Heh. Alert Janeite Diana Birchall sent us a hilarious article by Craig Brown in The Daily Telegraph, having a great time with Janemania: Twelve little-known facts about Jane Austen.

1 It has been estimated that at any one time around the world there are more than 600 Jane Austen adaptations being produced. China has increased its Jane Austen output by 400 per cent over the past five years, and looks set to be the world leader by 2012.

Next month alone sees the premieres of Northanger on Ice, starring Jayne Torvill as Catherine Morland, and BBC TV’s new Mansfield Park, starring Jordan as Jayne Mansfield.

For the record, we would watch both of those.

6 In autumn 2010, the Walt Disney corporation opens The Jane Austen Experience on a 50-acre site on the outskirts of Bath. Visitors are greeted by a 12ft high Jane Austen, dressed in period costume. Jane leads them into The Ballroom, where they can watch Jane dancing to a traditional Regency rhythm with a 15ft high Mr Darcy.

At least he’s tall!

10 Up to 75 columnists a week introduce a note of erudition into their articles by beginning them with the phrase “It is a truth universally acknowledged that…”

Recent examples include, “It is a truth universally acknowledged that the new two-door Ford Capri is an absolute dream to handle” (Jeremy Clarkson, Sunday Times) and, “It is a truth universally acknowledged that my so-called ex is an insufferable prat, whinger and serial shagger” (Liz Jones, Mail on Sunday) and, “It is a truth universally acknowledged that there were times when King Henry VIII could be a right royal bastard” (Dr David Starkey, Monarchy Today).

*falls over laughing* (and it is so true!)

12 A new version of Persuasion, re-named Me, I Don’t Take Much Persuasion and scripted by Andrew Davies, is soon to be filmed, with Pamela Anderson as Anne and Mickey Rourke as Captain Wentworth.

In an arresting new opening, Anne and Captain Wentworth are seen making love in a Regency bed; the middle scenes also see them in bed together, and they are in bed together, too, in the final scene, only this time the bed is of a slightly later design, to emphasise the passage of time.

“It’s what Jane Austen would have wanted,” says Andrew Davies, who is now working on his next adaptation, this time of EM Forster’s Howard’s Bottom.

See? It’s not just us.

Laurie Viera Rigler continues her series on Jane Austen’s novels at the About.com Classic Lit blog, this week writing about Mansfield Park.

If you’ve ever had an opinion that your friends considered uncool, and you stuck to it despite ridicule and pressure, you’ll find a kindred spirit in Fanny Price, and you’ll want her reward to be the man she loves. However, if you’re still doing shots with your inner bad girl, you’ll be rooting for Mary Crawford to win the object of her, and Fanny’s, affections.

Heh.

Whilst trolling manybooks.net for free e-books, we happened on a site called The Best Media in Life is Free, which has a listing of free e-texts of books from 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. The listings are broken up into Pre-1700, 1700s (The first two on the list…The Monk and The Mysteries of Udolpho!), 1800s (including Jane Austen’s novels), and 1900s. Now that is what we call a reading list! We recommend manybooks.net for e-books in just about any format you need; and feedbooks.com also has a wonderful list of free public domain e-books, which have been beautifully formatted for easy and pleasant reading.

Speaking of e-books, a while back we snarked on the Kindle a bit, but in the past week had the opportunity to play with one. We take back our fugly comment, because the Kindle is anything but. It’s really quite cute! It’s tiny and clean-looking, and it makes using and reading e-books an incredibly easy experience. You just push a button and get a book in seconds; which might pose a problem if one is not careful with paid downloads, but feedbooks.com has set up a really easy way to get free, nicely formatted public domain e-books on your Kindle as easily as you download them from Amazon. Download their Kindle Download Guide, which installs as a book, and “shop” for free e-books right from the guide. We are having serious gadget lust and need to get an eInk e-book reader SOON! It probably still will be a Cybook Gen3; but we really love the ease of use of the Kindle.

Adventures in Reading reviews Jane Austen: Obstinate Heart by Valerie Grosvenor Myer.

