The Genteel Reading Circle For Ladies

[EverySongbirdSays]

In which like minds will discuss Jane Austen and other such 19th Century Classics sparked from an unhealthy interest in the sex life of one Mr Collins, parson to her ladyship Catherine De Bourgh of Rosings Park

First up : Sense And Sensibility

Bring your love of Dashwood, Brandon, Willoughby, Farrars, and Emma Thompson's weird crying noise here!!!

I'm in.

Phwoar at Alan Rickman and all, but isn't Colonel Brandon a bit of a creepy old fucker? Mid thirties and lusting after a silly young teenager who's only a couple of years older than his ward? The whole 'reminds him of a lost love' thing really icks me out as well ... surely Marianne deserves to be loved for who she is, not because she reminds him of someone else?

Count me in although I've just started P&P thanks to the other thread. I will download S&S right away.

rosie I kind of agree that Brandon is a creep. Or maybe it's that voice of his (I mean AR's) voice, obvs.

However I think Marianne has made an excellent match, given the circumstances. Surely her reputation is in tatters given her gadding about unaccompanied with Willoughby. It's not completely her fault; both the Jennings and Mrs D enable the alliance, even though Brandon's already on the scene and is a much better match in practical terms.

She goes mooning after Willoughby, makes herself ill, revels in it and goes walkabout, makes herself even more ill, almost dies and ends up with the best catch in the book!

I suppose the irony is that it's probably not what she wanted.

I never thought Brandon and Marianne were a good mix, I thought Brandon and Eleanor were better.

Agree. Since when is it ok for 35+ men to fall for teenagers? Same wth knightley and Emma to be honest, though I do love the book too

olivebranch all comers welcome - like the name

Unfortunately I think it was pretty de rigeur for young men not to marry until they were well established and then to choose 'fertile stock' - knightley is Emma's godfather which is the truly ick bit - overtones of Daddy issues with both her and Marianne

I think Brandon was a bit of an opportunist who swooped in when Marianne was all morose and placid after her near death experience (going for a walk when it was a bit drizzly, oh the peril!). And he's only in love with her because she reminds him of his long lost floozy. So that's a bit creepy.

Plus would he make you laugh? I put it to you that he certainly would not make one chuckle (not that she was a laugh a minute either, all those 'I'm so passionate' strops. Ugh.). I also put it to you that the Colonel's bedchamber proclivities would be of an exotic nature and nothing that Mamma's delicate chat about what to expect from one's husband would have prepared Marianne for.

She should have scandalised decent society by running off to London and having a career on the stage, a string of beaux and a wild old time. Sounds much more fun to me than being shackled to intense old Brandon.

Colonel Brandon should have married Marianne's mother.

Knightley's not Emma's godfather, though agree there is a hefty age difference between them. Remember, too, that he admits to having fallen in love with her when she was thirteen.

IDK, I think that to a certain extent everyone is attracted to a certain 'type' of potential partner. Col Brandon was attracted to Marianne because she was his type, not simply because she reminded him of his lost love. And it appears to me that Col Brandon had a bit of a 'rescuer thing' going on as well. If he had been wiser he would have chosen Elinor.

But I think part of the 'moral of the story' is that Marianne 'wised up' after all her suffering and realized that Col Brandon was a good man who could make her happy. That in the long run 'sense' was better than 'sensibility'. I believe (romantic that I am) that she grew to love him deeply.

I guess I'm looking at it from the perspective of someone who made a disastrous marriage at too young an age to a man who was 'my type' and later wised up/grew up because of the experience. My now DH would never have been 'my type' back then but by the time we met that 'type' had changed for the (much) better and I could appreciate and love him.

I was sure he was her Godfather! Think I got that idea from the Romola Garai version

As to Brandon I'm sure I shouldn't mind his exotic proclivities

EverySongbird

That's the thing with the adaptations -- much as I love them, I think they can be quite dangerous. A lot of posters (here, and on the other thread) have quoted things which aren't Austen at all, or which the screenwriters have given to the wrong characters, etc.

Knightley is Emma'a bro-in-law. His brother is married to her sister and they live in London.

