Jane Austen

[BaconAndAvocado]

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?

Can't believe nobody's mentioned how Catherine Moreland at 15 "began to curl her hair and long for balls." I can't be the only juvenile Janeite surely?

I watched it. I made it through to the end, but it really was terrible. Bad acting, and entirely ruined the feel of the novel.

I'm also not keen on the newer adaptation of Emma, from a couple of years ago. This may be controversial, but I really liked Gwyneth Paltrow's Emma.

I enjoyed it, but my expectations had been "managed" by the reviews I had read.

I had no idea that Joan Allen had written about Jane Austen's books. She was a favourite author of my mum and mine, and I have read a lot of her books, so thank you for the heads up.

I enjoyed the Netflix Persuasion.

Not so keen on the Anya ?? (Girl from Queen's Gambit) Emma.

Anyone tried PD James "Death Comes to Pemberley" - a crime sequel to "Pride and Prejudice"

I was sceptical when I picked it up but ended up rather enjoying it

Joan Aiken, not Allen!

ManAboutTown
That sounds interesting.
I’ll put it on my wish list.

The book was much better than the adaptation I thought.

I think that's right and PD James managed to keep the characters pretty true

Yes, few adaptations have the courage to cast a much prettier actress as Jane. I would also like to see a beautiful 40 year old as Mrs Bennet, not another shrieky old biddy performance. In fact, I’d like an adaptation, that acknowledged that Mrs Bennet is right to be desperate to marry her daughters, even if she’s also ridiculous.

I’d rank them as Mansfield Park, Persuasion, Emma, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Northanger Abbey.

Also seconding a pp’s suggestion that fans of the Crawfords should read Joan Aiken’s Mansfield Revisited, which rehabilitates both of them, sends Fanny and Edmund to Antigua and has Fanny’s sister Susan as heroine.

Jane is supposed to be prettier than Lizzie, but I think it depends whether you judge people on the standards of Austen's time or modern preferences. Both Rosamund Pike and Susannah Harker are paler than Keira Knightley and Jennifer Ehle, for example. If you were going for Regency/late Georgian pretty then fair skin and rosy cheeks would be seen as more beautiful, whereas I think nowadays most people would prefer a darker skin tone.

Keira Knightley isn't curvy enough to be Regency beautiful.

I still get annoyed every single time I read Mansfield Park that Fanny doesn't accept Henry's proposal. Edmund is such a fucking drip. Yes, yes, Jane, I get your point that his running off with Maria shows him to be morally compromised blah blah. But I can't help but think that Miss Crawford is right and Fanny would have steadied Henry while Henry would have brought Fanny out of her priggish shell. Grrrrr.

Persuasion for me too. I just love the tension.
P&P second.

I haven’t read Emma since I was 17 and doing it for A level. I’ve had many attempts but find her irritating. Must try again.

I saod on another thread that if Henry Crawford had married Fanny he'd rapidly have got bored with her unrelenting moral righteousness and would have sought out more congenial female company. He'd admire her for it and realise that he didn't measure up to her standards while simultaneously wishing he did (to earn her respect) and being glad he didn't (because he finds that unremittingly tedious).

Miss Crawford is biased in her opinion, she loves Henry and wants to believe that he only needs a good woman to steady him. But Henry was not a one woman kind of man, he would have broken Fanny's heart eventually. While I believe he had feelings for her, mostly she was a challenge for him, once he had 'conquered' her and she had fallen under his spell he would have tired of her very quickly. Drippy Edmund and drippy Fanny were made for each other. (can't believe I just wrote drippy Fanny)

Quite possibly. But at least it would have been a bit more interesting! I think the union of those two drippy souls is one of the relatively rare places where Regency mores don't translate too well. Given how vulnerable women were financially and reputation-wise, it does make sense to be scrupulous about your future husband's moral character. But ugh.

I also still want Lily Bart to marry Rosedale and step all over Bertha Dorset, though, so maybe I do have a secret weakness for women rising via rich husbands, despite never ever advising women to be so practical and mercenary about marriage on here IRL.

Just finished Mansfield Revisited, thanks for the recommendations!

Yes, I enjoyed it - although the ending became obvious very quickly. Interesting that one character talked about it being a sin for a woman to marry a man she didn’t love. That feels as if it must have been very much a luxury belief in those days, when women’s options were so limited. I’d like to have seen her argue it out with Charlotte Collins.

Interesting that one character talked about it being a sin for a woman to marry a man she didn’t love. That feels as if it must have been very much a luxury belief in those days, when women’s options were so limited.

Jane Austen gave similar advice to a niece, though not worded quite so strongly. She herself also turned down at least one proposal.

Women's options were limited, but she must have seen among her acquaintances instances of women (and men) trapped in unhappy or unwise marriages and decided it was better to remain single than risk that.

I agree and I can’t help thinking JA sees it too (bearing in mind what she says about Elizabeth and Darcy along similar lines!

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.

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 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.

Sorry that was Mansfield Park and Henry Crawford again!

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.

You win!