Austen is described as a person with charm and wit, but also as an individual looked down upon socially as being rather “backwards” or common by her family later in life. Some of Austen’s nieces and nephews are described as rather snobbish and prudish (they would be entering the Victorian period after all) and Myers discusses how parts of Austen’s life were “white washed” in the years after her death by her family. Myers’ approaches a “sour grape” perspective on Austen’s life versus the romantic entanglements of her heroine’s.

Lori Smith, the author of A Walk With Jane Austen, was interviewed at the She Plants a Vineyard blog.

SPV: Many women love Jane Austen’s novels. What is it about her novels that are so timeless and that we can relate to?
Lori: There are lots of answers to that question—her writing is lovely, she herself had a wonderful wit and energy for life, which comes through in her stories, they’re full of humor and her characters are people that we still recognize today. And she’s writing about falling in love, which is an awful lot of fun on its own. But there’s much more substance to her than just the romance.

I think a big part of it is the character that Austen wove into her stories. They’re not so much about falling in love as they are about the kind of people who are allowed to fall in love, people whose characters have been refined, who have been willing to admit their own faults and change. They’re worthy. I think that gives her stories incredible strength—which sometimes movies and spin-offs miss.

We were referred to A Great Undoing, Natalie Jenner’s entry in the Amazon.com Breakthrough Novel Award competition. The novel is a modern retelling of Persuasion, set in Montauk, Long Island and Manhattan in the 1960s. You can download and read a free excerpt and leave feedback. The novel currently is a semi-finalist in the competition and will advance to the next round based upon the feedback that the excerpt receives, so get to it, Janeites!

And we are reminded that we have not updated our sidebar book links in a very long time, and hope to get to that task this week. That’s it for this week’s Weekend Bookblogging, Gentle Readers, and always remember: Books Are Nice!

After all the excitement and media attention of the first few weeks, perhaps, as the sole Mansfield Park 08 review we found (actually Alert Janeite Lisa sent it to us) says, we have reached adaptation fatigue with Jane Austen.

It’s hard not to wonder, three weeks in, if PBS’ decision to air “The Complete Jane Austen” in single-episode weekly installments does a disservice to its subject. As early scenes of “Mansfield Park” unfold there is no denying that the bloom has faded a bit from the rose. The manor houses, the décolletage, the inevitable brass candlesticks do not provide quite the cozy respite they once did. The characters too seem a bit worn about the edges: Here is the spirited but disenfranchised heroine, the noble man she loves but seemingly cannot have, the scheming female friend, the charming rake, all vying for income and position with marriage based in love being the ultimate and elusive prize.

So one can be forgiven a little armchair psychoanalysis — is a country walk in Austen ever just a country walk? And why are all the rakes and rogues instantly identifiable by the wildness of their hair?

But it would be a shame to take what may be a flaw in the concept out on its parts. As itself, “Mansfield Park” is as charming an adaptation of the novel as one would wish, and if American television viewers can find value in weekly weigh-ins of the morbidly obese or soap operas thinly disguised by surgical scrubs, they can certainly look past the repetition of skirt-trailing picnics and thundering carriages bringing dire messages in the middle of the night.

Hear, hear! And it’s awfully early in the Complete Jane Austen to be getting bored with it, especially with Miss Austen Regrets and a new S&S, both of which have received very positive reviews, on the way still. While MP is not perhaps the most inspiring film in the current set, taking a glass-half-full attitude, we are looking forward to seeing James D’Arcy in Gaping Frilly Shirtage™ (one of his best looks in our opinion), not to mention Sir Walter Elliot’s brocade suit from P95. (more…)

Lots of local book groups and events going on right now, many (but not all!) in connection with The Complete Jane Austen.

In northeastern Pennsylvania, Wyoming County Reads will have several events, including a discussion of Pride and Prejudice (the library is giving away free copies? Or do they mean you borrow it from the library for free? Not sure), several lectures, country dancing lessons, and a screening and discussion of P&P05 at the Dietrich Theater.