Well it's all very exacting and precise in the ladies circle I'm sure we'll note that when it comes to Emma wonder when the first flurry of 'having just read Chapter 1' will come in - hoping to read a few chapters tonight

Didn't mean to be snippy! Have just finished writing a book on Austen, though, so am probably a bit too serious about her ...

Oh MissLambe! Tell us more - if you don't mind revealing yourself, of course.

Well, if you insist …

It's called Jane Austen, the Secret Radical. It doesn't come out till November, but if anyone's interested it is available to pre-order:-

www.amazon.co.uk/Austen-Secret-Radical-Helena-Kelly/dp/1785781162?ie=UTF8&Version=1&entries=0

Basically, it argues that because Austen is so popular, because there's such a powerful cultural idea of who she is and what her novels are doing, and we've read so many biographies and watched so many adaptations, we end up not actually begin able to see a lot of stuff that's there on the page. Basically everything we think we know gets in the way of reading the texts properly.

Don't mean to hijack, though!

Ooh I must absolutely read that! Thank you.

My reading was transformed by a lecture many years ago by Umberto Eco, who talked about an author and their text.

He argued IIUC that there were three "texts":
what the author thought they were writing;
what the reader thought they were reading;
and the actual words on the paper.

And gave the example of a reader who had asked him about an interaction between two scenes in Name of the Rose. Well, Eco had no idea the interaction was there. He'd added one of the scenes at a late stage, to slow down the pace between plot elements - it was Brother William expounding some philosophy to Adso. He hadn't realised that, coming fresh to the actual words as a reader, the content of this scene could highlight or counterpoise some content in the second scene. Depending on the reader, of course!

This is probably basic stuff for students of literature, but was a revelation for me.

Of course, that's just my reading of Eco said...

Thanks for the link MissLambe, it looks like a fascinating book.

I just came across this page of poems about JA.

My favourite speech in the whole of Austin, is when John's wife dissuades him from financial help for his sisters. The progress from £3000 a year to "I am sure he just meant you to help them find somewhere to live" is priceless.

And a favourite quote in our house is, that 'people do tend to live forever whe there is an annuity to be paid'.

I love this thread.

I hope it's not too late to join in?
I've got a copy of S&S here in my reticule, all ready to start reading.

Oh yes, I love that part too Kwirrell the idea is from King Lear I think, but also shows so typical a glimpse of JA's society.

I think that Emma Thompson-scripted S and S was very clever in how it tweaked (via casting and editing, mostly) the novel into something more immediately palatable to contemporary filmgoers.

The novel doesn't think Elinor's 'sense', discretion, rational realism etc about society needs to change at all, but Marianne's romanticism needs to be pruned - her 'sensibility' needs to change into 'sense'. JA approvingly shows Marianne becoming more like Elinor, so only one of the sisters has to change.

Whereas modern film audiences would find JA's Elinor far too buttoned-up, prudent and old before her time for their taste, and probably find a moody, passionate teenager like Marianne easier to relate to. And another 'problem' with the novel is that neither of the men they end up marrying constitutes a bona fide romantic hero. The novel's Edward Ferrars is shy and dull, Brandon is a middle-aged man only just younger than the girls' mother, who wears flannel waistcoats (the contemporary equivalent of a Zimmer frame ).

So the film tweaks things slightly by making Elinor's hysterical tears when she hears Edward Ferrars isn't married to Lucy Steele the emotional heart of the end of the film - it's suggesting she has spent the action of the film being overly repressed (so we're encouraged to agree with Marianne when she asks E 'Where is your heart?' rather than thinking that E's behaviour throughout is perfect.) Plus casting Hugh Grant to do his (for some people, at least!) likeably diffident mumbling toff thing makes his appeal more obvious, especially in how he relates to the film's tomboyish Margaret. So Elinor is humanised (by contemporary standards) by the film.

And casting Alan Rickman as a brooding, sexy Brandon makes Marianne's 'punishment' for her extreme sensibility/imprudence far less extreme than it is in the novel, where he's a more obviously 'safe' second best.

So Marianne is blamed less for her conduct in the film and Elinor is made somewhat less starchy - both of them change, not just Marianne. It's more about finding a balance then the necessity for sensibility to change into sense, if that makes sense?

I watched the other day when Alan Rickman died and Emma Thompson is just magnificent.

No pretty crying for her. When she cries she looks terrible. I believe that crying.