Horseshoes and hand grenades
It’s unfortunate in a way that Andrew Davies has become so closely linked not only with period television adaptations in general, but especially with Jane Austen. Unfortunate because he really comes close to getting it sometimes, and sometimes you just wonder what the heck he is thinking.
Alert Janeite Diana Birchall sent us an article Mr. Davies wrote for The Times. Apparently he also has written the introduction for a new edition of Sense and Sensibility. Meaning the book. What? Anyway, there’s some interesting stuff in the piece.
Best of all, Austen has dramatic gifts herself. She would have been an excellent playwright. She builds surely and subtly towards the big scenes, then writes them so well that all the adapter has to do is copy them out.
So why don’t you then? Poor Henry Tilney, who has some of the wittiest and most intelligent dialogue in the Austen oeuvre, had a nearly complete dialogue makeover.
Austen, we can be pretty sure, identifies more with Elinor. Her wry shrewdness is very close to Austen’s authorial voice, and a million miles away from Marianne’s rather soppy eulogies about falling leaves, which are not unlike the utterings of Fotherington-Tomas. Moreover, Austen lets us see into Elinor’s mind and heart, whereas Marianne is represented by what she does and says in Elinor’s presence, and by what Elinor thinks about her. Whether consciously or not, Austen forces us to identify with Elinor.
We’ll buy that.
Then there’s Colonel Brandon. Austen shows us his instant and powerful attraction towards Marianne. We learn that he had a tragic love affair when young, and has not looked at another woman since. So, he has a passionate nature. Excellent. This is all very promising, except that Marianne sees him as an old man (that flannel waistcoat is a real downer); when Willoughby comes onto the scene, Brandon becomes virtually invisible to her. It has potential, but it’s difficult material, and Austen doesn’t handle it as well as she would have done in her later novels. We need a few hints earlier on that Brandon is more than a dry old stick, and, crucially, we need to see, in the final movement, how Marianne comes to love him. There’s at least one missing scene.
Honestly, it’s not that difficult. The reader understands that Colonel Brandon is, under the flannel waistcoat, a seething pile of romance, just like Marianne. He’s been a bit hardened by experience, and learned to keep it under good management, but it’s there, all right.
And we don’t need help to understand that Willoughby is a jerk, either. Every woman understands it. He publicly dumps her. Publicly. At a ball. In front of people. The sisterhood will stand as one on that, trust us.
These dark Austenian subplots are never fully dramatised; we always hear these stories at second hand. We never meet Eliza or her mother, so we are not likely to feel for them as we feel for Marianne, though their fate is so much worse, and I for one feel quite haunted by them.
Many readers do. Honestly, we’re not that stupid. We don’t need to have everything spelled out for us. It’s okay that stuff happens off-canvas. It’s also okay (if it’s not giving away the plot too early) to show a bit of backstory in an adaptation. It helps if the adaptation has enough time to develop the backstory AND the main plot; and an adapter who doesn’t bludgeon the poor viewer with what Jane Austen painted so painstakingly on her bits of ivory.
January 23rd, 2008 at 2:24 am
Ooh, rather liked this article - though there’s not much he hasn’t said before. A new bit I really appreciated was his thoughts on the sisters. Though his interpretation and methodology, I think he is both thoughtful and sensative in his understanding of the books.
As for subtlety, I think there’s a fine line between dumbing down or condescending and sincerely communicating as clearly as possible. For me, Davies tends to do the latter, for others, he seems to do the former. I always feel that in his adaptations he’s like an eager, well, almost like Marianne, almost forcing his passion for his subjects on us - but I don’t mind.
*Spoiler alert for the film, I think*
(though it is in the book)
Last note - I think his fierce protectiveness of Marianne shows in Elinor’s attitude towards Wiloughby in his return in the film. Her magnificent rebuffing and scorn for his self-centeredness in her sister’s defense in powerful.
January 23rd, 2008 at 1:54 pm
There is a new edition of the novels published by Little Books under their Max Literary Classics imprint. Andrew Davies wrote the introductions to NA, S&S, Emma, Persuasion and MP. Louis de Bernieres wrote the intro to P&P .. these seem to be lower priced edition to be sold at Tesco and the like. They are also doing A Room with a View, Ford Madox Ford’s The Good Soldier, and no doubt other popular classics. (Found this information at amazon and at OCLC WorldCat.)
January 23rd, 2008 at 3:07 pm
Is Davies introduction the same for all the books (as in, a general intro to Austen), or is each one about the specific novel?
