BBC releases info on Miss Austen Regrets
Alert Janeites Franka and Patty sent us a link to a press release from the BBC about Miss Austen Regrets. As speculated, Greta Scacchi will play Cassandra Austen.
Unsurprisingly, we have severe reservations about the story described in the release; we will expand on this tonight. Of course anything about Jane Austen’s life must be a Made Up Story, but why must she always be the Tragic Heroine? When we meet Cassandra Austen in the Great Beyond, the first thing we are going to ask her is, “Why didn’t you just burn all the bally letters, for crying in a bucket?”
August 21st, 2007 at 2:37 pm
Forget meeting Cassandra, I’ll go straight up to Jane Austen and apologize profusely (in such a way so as NOT to remind her of Mr. Collins) on behalf of my entire culture for butchering her novels.
Now, if they wanted to go even further with the Made Up Stories, the BBC or Hollywood would need to hire someone to write a screenplay based on her unfinished works and finish them for her. Or better yet, Love and Freindship, and then we can see if they can stand to keep the title.
August 21st, 2007 at 5:05 pm
Yes, I think they should look into other of her books…I have always said that Lady Susan should be turned into film, but…
Anyway, it seems that Cassandra thought that letters were harmless, but these Hollywood/BBC brains…
August 21st, 2007 at 6:19 pm
Ironically, the whole Tom Lefroy obsession may itself be an artifact of the letter-burning. His story seems exceptional because it’s the only one we’ve heard, but for all we know, JA dished to Cassandra about similar crushes every other week. The problem with burning some but not all of the letters is that it deprives us of context and therefore perspective. (But I wish she hadn’t burned any of them. . . )
August 21st, 2007 at 8:57 pm
No burning! Burning bad–Cassandra should never have done it. Think what a horrible position she put her sister’s reputation in, and how she deprived her sis’s fans of an accurate picture of Jane’s love life.