We previously posted about “Jane-uary” at Kansas City Public Library; not to be left out, Manhattan (Kansas) Public Library also is having a Jane Austen Festival (PDF), with book discussions, lectures, and a film festival.

In St. Petersburg, Florida, the St. Pete Beach Public Library is starting a discussion group that will read and discuss each of Jane Austen’s novels between January and June 2008. Sense and Sensibility is up first, with discussions starting on January 31.

All the local fun is not confined to the U.S., either–Warminster Library in Wiltshire has declared Jane Austen the Author of the Month for February.

Books in standard and large print, audio books and film and television DVDs sourced from across the county will be displayed in the library from February 4.

Perhaps the local fishwrap will even learn that Jane Austen’s wasn’t Victorian.

Janeites in Australia and New Zealand are finally getting to see the film adaptation of The Jane Austen Book Club. The Sydney Morning Herald has an interview with director Robin Swicord.

Now is an especially demanding time for Australian FOJs and the younger, mostly female, related species known as “Jane-ites”. This is the year for premium British TV redos of Persuasion, Sense And Sensibility and Mansfield Park.

As the American screenwriter, director and admitted FOJ Robin Swicord puts it: “They got some really excellent writers to do these versions. I’ve been keeping tabs on all this recently. And there’s quite a buzz about it in the Austen cosmos.”

You can say that again!!! When our Gentle Antipodean Readers get to see the film, let us know what you thought of it.

Alert Janeite Lisa let us know about a play called “Lizzy, Darcy & Jane” that is currently running at the Tabard Theatre in London.

Lizzy, Darcy & Jane follows Austen’s early womanhood as she struggles to grapple with society’s prescriptions. Jane’s active imagination is constantly wandering from reality and entering a world where her characters develop and mature as she does. Disappointed in love, Jane sentences her emphatic imaginary friend, Lizzy Bennet, to a life married to the insufferable Mr Collins, but Lizzy is too wilful for her author and retains her questionable relationship with a certain brooding Mr Darcy.

*blinks*

What the Fitzwilliam?

The play opened earlier this month and closes on February 2, but this is the first we’ve heard about it, unfortunately. Hopefully there is still time for our Gentle Readers to catch it. We would LOVE a report. Really.

Alert Janeite Lisa let us know that the Sense and Sensibility period clothing pattern site is holding a Regency Film Costume Class three times in 2008.

If you love costume films–particularly Jane Austen adaptations–then this is the class for you! We dissect the costuming for six films (one per week), looking at issues including authenticity, methods, design vs. execution, and more. This class is especially meant for groups of friends to enjoy together.

Classes begin February 4 through March 10; summer and fall dates to be announced. Registration is now open and costs $25, with a discount to $15 per person for groups of five or more taking the class together.

Alert Janeite Bert’s Region 2 DVD of Sense and Sensibility lists “Interviews with cast and crew” under DVD special features on the cover of the DVD, but there are no such interviews on the actual discs. E-mails and phone calls to BBC Shop have gone unreturned. We know that several Gentle Readers have received their DVDs, and there’s no information about special features either on Amazon UK or the BBC Shop; can someone please post in comments what exactly is listed and what is contained on the DVDs?

Alert Janeite Carmen let us know that the latest adaptations of Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey, and Persuasion either are or shortly will be available in Spain (Region 2). These DVDs contain English and Spanish audio tracks and subtitles. MP is available now, NA and P will be available on February 4.

A 3-pack of the new films also will be available on February 4 that will save some money over buying them separately.

MP: DVDGO - El Corte Inglés
NA: DVDGO - El Corte Inglés
P: DVDGO - El Corte Inglés
Package - DVDGO - El Corte Inglés

El Corte Inglés also has the special edition of P&P05 that comes with a 64-page book; not sure what that could be! A Making-Of type thing, perhaps?

The Editrix has been under the weather for a few days, having caught the contagion that is sweeping le travail de la journée the past couple of weeks. Also the ceiling began leaking at AustenBlog World Headquarters earlier this week, clearly an evil plot by the Wickhams, which apparently has been fixed. Or so they say. Anyway, hope to get back to normal now.