Alert Janeite Lisa sent us a link to a column by Mikita Brottman at the Huffington Post, in which she registers her complaints about the recent spate of Jane Austen adaptations, books, etc. While she certainly is entitled to her opinion, we think she paints the phenomenon with much too broad a brush.

There’s no point trying to understand what it is about Jane Austen that’s so compelling to today’s women, because Jane Austen™ has very little to do with Jane Austen. Jane Austen™ is a retro fantasy creation, a sassy, ironic, independent woman. Jane Austen™ is all about social snubs, overheard conversations, implied relationships, and signifiers of status, especially hair and clothes. Jane Austen™ thrives in social enclaves full of privileged women obsessed with material wealth, class distinctions, and, always, the underlying mating dance. Exactly like He’s Just Not That Into You.

In the world of Jane Austen™ the women who win may not be perfectly beautiful, but they’re witty, smart, and well dressed. It’s perhaps no coincidence that the actress who plays Jane Austen in Becoming Jane, the voluptuous Hathaway, is best known as the star of The Princess Diaries, since Jane Austen™ is essentially The Princess Diaries for grownups.

Actually, Becoming Jane is Jane Austen for overly romantic fourteen-year-olds. Try again.

It may be a lovely fantasy, but I suspect the historical Jane Austen would be Just Not That Into It.

Certainly there are some “Jane Austen fans” (and we use the term loosely) who like the novels and films and books for the pretty people and pretty clothes, but there are plenty of us who are real, serious Jane Austen fans, who can quote the novels chapter and verse, who have read and digested 200 years of scholarship about her work, but who don’t take it all so darned seriously that we can’t have a little fun with it. What else have we spent the past three and half years (longer, really, on our personal blog) blogging about if not the fun, pop culture aspects of being a Janeite? Not that all of the Jane Austen Brand™ (and please to stop stealing our schtick without at least acknowledging it) products are of the best quality, and Jane knows we’re the first to point that out. And that’s the whole point: you can’t paint the modern Jane Austen phenomenon with such a broad brush, and you can’t write about it in 1000 words, either.

Review by Allison T.

The life of a reviewer of Jane Austen prequels, sequels and re-tellings is a hard and lonely one. Some days it feels like every Austen-lover (but me) has written some version of P&P—motivated principally by feelings of love and admiration for the source but also not un-aware that almost anything with a P&P-like title or a tie-in to The Great One can get published and bring in the bucks.

And yet here I am perplexed as to how to categorize Kara Louise’s Drive and Determination, a book that has a splendid, double-barreled, Austen-like name but a disclaimer on the back-cover that reads: “This modern day novel is inspired by Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice. It is not meant to replace her story or to even incorporate all the events. Those familiar with her story will recognize certain characters and events.”

Here the author has both neatly connected yet disconnected herself from the real P&P: are we meant to read this story as P&P or are we not? This reviewer selflessly plunked down $14.95 (plus S&H) to find out.

It turns out that we are, kinda. Here’s the story, more or less.

Elyssa Barnett, an young interior designer, has long wondered why sister Janet’s boyfriend, Chad Blakely, has put up with the handsome (on a 50 top eligible bachelor list for two years running in a “well known publication”) cold, rich Will Denton, but she really gets P.O’d at him when he turns up late to Janet and Chad’s wedding rehearsal. So rude of him! Elyssa hates cold, manipulative, rich CEOs since her father dropped dead from over-work a few years ago. (Huh?) And Will is the president of a family-owned coffee company in Guatemala called Pemberleo Coffee. (???) Then Elyssa really takes a scunner to Will when gives Chad the wedding gift of a promotion, sending him to Guatemala. Then 2 years later Janet and Chad die in a car accident (this isn’t a spoiler, as it is mentioned on the back cover) and now Elyssa is REALLY mad at Will because It’s All His Fault. But he finds himself Strangely Drawn to her when she, sobbing, gives a Really Really Great Eulogy for Janet. And then she goes to Guatemala to sort through the effects and meets a Pemberleo Coffee employee George Westham (who would like to get into bed with Elyssa but merely hints at it—and we know that he’d like to get to know younger sister Lynette whom he remembers from the wedding, but of course, he’s down in Guatemala and she’s in the U.S. somewhere so nothing happens and Will sends him away and we never hear about him or Lynette again). There are a few other characters with P&P names but who don’t exhibit much, if any, P&P characterization. Mud slides, a bout of Montezuma’s Revenge, a visit to a day care in a poor neighborhood, paparazzi and other extreme events fill the pages of this tale, which relies heavily on description and narration and not so much on dialogue or character development.

