Jane Austen

Borderline thinking I dreamt this book. Nothing is coming up via online searches at all.

Could anyone remind me of the name of a short story she wrote as a very young writer? It's very funny/sarcastic. I happened upon it while buying texts at uni and it made me smile. Long since gone to the charity shop and I'd love to read it again

I've always thought Lydia and Wickham are two of the most important characters in P & P. Lydia is flighty and headstrong and Wickham is a self centred opportunist.

The provide a stark contrast to the much more serious and grounded relationships between Bingley and Jane and Darcy and Lizzie

Also thought the senior Bennets important - Mrs Bennet is a desperate social climber while Mr Bennet is a genial, though rather distracted, father who tolerates his wifes foibles and genuinely seems to want the best for his daughters without wanting to put himself out too much

Much of the power in the book comes from these relationships

I don’t think being smug makes her unsympathetic - she gets her mortification - that’s the comedy.

As for Old Potato Face, I always found him rather handsome, although I must admit that impression took a bit of a hit when he played John Stonehouse .

I’ve never really taken to Emma (she’s self satisfied and hard to care for) or Northanger Abbey. I love all the other main books though. I might have to read Lady Susan again, I don’t think I’ve read that for 40 years.

I do love an exemplary potato (and men called Matthew).

Prunella Scales reading of Emma made me love it - it’s a tour de force.

Try it here https://soundcloud.com/harpercollinspublishers/emma-by-jane-austen-read-by

I'm no critic, but I agree that Persuasion is the best (and that Bleak House is the best Dickens). I studied both for A level in 1979 and have ready them both several times since.

I love all Austen novels, even including Mansfield Park. It's no good viewing Fanny, Edmund and the Crawfords through modern eyes. My least favourite used to be Northanger Abbey but is now probably Emma.

Yes MM. I agree re Colin Firth. When I heard he was cast in P&P I genuinely thought he would be Mr Bingley. 🤣

I spent ages trying to think if the actual word shit had crept in anywhere. Not that I can recall so I think it must be the dung cart in Persuasion. Is that right?

It is in the film, just not dwelt on. It's not the film version which would win any prizes for being either the closest to the book or the most historically accurate anyway.

Who is potato face? Matthew M? A rather attractive potato then. Incidentally, I always think of Colin F as pudding face.

Good God, not old potato face. I don’t like him in Succession either.

Persuasion and Pride & Prejudice are my favourites. I never tire of them. In terms of adaptations, I'll stick my head above the parapit to say I prefer Matthew Macfayden as Darcy although I know I'm in the minority.

I remember the director of the 2005 P&P saying that he deliberately skated over the Lydia and Wickham bit because a modern audience just wouldn't understand what was so awful about it.

I think Lydia being only sixteen, while Wickham must be in his twenties, would at least be strongly disapproved of by modern audiences.

And it's what finally brings Lizzie and Darcy together; how do you make that make sense if you skate over Lydia and Wickham?

Can you remember the only reference to shit in JA?

I think that’s JA taking on the earlier JA’s more apparent religious ideas in her later work, Fanny approving of family services at Sotherton, Edmund not intending to be an absentee priest, employing a curate to do his parish work, living among his flock to give counsel etc. Her ideas about marriage are always a combination of Eros and economics — she’s absolutely against ‘love in a cottage’ where there’s not enough money to sustain the couple. For her, love isn’t enough. Better to be Charlotte, sensible, not in love, but married to a modestly prosperous man with good prospects. I think Emma is speaking for Austen, too, when she says she has no inducement to marry, as she lacks neither consequence nor money — she would need to be in love, and she doesn’t think that’s likely.

I don’t think Lizzy or Jane would think it was ‘sinful’ to marry a man you didn’t love, for instance.

Ha ha. I do have the sort of memory that stores JA quotes and forgets basic life skills.

You win!

The problem is that to a 21st C audience, not much he does is beyond the pale, pretty much everything up to sleeping with a married woman is ok. I remember the director of the 2005 P&P saying that he deliberately skated over the Lydia and Wickham bit because a modern audience just wouldn't understand what was so awful about it.

From a 19th C perspective, Crawford is dodgy on sex & marriage in general (doesn't have a problem with his Uncle's mistress being moved in to the family home; deliberately messes with women's feelings hoping to cause trouble; even his sister admits that he would have continued to flirt with Maria after marrying Fanny). Apart from that, he's disrespectful of religion, a poor and uncaring landlord, possibly a gambler and definitely a massive hedonist who lives only for himself and doesn't care about anyone else, except a little for his sister.

The massive red flag from a 21st C perspective is that he harasses Fanny so much when she has very clearly said no to him. He continues to think it's a game to win her over, and even when he really likes her, it's with the attitude of a spoilt man-child who will continue until he gets his own way. He bullies her, wants her family to do the same, literally turns up in places she should be able to have a refuge. He hounds her into misery just because he can't handle a woman saying no to him. It is the one power she has and he tries to wear her down, he just won't back off and give her the agency to choose for herself.

Sorry that was Mansfield Park and Henry Crawford again!

I can’t help looking at it with 21st C eyes. He was a shocking flirt, but until he ran off with Mrs R (somewhat contrived resolution where I think JA got herself in hand), was there anything else? I can’t recall tbh.

It's a theme in Emma that women with independent money can afford to be picky, those without cannot.

I've always thought the entail thing in P&P was a bit risky anyway. Even if they had had a son to inherit, there's no saying he would have kept his sisters and mother living with him, beyond social expectation. He could have pled poverty and packed them off to be governesses or keep a boarding house (like Mrs Young). John Dashwood managed to get rid of his half-sisters PDQ. Really Mr Bennet was beyond negligent to not have been saving from when he first got married, never mind his excuse of waiting until several years after Lydia was born in the hopes of a male child.

I think the point is that Darcy and Elizabeth are both morally upright (Elizabeth even reflects, when she's reassessing Darcy, that she's never heard of had reason to believe that he is at all irreligious), so differences in temperament can be to the advantage of each. Whereas Crawford is just a wrong'un through and through, à la Willoughby, Wickham, Mr Elliot - all dissolute, unsuitable for marriage. 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.