We heard from AustenBlog reader Molly, who wants some recommendations on what to read when you’ve read all of Jane Austen’s work.

I’ve recently rediscovered my love of Jane Austen’s fiction and have now devoured all of the fiction, most of which I hadn’t read since I was a teenager. This has whetted my appetite for more. I stumbled across your blog a while ago, and I’ve enjoyed it immensely. I have a query for you, which I think might make a lovely topic for a blog post. Recommended other reading for Austen-lovers. I’m specifically NOT looking for either nonfiction about Austen or her environs (which is easy enough to find) or fiction that’s a sequel (or prequel or otherwise directly coming out of) one of Austen’s books. Rather, I’m looking for other books written in the spirit or tone of Austen’s books (even if not 100% meeting her talent). I guess a “if you like Austen, you’ll love X.” I’m particularly curious about contemporary writers of period literature, but am also open to contemporary fiction or older fiction too. So, if you have any go-to suggestions, that would be grand.

Oh, do we have suggestions!!! (more…)

Lots of press and reviews for The Jane Austen Book Club film adaptation, opening later this month.

As we reported a few days ago, the Dietrich Theater in Tunkhannock, PA, will feature TJABC as one of the selections for its fall Film Festival. The Scranton Times-Tribune* reports that the screening, on September 14, will be the unofficial U.S. premiere of the film.

Cinematical has a thoughtful review of the film that whets our appetite.

Swicord’s past is in screenwriting (Memoirs of a Geisha, Little Women), and her directorial debut isn’t a technical tour-de-force of composition and composition; it’s primarily a light, performance-driven mix of comedy and drama where the dialogue glimmers with light even among the deeper shades in the tone.

And, thankfully, the performances themselves are good. Bello’s strong even when conflicted, and open to possibility even when she’s certain; Brenneman captures the shock and sorrow of an unexpected separation; Grace’s Allegra is all heart, no head in her youthful pursuit of love. Blunt (most memorable from The Devil Wears Prada) is initially laughable, but lets us see behind the façade of Prudie’s manner, and shows us how it’s necessary. And Dancy is fairly charming as Grigg — Jocelyn meets him at a hotel when she’s there for a dog show and he’s there for a Sci-Fi convention, but he dives into Austen with dedication and commitment, if not insight. (Grigg buys all of Austen’s novels in one volume: “In case they were sequels. …”) Baker seems left out, but she’s given some nice one-liners and pulls off a nicely-executed epilogue.

Thanks to Alert Janeite Franka who sent in this review, as featured on another site.

The Onion A.V. Club are still hung up on the “chick movie” thing.

The Jane Austen Book Club (dir: Robin Swicord): In a nutshell: “Let me tell you how this Jane Austen novel relates to the banal goings-on in my own love life.” Repeat six times. Fin.

Stay tuned to AustenBlog for some TJABC swag and fun over the next couple of weeks.

*Ain’t no party like a Scranton party ’cause a Scranton party don’t stop!

Two reviews of P&P as staged by the Dallas Theater Center have very different opinions of the play. First, the Dallas Morning News praises the play:

Director Stan Wojewodski Jr. hired a cast that almost constantly gives delight. Most crucially, he has found a central couple that generates real romantic heat. Elizabeth Bennet, the novel’s heroine, has to sparkle with vivacity and intelligence, and Kathleen McElfresh does just that. (One does wish, though, that her English accent were less labored and more convincing.) David Matranga radiates sheer animal vitality as the aristocratic Mr. Darcy; his blue blood may make him proud, but it certainly doesn’t make him effete.

Two veteran actresses imported from New York nearly walk away with the show. Barbara Broughton makes Elizabeth’s mother, Mrs. Bennet, charmingly horrible. If the character becomes too tiresome, the play sinks; she’s just onstage so much. Ms. Broughton makes us flinch –but we can’t look away. As the imperious Lady Catherine de Bourgh, Patricia Hodges glowers like a gorgon.

