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Jane Austen

219 replies

BaconAndAvocado · 13/10/2023 11:34

Currently listening to a Radio 4 adaptation of Sense and Sensibility and loving it.
I’ve read and enjoyed Pride and Prejudice and Emma.

What are the others like?

OP posts:
ageingdisgracefully · 19/10/2023 09:40

maltravers · 19/10/2023 08:59

I love Persuasion, but does anyone else roll their eyes when Captain Wentworth, just back from the wars and much promoted on merit, doesn’t know what to do when Louisa bashes her head at Lyme?

Yes! Although as I recall pretty much everyone falls apart except for Anne. Not being horrible or anything but I find that scene really funny, in the book and the adaptations. It's so ludicrous. I often think that Jane meant it to be so (the aftermath being more important; Louisa's change of personality, Mrs Harville's kindness, Mary's selfishness etc).

maltravers · 19/10/2023 08:59

I love Persuasion, but does anyone else roll their eyes when Captain Wentworth, just back from the wars and much promoted on merit, doesn’t know what to do when Louisa bashes her head at Lyme?

RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 18/10/2023 22:04

Let’s just talk about Jane. I read the shrug as a bit combative. It seems that’s not how it was intended.

Mirabai · 18/10/2023 21:00

I thought we were just expressing different opinions.

So did I. Why would this be an argument? 🤔

RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 18/10/2023 20:51

Mirabai · 18/10/2023 20:02

I’ve never said he was though - I just said that I thought Mark Strong was wrong 🤷🏻‍♀️

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I didn’t realise this was an argument. I thought we were just expressing different opinions.

Shrug.

RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 18/10/2023 20:50

JohnThorntonsOverbearingMother · 18/10/2023 19:50

There was a glut of Emma adaptations. I remember one with Romola Garai too.

I think I liked this one, although it’s been a long time since I saw it.

Mirabai · 18/10/2023 20:02

RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 18/10/2023 19:49

Knightley in the novel doesn't 'do' anything for me either though. I definitely don't see him as sexy or swoon-worthy.

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I’ve never said he was though - I just said that I thought Mark Strong was wrong 🤷🏻‍♀️

JohnThorntonsOverbearingMother · 18/10/2023 19:53

Jonny Lee Miller played Mr Knightley in that one. Had to google that. And I seem to remember him playing Edmund in a Mansfield Park adaptation too.

JohnThorntonsOverbearingMother · 18/10/2023 19:50

There was a glut of Emma adaptations. I remember one with Romola Garai too.

RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 18/10/2023 19:49

Mirabai · 18/10/2023 19:45

Nothing to suggest he’s balding though. It’s just a question of taste isn’t it, Jeremy Northam was fine, Mark Strong didn’t do anything for me at all.

Knightley in the novel doesn't 'do' anything for me either though. I definitely don't see him as sexy or swoon-worthy.

Mirabai · 18/10/2023 19:45

Nothing to suggest he’s balding though. It’s just a question of taste isn’t it, Jeremy Northam was fine, Mark Strong didn’t do anything for me at all.

RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 18/10/2023 19:40

I don't remember having any objections to Mark Strong. Just googled him to jog my memory and looks-wise, he seems fine to me. There's nothing to suggest Knightley is devastatingly attractive, as far as I remember.

Mirabai · 18/10/2023 14:02

Kate Beckinsale was v good as Emma, but Mark Strong totally wrong as Mr Knightley - both looks and personality.

ageingdisgracefully · 18/10/2023 11:29

RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 17/10/2023 19:46

Oh god, the Piper thing was diabolical. I've never seen a good Mansfield Park.

Although, for me, I think the Paltrow thing was even worse. The Kate Beckinsale is the best Emma imo.

Agree with you that the Beckinsale version was the best Emma (and seems, oddly, to be the least well-known). It was brilliantly cast too; although many find Mark Strong a too - stern Knightley. His "badly done!" was by far the most believable for me.

It's an Andrew Davies, and jumps the shark a bit at the end. 1995 was a great year for Austen adaptations.

Supersimkin2 · 18/10/2023 10:29

😂 they’re very similar ‘a heroine that no one except myself would like’ as JA said.

JA would have loads of fun with Goop.

I should like Fanny but I can’t. Much prefer Elinor and Marianne.

RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 17/10/2023 20:44

😂

Insommmmnia · 17/10/2023 20:04

I quite like the Paltrow version of Emma. But mostly because I find both Emma and Paltrow irritating so it oddly works.

RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 17/10/2023 19:46

Oh god, the Piper thing was diabolical. I've never seen a good Mansfield Park.

Although, for me, I think the Paltrow thing was even worse. The Kate Beckinsale is the best Emma imo.

MrsDanversGlidesAgain · 17/10/2023 18:48

A lot of MP is Fanny's interior monologue rather than saying it out loud, which would never happen. She's a dependent and a charity child - looks what happens when she does refuse to budge - she gets sent back to Portsmouth to teach her a lesson.

CesareBorgia · 17/10/2023 18:39

To appreciate the books, you have to adopt the mindset of the times while you read, at least, I think so. It's one of my pet hates when film versions force modern ideas into the stories - e.g. the awful Mansfield Park with Billie Piper -. the whole point of Fanny was that she remained meek and mild whilst sticking to firm moral principles - she would never have harangued her benefactors.

MrsDanversGlidesAgain · 17/10/2023 18:29

Although Anne Elliot lumping in travelling on a Sunday with screwing over a sick widow in the list of Mr Elliot's crimes always makes me laugh.

General observance of the Sabbath was expected in Austen's time (and afterwards - Trollope's Mrs Proudie was very big on no Sunday travelling). There was a general understanding that Sundays were to be devoted to the moral and spiritual notion of rest by the laying by of typical “work” and devotion of body and mind to worship and acts of mercy, devotion, and charity (as well as giving the servants a bit of a day off to do the same). Elliott's Sunday travelling when there's no compelling need is a desire to flout conventional behaviour expected of a gentleman and shows he's inconsiderate of others (like his coachman and the servants at the inns where he calls during this Sunday travelling). JA's establishing a pattern of behaviour here - it looks petty to the 21c but a man who would flout long-established religious convention like that would see nothing wrong in defrauding a sick widow.

GoFaster83 · 17/10/2023 13:06

Jane austen and a cat! You're living my dream life!

EmpressaurusOfCats · 17/10/2023 13:04

I think I know the one you mean. I’ve got a cat on top of me at the moment but when I can I’ll go check my bookcase.

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