Norman Geras has a post discussing the endings of Jane Austen’s novels, inspired by a sighting of one of Emma Tennant’s Austen sequels (which always mess with the happy endings) and Emma Campbell Webster’s Guardian column, which we blogged about last week.

Two things strike me about this. First, even in Jane Austen there is plenty of material from which we can see that marriage is a beginning as well as an end, and that the beginning which it is isn’t always of a state of unalloyed bliss. In Pride and Prejudice the happy ending for Lizzy Bennet sits beside Charlotte Lucas’s earlier settling for a life with Mr Collins - something that is going to take considerable endurance. We also have Lizzy’s observations on her father’s not having been the best of husbands to her mother, as well as a rather vivid impression of the tests the daily company of her mother would have involved. In Mansfield Park we see what kind of a life Fanny Price’s mother has lived, thanks to her marriage to a man who is ‘coarse and indifferent’; and this is to say nothing of Maria Bertram’s marriage to Mr Rushworth, both the motives for and the early fate of it. In Emma, though the heroine’s mother is already deceased when the novel begins, you don’t have to have too much imagination to figure out what it would be like to be hooked up with a ninny like Mr Woodhouse. Likewise in Persuasion, Sir Walter Elliot doesn’t come across as everyone’s cup of tea for a lifelong companion. One is also given a painful sense - albeit ultimately resolved - of what it can mean to be kept apart from someone you love, when marriage to them is what you actually want. And so on. Austen’s is a world of happy endings, it is true, but it isn’t a simple - blind - world of them, unless we wilfully isolate those endings from the life surrounding them.

Nicely said. While the challenges for these couples do not end with the marriage ceremony, in general Jane Austen does a nice job of putting together complementary personalities in her fictional couples, and it’s not hard to see them having long, happy, if not necessarily quiet, marriages.

A survey conducted to mark the 2007 Costa Book Awards found that Pride and Prejudice is the third most-re-read book in the UK.

The research also showed that 43% admitted to deciding whether they will finish a book after only the first chapter.

“The public want instant gratification and there has never been a more important time to remind the reading public not to judge a book by its cover,” said literary agent Simon Trewin.

The survey also found that almost a fifth of readers read their favourite book more than five times.

Reuters also covers the survey. Thanks to Alert Janeites Nadine and Lisa for the links!

The Jane Austen Book Club will be out in the UK this week, and the Daily Mail has a contest to win a break at the Bath Spa Hotel (oooh!) or 100 copies of the novel.

There also is an offer for a discount on the novel and other Jane Austen titles from Penguin. (The link on the page doesn’t work–the one in this post does.)

The Telegraph has an interview with Emily Blunt, who plays Prudie in the film.

Has Blunt read Austen? Is that why she did the film? ‘Of course I’ve read Austen,’ she says. ‘I’m English; I thought it was a prerequisite. Actually, I did this film because, for a start, there’s a great cast involved, and I was interested in my character. Prudie’s so messed-up, really. Her mother’s a hippy and she has reacted by being uptight and immature in many ways. She has never grown up, but she has to during the course of the film. I thought she had layers, and I like layered people.’

Thanks to Alert Janeite Lisa for the link.

We featured Mari’s fabulous Jane Austen cookies last week, and having been exposed to the powerfully condensed Janeiteism that is AustenBlog, Mari wants to know: Why does Jane rock?

It’s late/early, and we’re feeling Zen, so we’ll say: she just does.

We suspect our readers might have something to add to that.

We received an e-card from Theater Ten Ten with dates and information about their new production, Innocent Diversions, which opens on Friday, November 16, and thought we would share it with AustenBlog readers.

We blogged back in July about a musical version of “The Beautifull Cassandra,” a story from Jane Austen’s juvenilia, performed in Taos, New Mexico. We heard from the composer, Joanna Forman, that the Taos Youth Ballet has created a dance version of the piece, which will be performed on Saturday, November 17 (that’s this Saturday) at the HACT Building, 1021 Salazar in Taos.

Joanne also has a CD of the piece available to purchase for $8. Contact the Editrix for details.

There’s more information about the ballet at the link above and after the jump. (more…)