January 23rd, 2008 at 3:21 pm
Clearly we live in a degenerate age.
January 23rd, 2008 at 3:48 pm
AD loves P&P. No one can deny his brilliance in adapting it in 1995.
Personally I feel *that* success went to his head.
Whether one thinks it as condescending or dumbing down, the fact remains that in P&P95 he did neither.
Why was there no condescension/dumbing down in that adaptation? Because he loves the book very much and took care not to distort it. Plus, it was his first JA script
I neither think he’s condescending, nor do I think he’s dumbing down, I think he’s begun to think himself a writer better than JA.
So, no amount of explanation given for the major changes made (like reading ‘The Monk’ in NA) can let him off the hook by me.
He, who thinks JA’s books are all about sex, money, low cut gowns, tight britches (as said in an interview) is now writing introductions to her books!!!!!
January 23rd, 2008 at 4:29 pm
PS: sincerely communicating as clearly as possible???
I clearly understood what was being communicated in ***all*** the ITV JA adaptations recently.
I had no problems understanding that Ann is running with the letter looking for Wentworth.
What’s the use of communicating clearly what is *not* in the book and in a language that’s *not* JA’s????
January 23rd, 2008 at 4:29 pm
Reeba, as you say, he loves P&P and that film was a triumph. So, why did he write the introductions to five of the novels, but the publishers got someone else (someone more distinguished) to write the intro to P&P? I assume the five introductions he wrote are all different and specific to the book, but I don’t know. At least some of the books are actually published and available in the UK with a 2007 imprint, so readers in the UK could tell us. At the amazon.co.uk pages these particular books don’t have the “look inside” facility…
January 23rd, 2008 at 4:43 pm
I think the publisher of P&P has realised that *that* triumph was a long time ago and a lot of dirty water has flown under the bridge
January 23rd, 2008 at 4:57 pm
continued;
….since then.
Sorry for that incomplete sentence in the post above. Was in a hurry
January 23rd, 2008 at 8:07 pm
To Reeba at #5:
I can!
I always have and always will prefer 1980. I agree that 1995 is beautiful to look at, but it is not as faithful to the novel as people like to think.
January 23rd, 2008 at 9:23 pm
“These dark Austenian subplots are never fully dramatised; we always hear these stories at second hand. We never meet Eliza or her mother, so we are not likely to feel for them as we feel for Marianne, though their fate is so much worse, and I for one feel quite haunted by them. One can’t help feeling that Willoughby, that emotional psycho-path, gets off far more lightly than he deserves.”
Ooh, lovely. Finally, someone else said it! I really enjoyed this article. Of course, he seems to have similar opinions on S&S to mine, so that might have something to do with it…
I also enjoy hearing the opinion of someone who isn’t afraid to criticize what they love. Acknowledging the places where a work fails, even when the work is brilliant otherwise, seems to me to be a critical part of truly understanding and appreciating the art of english literature.
January 23rd, 2008 at 9:53 pm
Degenerate?
And ditto to everything RL said.
As for P&P95, I think it’s amazing and faithful - but as Julie says, it’s definitely not just word for word. There is probably at least 20-30 percent added material, which I love, but it’s definitely not just copying Jane Austen, but extrapolating and interpreting her.
Finally, Davies does say in some interviews that it’s all about teh sexing, but if you read all he says, and watch the films carefully, there’s a sensativity to much more - family, morals, humor, and maturity. I think part of his “sex sex sex” persona is a PR thing, and partly because he has a mischievious nature, rather than his entire interpretational policy.
January 24th, 2008 at 6:24 am
My biggest problem with Davies is not the sex it’s his attitude that he can improve upon Austen and that he’s “putting back” scenes that she “left out.”
If Austen left out a scene, THERE’S A REASON.
January 24th, 2008 at 8:49 am
I think part of his “sex sex sex” persona is a PR thing,
Which self respecting, distinguished writer of script or otherwise resorts to that
and partly because he has a mischievious nature,
Being mischievious with his talk of sex, sex, sex, at his age has a word - DOM
But I do agree with you that;
As for P&P95, I think it’s amazing and faithful - but as Julie says, it’s definitely not just word for word. There is probably at least 20-30 percent added material, which I love,
Such a pity that he wasn’t consistent.
Julie P, I too love and prefer the 1980 version, but as far as ‘modern’ adaptations go I think it is one of the better ones.
Personally I am not questioning his understanding of the novels, rather his arrogance in deciding to change what he has understood.