Sounds pretty good! But then the Dallas Observer disagrees in the most animated (and hilariously snarky) language.

Don’t worry about what to wear to Dallas Theater Center’s season opener, Pride and Prejudice. By the last scene, your outfit will be out of style.

Ouch!

At least it feels that way. Three hours is a long sit at any play. Three hours of the quaint jibber-jabber of Jane Austen’s jittery Bennet sisters is like being trapped at a marathon tea party at a table full of talkative old-maid aunts. All you want when you finally get free is a stiff martini and some porn—anything to shake off the dust of 1813.

Well, now we’re all thinking, “Oh, another Jane Austen playa hata,” but then…

Kathleen McElfresh, the dark-haired Yalie playing the plucky lead, Elizabeth Bennet, slips in and out of her ponsy locutions like an impressionable exchange student who’s spent a year abroad and picked up some annoying affectations. She sometimes sounds a little bit English, but mostly she’s a good ol’ Amurrican gal playing dress-up. “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife,” says Elizabeth in the famous opening line of the book and play. The actress pronounces it “for-chin.” Which is unfortunate.

*snerk* Indeed.

Actor David Matranga, the Yalie playing the brooding Mr. Darcy, Elizabeth’s love interest (after a fashion), not only doesn’t look the part—he’s short and unpleasantly greasy

*cringes at the cries of dismay from Team Darcy*

Imagine Joey Tribbiani from Friends striding around in tight britches saying “vexed” and “vouchsafed.”

*falls over laughing*

Making his DTC debut is tall, blond and gorgeous young SMU drama grad Chad Hugghins (and isn’t that name made for a Disney contract?). He played Hamlet at the campus’ Greer Garson Theatre last year and here excels as the scoundrel Mr. Wickham, who ditches Elizabeth and absconds with her younger sibling. If only Hugghins had been cast as Mr. Darcy…three hours of that, yessirreebob.

Hark, behold a Janeite after all! (But hey, giving away the whole plot like that? Not cricket, madam, not cricket.)

Alert Janeite Lisa sent us a long and thoughtful review of Emma at Theaterworks.

The opening sentence of Jane Austen’s Emma tells us a great deal about the novel’s heroine: “Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence, and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her.” The key word here, as any attentive reader of Austen’s tale about a spoiled heiress’ comically disastrous attempts to meddle in the romantic lives of those around her would notice, is “seemed.” It’s a masterful bit of storytelling, warning us with the lightest touch not to take this vision of earthly bliss at face value.

When it comes to making sense of Paul Gordon’s vivacious new musical adaptation of Austen’s novel, the word “seemed” is just as loaded. For what seems to be a typical musical comedy in empire-line dresses is — for better and for worse, but mostly better — something different underneath.

Huzzah! A reviewer qualified to review Jane Austen!

The musical can thank its protagonist for much of its crowd-pleasing effect. Gordon’s leading lady is simply more lovable than Austen’s. When the writer embarked upon her novel in January 1814, she reportedly said, “I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like.” By employing third-person narrative (as opposed to the more intimate first-person mode) and playing up Emma’s faults with a cool, ironic stance, the author distances the reader from her main character. “We cannot ‘identify’ with Emma … we see her from the outside,” the British novelist Margaret Drabble once astutely observed.

Gordon’s approach is different. His Emma might be flawed, but only lovably so. We identify with the character closely because she confides in us — many of Emma’s lines are spoken directly to the audience. We also get to see inside her head. In one compelling, comical scene our heroine forces herself to play the piano for the entertainment of some assembled house guests or face being upstaged by her nemesis, the beautiful and musically gifted Jane Fairfax. While she tinkles away at the keys, Emma reveals her desperate envy of Jane to us through clever asides. Our love for the character is sealed in Theatreworks’ world premiere production (the company’s 50th world premiere to date) by the pretty and endearing Lianne Marie Dobbs, who brings coquettish humor and graceful physicality to the main role.

Perhaps we should just send you to read the review rather than end up quoting the whole thing.