The Genteel Reading Circle For Ladies

I love Sense & Sensibility (and MP - boo hiss Remus to the idea of killing off Fanny Price :( ) Don't really do the movies, though, other than as a Sunday afternoon entertainment with my Mum criticising where they've got things wrong.

Tickled by the idea of spoilering S&S 200 years or whatever after they were written.
Does anyone else wonder about Margaret - I know girls in the school room were meant to stay in the background, but you'd think in their circumstances, she'd be a bit more present.

'They are too extreme' - Exactly. I think that is probably the point - both have to learn to adapt in order to be happier/better people.

Marianne and Elinor both get on my nerves. They are too extreme. Alan Rickman as Colonel Brandon is Phwoar.

Checking in!

Austen was never afraid of using illness as a plot device. :) A pity she didn't kill Fanny Price off with a nasty bout of snivelling.

There is a lot of hysteria about illness, definitely - Jane clearly just had a feverish cold - but I guess it's understandable in an age when everyone would have known people carried off by illnesses that would now be treated easily by antibiotics/a couple of days in hospital on a drip.

The illnesses are a bit anachronistic. There aren't many illnesses that you can actually catch from getting wet in a rainstorm are there? I assumed that jane's was flu and i suppose marriane could have had pneumonia or diphtheria, or something else life threatening that isn't around any more.

Mrs D is a romantic, which is where Marianne gets it from. I don't think she's thinking about money at all in encouraging the imprudent gadding about with Willoughby, just lurve.

S&S is my favourite.

I thought the worst thing about the Emma Thompson film was Thompson. She should have stuck to scripting it and not deluded herself that she could pass for young enough to play Elinor. I think Kate W and obviously Alan are both exquisite in it though. Greg W good too.

I think Marianne's illness is real, but iirc it's hinted that it's made worse by the fact that she completely surrenders to her grief and doesn't try to help herself, almost as if she's half willing herself to die.

I agree that her mother should have been a lot more careful with willoughby and not indulged Marianne so much. But then maybe she was being a bit mercenary and thinking that if Marianne married him they'd all have somewhere nicer to live?

I think Marianne's illness is similar to Jane's in P&P, a minor illness which quickly escalates due to a lack of effective medicine.

She was 16 or 17. But she was allowed to live out the drama despite her actions (going with Willoughby to his aunt's, for example) being contrary to the social mores of the time.

Mrs D should have been more circumspect; instead she encouraged the liaison. She knew nothing about Willoughby and did not advise caution, when imho she should have.

Something I've never understood about Marianne's illness: was it self-imposed or not?

How old was Marianne? Wasn't she 16? I think of her as a lovesick teenager so you can sort of understand how dramatic it all feels to her. I can just about remember my first crush/love and it was soooo intense and there were lots of tears!

I dunno......many people see Marianne as free, romantic and impetuous but I see her as silly, selfish and melodramatic. Brandon is way too good for her imho (especially AR's Brandon).

I love the way JA fleshes out her minor characters: I loved the Hugh Laurie character reminds me of DP, the bastard, the nasty Ferrers mother and sister, and the Miss Steeles.

JA had a cruel sense of humour and it shows. I'm not sure I can think of a character she's entirely sympathetic towards. I like Elinor, though; one of her more sympathetic female characters, imho.

Got distracted by Prince dying but am marking my place. Will start S&S

Good day ladies!

I love the film adaptation of S&S by Emma Thompson, but only when I ignore how old some of the actors are.

Looking forward to rereading this, despite how much of a drip Marianne is.

I had to go to the cinema on my own to watch S&S when it came out as no-one I knew wanted to see it. Was ok though as I really enjoyed it and despite my earlier comment about ET being too old I did think her performance was great, esp the sickroom scene (I may have had a little teary moment during that). And don't get me wrong I adore AR but I just couldn't see him and KW as a couple - but then also didn't get KW and Leo as a couple in Titanic!

Signing in!

(I saw S&S in real time at the cinema when it came out, and an audible gasp that rippled around my group at that bit when Col. Brandon leans, dishevelled and despairing, against the wall outside Marianne's sickroom. Alan Rickman: endlessly sexy.)

Excellent, I'll reread it!