I am pretty sure he understood that Catherine Morland read ‘The Mysteries of Udolpho’
January 24th, 2008 at 10:26 am
Exactly Reeba. Catherine read Udolpho. Even if less than 5% of viewers have ever heard of Udolpho or The Monk, the fact remains that Austen knew these books and there’s a reason she chose to have Catherine read Udolpho. To anyone who says “nobody knows those books anymore, so it doesn’t matter,” I say “Andrew Davies knows those books, so it most definitely DOES matter.” Davies made this change ON PURPOSE. He did it for the same reason he added the seduction scene in S&S — to titillate. Nothing more. He most certainly is a DOM and he’s getting too big for his breeches. He thinks he knows better than Austen, and NEWSFLASH! he doesn’t.
I’m sure there are some people out there who are curious enough to want to check out these books (and, luckily for those of us who saw Lynne Marie Macy’s outstanding theatrical adaptation of NA, she was curious enough), and within a few pages they will notice that The Monk is simply wrong.
And, while I am a middle-aged spinster, I am no purist.
January 24th, 2008 at 10:36 am
“And we don’t need help to understand that Willoughby is a jerk, either. Every woman understands it. He publicly dumps her. Publicly. At a ball. In front of people. The sisterhood will stand as one on that, trust us.”
Great assessment, and the “sisterhood” remark made me laugh out loud.
January 24th, 2008 at 9:14 pm
To me, there’s a difference between levels of jerk. There’s the guy who dumps a girl in public with no warning, and then there’s the guy who impregnates and abandons a barely pubescent teenager. Really, the novel places a bizarre emphasis on the lesser level of jerk that Willoughby has attained.
And, I know I’ll be quietly ripped apart for this, but I honestly don’t think Udolpho is particularly important to Northanger Abbey. Believe me, I’m the sort of person who has a giant freak out if I believe the integrity of the story or clarity has been undermined. In this case, I just feel the need to shrug my shoulders and reiterate that this is an adaptation. Adapting things involves changing them. Sometimes differences are improvements, sometimes they aren’t, but you should probably go in expecting them.
Also, the derogatory “dirty old man” thing is weird. At what age do you officially become a raving, degenerate pervert for talking about sex? I’d like to know so I avoid the title of Dirty Old Woman, when I get up there.
January 25th, 2008 at 12:45 am
Degenerate?
Sigh.
irony
8. an objectively or humorously sardonic utterance, disposition, quality, etc.
1. c. A literary style employing such contrasts for humorous or rhetorical effect. See Synonyms at wit.
Never as funny when you have to explain the joke for the back of the room. Well, “introductions by Andrew Davies” certainly gives these books a solid position in the marketplace, competing against, say, the new Cambridge editions, etc.
(Yes, that was irony, too. I’m told Jane Austen engaged in it occasionally as well. And now I’m using it at AUSTEN BLOG. Go figure!)
To me, there’s a difference between levels of jerk. There’s the guy who dumps a girl in public with no warning, and then there’s the guy who impregnates and abandons a barely pubescent teenager. Really, the novel places a bizarre emphasis on the lesser level of jerk that Willoughby has attained.
I suppose you’ve never lost someone you loved intensely–especially at seventeen when you think it’s the only time it will ever happen to you. I certainly don’t mean to discount Eliza’s situation, but I do think Marianne’s public humiliation and heartbreak is quite enough to put any reasonably empathetic reader into the anti-Willoughby camp. Not to mention the letter he wrote the next day! We don’t know that Sophia dictated it until much later, remember. It’s sort of a preparatory shock for Colonel Brandon’s story, which serves to encourage any excessively romantic malingerers to get with the program.
In reality, it’s very nice plotting, very subtle. As a writer, as someone who has studied the art of writing fiction (as distinct from reading it), I admire Jane Austen’s writing from a technical point of view. It has lovely flow and scan, the humor is subtle and sly, and her plotting is exquisite. What many critics see as weaknesses in her plots and writing I often see as a particularly strong point of her skill. I guess that’s why I can be annoyed when it gets messed with in a ham-fisted way.
And, I know I’ll be quietly ripped apart for this, but I honestly don’t think Udolpho is particularly important to Northanger Abbey.
Why do you “know” you’ll be quietly ripped apart for it? Why would anyone want to rip you apart? We might rip your opinion or your assertions apart. This is a discussion. That’s how it works. One person gives their argument, another gives a counter-argument. You can express your opinion, but you should be prepared to defend it–and that’s not just here at AustenBlog, that’s in life in general. I don’t see what the big deal is, or why so many people see offering a well-reasoned counter-argument as a personal attack.
