must order if the books are still in print.
August 20th, 2007 at 2:10 pm
Lisa;
I live in the USA,State of Michigan.Here with many “English” or “British” authors, you must order if the books are still in print.I was hoping I could find Mags book “on the shelf”.
August 25th, 2007 at 5:59 am
Back to Mr. Darcy. The reason women want Darcy is because he is unattainable and who doesn’t want to be the woman an unattainable man falls for. Plus he is tall,handsome,rich,and has a great house. As far as the screen versions go,if Colin Firth and Matthew McFadyen could be combined,they would make the perfect Darcy.Firth has all the pride and arrogance and McFadyen has all the passion and romance. As for Lizzie being plain,I agree that she is not. Austen never gave much description to her characters,but Lizzy is
said to be pretty in several places in the novel.