Real Austen Heroes Don’t Sparkle
Cara King has done another Jane Austen/popular movie mashup at Risky Regencies: this time it’s Jane Austen’s Twilight.
Thing is, Jane Austen already parodied Twilight; it’s called Northanger Abbey. 
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November 26th, 2008 at 3:20 am
That’s exactly what I keep saying : have you learned nothing at all from Northanger Abbey ? What are you doing fangirling about such a cheap, trashy novel ?
Gotta love AustenBlog sometimes, I feel so lonely among the Twilight craze.
November 26th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
Jane Austen is mentioned in the book, but not the movie. The complete works of Jane Austen is one of the few books Bella brings with her when she goes to live with her father. She decides to reread one of the novels to keep her mind off Edward and chooses Sense and Sensibility. Then she decides that is not a good idea when she remembers the hero is also named Edward.
November 26th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
I was forced to read Twilight for my book club and the JA reference was the only part of it that was (a) remotely entertaining and (b) not excruciating to read.
November 27th, 2008 at 3:23 am
I hate Twilight. I couldn’t even finish the novel, but so many people I know love it. It is a relief, then, to come here and find it being called ‘excruciating.’ Perfect word choice!
November 27th, 2008 at 7:40 am
I’d never heard of Twilight until recently, and was not amused when I learned that the movie would be released in November instead of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
I read Dracula, and have seen Nosferatu (both versions), but still don’t “get” the whole vampire craze.
No, I have no desire to read or see Twilight.
November 27th, 2008 at 11:57 am
I haven’t read it. I tried to read the first one and couldn’t get into it, but I didn’t try very hard.
However, I would suspend no pleasure of anyone else’s, and when I was an overly-romantical teenager I probably would have loved it, too. However, one cannot deny that NA is indeed a parody of overly-romantical fiction and those who consume it not wisely but too well. 
Also, every time RPattz opens his mouth about it I get the lulz. Love that guy. Who knew Cedric was such a riot? Although I think this movie would have come out at this time whether or not Harry Potter did, so it’s not the fault of Twilight that they delayed it.
November 28th, 2008 at 2:48 am
Twilight moved up when Harry Potter 6 moved. So if WB hadn’t moved Harry Potter to July, all the Twilight fans would still be waiting for the December 12th opening night. But you can’t fault the producers of Twilight for taking advantage of the movie “vacancy” left by the HP move. [muttering]Stupid WB moving the Harry Potter movie, now I have to wait until July.[/muttering] I haven’t read the Twilight books, but I enjoyed the movie. Maybe I’ll pick up the first book and see how far I get.
November 28th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
Cara King is a Brilliant Satirist and (if I could spell it) Parodyist! Kudos to her! Please write another 70,000 words of same.
November 29th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
The Twilight movie is far less irritating than the book, mostly because it doesn’t take itself so quite so ohmygodbreathless! seriously. I definitely recommend it for diversion during these cold weekends.
November 30th, 2008 at 10:03 pm
So, do we have to give Andrew Davies credit for prescience in his reference to vampires in his version of Northanger Abbey?
November 30th, 2008 at 10:57 pm
Hmm. That was not nearly as funny as I’d hoped. Or expected, given how hilarious her other offerings have been. (Actually, maybe it was just me, but it was not very funny at all.) Pity, since Twilight dearly needs to be snarked…
December 1st, 2008 at 5:50 am
Hehheh… let there be snark. Cleolinda’s brief recap leading into her review on the fourth and last book in the Twilight series is already enough to make you choke on your tea and crumpets.
“Okay, so. Previously on As the Vampire Sparkles, emoteen Bella Swan moves to a tiny little depressing rainy town and won’t shut up about it. There she meets a mysterious boy who turns out to be a 100+ year-old vampire who literally sparkles “like diamonds” in direct sunlight and reads minds (but not hers), and after three hundred pages of Bella wondering why he’s so mean to her and why he’s so weird and why he’s not being mean to her anymore and what his deal is and if he likes her and if he actually loves her and how much he loves her and how he could possibly love as someone as (Mary Sue) plain and boring and clumsy as she is and if his vampire family will like her, a plot finally shows up, but it doesn’t last very long. And then they go to prom. In the second book, Edward the sparkling vampire leaves Bella for her own good, and she spends most of the book trying to kill herself with motorcycles and cliff-diving. Sort of. And then her best friend falls in love with her and turns out to be a werewolf, but Bella runs away to save Edward from committing suicide by public sparkling in Italy. In the third book, Jacob the best friend/boyfriend wannabe/werewolf turns into a total asshole trying to force himself on Bella, and a vampire with a grudge from the first book is trying to kill her, but more importantly, Bella and Edward argue about whether they should have sex, get married, and/or vampirize Bella, and in what order.
Hand to God, I did not make one word of that up. Twilight means never having to say you’re kidding.”
For more of such delight on a chapter-by-chapter basis, visit http://cleolinda.livejournal.com/630150.html
December 1st, 2008 at 6:05 am
That was brilliant! “…suicide by public sparkling.” *sniggers*
Thanks for posting the link
December 1st, 2008 at 9:14 am
Karenlee,
Thank you so much for this link which had me howling (no pun intended) with laughter. The children’s librarian at our library lent me the Twilight series for some feedback, and after gamely plowing through four books that have about one chapter’s worth of plot in total, I was ready to “fursplode” myself.
December 1st, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Fursplode… hahahaha, yeah, LOVE the lexicon that Cleo put together too. Mags, hope you have time/inclination to give the link a quick looksee even if you didn’t read the books (neither did I). But we are talking about such a high-quality brand of snarkaliciousness that you don’t even need to be familiar with the source material to enjoy it. Her summaries will tell you Everything You Might Have Possibly Wanted To Know About Twilight But Couldn’t Bother Getting Through The Turgid Prose To Find Out, and gives you the kind of laugh that leaves you pounding the desk and weeping (me anyway!).
December 1st, 2008 at 8:48 pm
I loved the movie. Does that make me bad?
Marsha Huff
December 2nd, 2008 at 2:38 pm
Does that make you bad? Only if you hate Jane Austen…
Hahahaha..
Just kidding. Of COURSE it doesn’t make you bad. A friend of mine who’s reading the book says (she thinks) the movie is actually better, because you don’t have to deal with the constant stream of OMIGODEDWARDISSOOOOOOOGORGEOUSANDSPARKLYHUNKY that you do in the book. And even if you’re someone who loved the book, so what? Each to his/her own