And now to the counter-argument.
In some places, the plot of Northanger Abbey parallels that of The Mysteries of Udolpho (and as I work my way through the “Northanger Novels” that Isabella recommended to Catherine, I see bits of those here and there as well). For instance, when the General gets worried about John Thorpe snatching the matrimonial prize of the heiress of Fullerton out from under his son’s nose, he whisks Catherine off to the Abbey, rather as Montoni whisks Emily St. Aubert off to Castle Udolpho when he thinks she’s in danger of marrying someone other than the person whom he wishes her to, so he can maintain control of HER inheritance. At the Abbey, the General specifically reminds Catherine of Montoni, the villain of Udolpho, so obviously that novel was much on her mind, as was, fairly obviously, The Castle of Wolfenbach–the plot of finding the mistress of the house, long thought dead, locked away in a far-flung wing is RIGHT out of that book. The General’s behavior, which is odd to her as she is naive and doesn’t realize that he thinks she’s an heiress, leads her to think of these books, and that’s why she jumps to conclusions from those books instead of conclusions from her own innate good sense and knowledge of real life. Henry reminds her of this when he meets her outside his mother’s room and learns what she has been thinking. “What have you been judging from? Remember the country and the age in which we live. Remember that we are English, that we are Christians.” He reminds her that they were not living in a medieval setting, they were not ruled by superstition, they were in the real world.
If you haven’t read Udolpho, I recommend it. It increases one’s understanding of NA tenfold. The first time I read it, I kept saying, “That’s why Catherine/Henry/Eleanor/the General did…” Which brings me to another point…I understand that not everyone has made an extensive background study of the novel. If one is not as enthusiastic about it, that’s not to be expected (let me forestall the cries of “help help I’m being oppressed” by saying: I’m not condemning that, just making a distinction). I really like the book and want to know more about it; for ten years I’ve been looking for more information and reading things written about the novel. An essay by Irene Collins in Persuasions set me off on one path: a theory first advanced by David Cecil that Jane Austen met Sydney Smith in Bath shortly before she started writing NA (there is no evidence of this, other than that they were in Bath at the same time and had mutual acquaintances) and that he inspired in some ways Henry Tilney’s wit. (I hasten to add that that doesn’t mean that Sydney Smith was Henry, because he wasn’t.) In following that rabbit trail, I acquired a book of Smith’s writing, edited by W.H. Auden mind you, in which one of the little pieces was a humorously ironic (!) riff on the overuse/incorrect usage of the word “nice.” It could be coincidence, certainly; Smith was probably not the only one who abhorred the evolution of a word with a specific meaning into a slangy and watered-down catchall description of anything pleasant or enjoyable. Jane Austen herself, for instance, who always used the word “nice” in its older, more specific sense, might have agreed, and when she wrote NA might have remembered dancing in Bath with an intelligent and witty clergyman with a deadpan sense of humor who had a very…nice…opinion of language.
This is turning into a teal deer so I’ll stop, but I just wanted to explain that for some of us who have loved and studied the novel closely, it is indeed very wrong to substitute Gothic novels willy-nilly, especially one such as The Monk which is so different in feeling and story from the gentle, fun sort of Gothics that Catherine read in the novels. I recognize that mileage may vary, but wanted to make my point and my argument for Udolpho.
January 25th, 2008 at 2:53 am
Soooooo - you think that Davies’ article is not degenerate, because you meant it ironically? Elsewhere, you seem to imply that Davies (and any who agree with him) are indeed degenerate, which is why I didn’t and don’t understand how that comment was irony. It seemed more like a serious statement of what you’ve said elsewhere.
And yes, I know what irony means, and if you had posted your second example, I would have recognized it (and laughed). But it didn’t seem very ironic or humorous - rather it seemed a bit insulting to any who disagreed and thought that these editions, not 90-120 dollars a volume, might have some merit.
January 25th, 2008 at 5:28 am
@RL
but I honestly don’t think Udolpho is particularly important to Northanger Abbey.
Yes, I agree. AD thought so too.
I wonder why JA used it as a plot for the book?
At what age do you officially become a raving, degenerate pervert for talking about sex?
Publicly?
I would say around the time you have reached mental maturity?
Privately?
Who cares!!!!
January 25th, 2008 at 8:42 am
Willoughby is a jerk at the ball, no doubt. But this is just the start of showing that he is not a good man.