So what is this reviewer to do? I can say that it’s not much like Austen’s P&P except that the boy and girl “meet cute,” dislike each other at first and then get married at the end—but the author has already disarmed reproof by stating that this is only “inspired” by the original; it does not attempt to retell it. But if she uses P&P names and a P&P-like title, but not really any of the insight into character, then—oh, dear! Head spinning on shoulders! Must stop!

The spate of Austen para-literature has gotten out of hand. It wasn’t so bad when it was confined to the Internet (and was free) where only the most obsessed found it, but now that so much money is changing hands in Austenland it seems only fair to demand some ground-rules. Unlike happy families, good para-literature is unique; bad para-literature all fail in similar ways. So listen up, boys and girls: here are this reviewer’s Official Rules of Jane Austen Retellings.

1. Your characters are not required to have names that match the initial letters of Austen’s characters (in fact, it’s more fun if they don’t), but;
2. Your characters must exhibit similar qualities to hers: that is, your Elizabeth and your Mr. Darcy must each exhibit elements of both pride and prejudice and they must both be taught a lesson and learn and grow from their mistaken beliefs. They are not permitted to simply dislike each other on sight and then get the hots for each other without saying at least once to themselves or others: “Gosh, I was wrong wrong wrong about him/her and I acted badly and I’ll never get him/her back.”
3. You are permitted to drop minor characters, which is why Kitty and Mary Bennet are so often relegated along with Margaret Dashwood, Mr and Mrs Hurst and Betsy Price to the Department of Un-Wanted Characters; but
4. You are required to maintain the basic plot sequence (if you are Retelling an Austen work). That is, your characters aren’t permitted to die if Austen’s didn’t. The reason for this rule is that it introduces a whole different set of emotions and motivations to the plot, which your characters must reasonably deal with, but which Austen’s didn’t. It’s inconceivable to me to imagine a retelling of P&P or even more radically, S&S—both books in which the loving relationship between the sisters is at the heart of the story—in which one sister is bumped off within 30 pages of the beginning. This action makes it a WHOLE DIFFERENT STORY. Be brave! If that’s the story you want to tell, then tell it, but don’t tie it to Austen!
5. Finally, if you choose a double-barreled title like, oh, I don’t know, “Folly and Futility,” then you are committed to showing that both your hero and your heroine exhibit extremes of these qualities (see rule 2, above) but then learn to bring them into appropriate balance. You might even repeat these words, separately or together, at various times throughout your novel. You are not permitted to merely close your novel with the very first reference to this phrase.

If you do not care to follow these rules, then what you have is Your Very Own Romance Novel—which is great! You are not, however, permitted to jump onto the Jane Austen bandwagon with it tucked under your arm. Your novel must stand on its own two feet. Drive and Determination doesn’t.

A week before The Alleged Biopic appears in North America, we will have both regular and Blu-Ray DVDs of The Jane Austen Book Club, both with added features including an audio commentary with cast and crew, four featurettes (”Behind-the-Scenes of The Jane Austen Book Club,” “The Life of Jane Austen,” “Walking the Red Carpet: Los Angeles Premiere,” “The Book Club: Deconstructed”) and deleted scenes.

All of us who enjoyed seeing a Jane Austen film for grownups–let’s support this. Maybe we’ll get some more. Stranger things have happened.

Both Miss Austen Regrets and S&S07/08 (depends, doesn’t it?) will be broadcast on BBC One the week of December 30, 2007. No definite dates that we can tell yet.

There’s also a little photo of Olivia Williams as Jane Austen in Miss Austen Regrets, and a new montage photo from S&S. (We can’t stop giggling at Willoughby. He needs to hang a sign around his neck, “Yes, as a matter of fact, I am a rake, a cad, and a blackguard. Thanks for asking.”)

There are feature articles on Charity Wakefield and David Morrissey. From the latter:

Having already watched some of his scenes back, Morrissey is pleased with the finished result, even though he finds it slightly awkward watching himself on screen.

“I think it’s great,” he says. “What Andrew does brilliantly is to dramatise what has been reported in the novel. I think that’s really important, and it gives a richness to the adaptation.”

Oh, does he now? Good to know.

Thanks to Alert Janeites Franka and Amo for the links!