The event at the ball was just the first of the terrible revelations to come. Marianne tries desparately to excuse him but when she learns of his treatment of Eliza Williams it puts the final nail in the coffin. Any decent minded person would be horrified by what he had done, and Marianne for all her romantic notions does have a strong sense of honor.
There’s a reason why his true character and depths of perfidy get revealed in stages. We’re supposed to feel with Marianne about how lucky she is to have been spared a marriage with him. We go with her through her process of being disillusioned, maturing and learning that a man’s character is more important than his charm.
Anyway that’s my two cents worth of opinion:)
January 25th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
Assumptions about my level of emotional experience are a bit insulting. I’ll just say that I empathize with Marianne, believe me, but I also believe it’s perfectly reasonable to expect some sense of perspective.
As for Udolpho, I realize that it’s important to you, but to the vast majority of people who read Austen and/or view adaptations, it is not. It isn’t integral to the themes of the book. I myself don’t agree with his decision to change the novel used, but I don’t view it as an earth-shattering, adaptation-ruining crime against nature.
January 25th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
but I don’t view it as an earth-shattering, adaptation-ruining crime against nature.
That’s the greatest insult to this lover of NA!
I am feeling very insulted that my favourite book is said to be without Udolpho-importance.
but to the vast majority of people who read Austen and/or view adaptations, it is not. It isn’t integral to the themes of the book.
Hmm. I wish I knew this vast majority personally as you seem to.
Do you have support for this please! Any statistics? Reliable one, I mean.
As well as;
It isn’t integral to the themes of the book.
Can you support this statement?
Just saying it’s not important turns this into a “Yes it is! No it isn’t,” sort of discussion because my answer is going to be;
Yes, it is.
January 25th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
RL, you were the one who said “the novel places a bizarre emphasis” on the public dumping. I thought it was pretty despicable–especially since up till then he had encouraged her romantic nature and treated her as a beloved object. If he had written to her ahead of time, pulled her aside at the door, anything but humiliating her in front of a roomful of people. At that point, we know Willoughby is a jerk. We’ve yet to find out just how deep his infamy goes, but we know he’s a jerk, and that was my original point.
As far as the novel-swapping goes: if Udolpho had been swapped for, say, The Castle of Wolfenbach, it would have been a curious change but not that big of a deal; but it was swapped for The Monk, a novel very different in content and feeling and meaning. That is the objection, at least for my part. It changes the story as Jane Austen constructed it. It wasn’t accidental that John Thorpe was the character in NA who mentioned The Monk.
January 25th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
Soooooo - you think that Davies’ article is not degenerate, because you meant it ironically?
The comment “We live in a degenerate age” was in regards to the fact that a publisher had hired Andrew Davies (a television writer with no academic credentials to speak of) to write introductions for five of Jane Austen’s novels.
Also I think perhaps I should have defined “degenerate” as I used it rather than “irony.”
degenerate
- adjective
6. having fallen below a normal or desirable level, esp. in physical or moral qualities; deteriorated; degraded: a degenerate king.
I was employing irony, or perhaps more specifically humorous hyperbole, in my comment upon the news of the introductions that Robin passed on. Now that every last vestige of humor has been stripped from the comment, I am going to go laugh at The Midnight Bell and its medieval ninjas before I use the Official AustenBlog Titanium Spork™ to open up my jugular vein.
January 26th, 2008 at 11:12 am
Well, just because someone doesn’t quite “get it” in the precise way I “get it,” it doesn’t necessarily mean that what I get is any more valid than what he or she gets.
Get it?
January 26th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
What about just ’seeing it’ because it’s there?
Or ‘taking’ it because it’s ‘given’?
Both in black and white!!!
January 26th, 2008 at 7:26 pm
I’m re-reading S&S right now, and I have to say that, even trying to be open-minded about things (I haven’t read the book in several years), I dislike Willoughby intensely. I have great respect and admiration for Elinor, and she sees improprieties all over the place. If Elinor is uneasy about something, there’s a good reason.
January 27th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
Hey Julie, don’t know if you’ve seen this, but if you want to call Davies a DOM to his (cyber)face, here’s your opportunity:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/austen/davies_ask.html
I asked the obvious question: Why on earth didn’t you take the opportunity to write more expressive dialogue for Darcy’s second proposal in P&P?
January 28th, 2008 at 6:03 am
I asked him (politely, of course) what possessed him to change Udolpho to The Monk.
I asked him why he keeps telling us he thinks he can improve upon Austen because, after all, people have been trying for 200 years and they never succeed.
Last, but not least, I said I loved S&S even though I think the opening scene was both gratuitous and unnecessary.