Austen Gets the Twilight Treatment

In the YA section of my local B+N.

Previously: The "Twilight"-ification of "Wuthering Heights" Continues

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This Week In Jane

Yes, the blogs are abuzz with news of the Jane Austen exhibit opening at the Morgan... it's a writerly exhibit of manuscripts and letters, so no Colin Firth paraphernalia to be found, just raw genius. I will be going to this and reporting on it forthwith, dear readers.

The Pride and Prejudice graphic novel we've talked about before is shooting up the bestseller charts.

You know, every single time I go to the bookstore I see more Jane-related titles. At what point will news reporters realize that Jane-ism isn't just a fad?

Lost in Austen

UPDATE: Friend of the EBC gettsr offers her own interpretation of "LIA," in which she delves into the postmodern implications of the miniseries. We must be psychic.


I'd heard lots about this over the fangirl network when it initially aired and despite the snark, I decided to watch the last 3 episodes, which were re-run on Ovation a few weekends ago.

For those who don't know the premise--Amanda Price, modern girl and Jane fanatic, steps into Pride and Prejudice, switching places with Eliza Bennet who enters modern London. Amanda finds the characters not quite as solid as Jane Austen prepares her for--they seem to have minds of their own. She desperately tries to keep things running as Pride and Prejudice would have her, meanwhile struggling with her own feelings about Mr. Darcy. But when zombies show up at Netherfield err, Mr. Collins gets hitched with Jane, the book goes out the window and our modern heroine, Ms. Price, is left trying to keep things from being a colossal catastrophe, to say nothing of as smooth as an Austen plot.

Well, to sum it up: the dialogue and action are so far from period-appropriate it's a joke, there are all kinds of weird Shakespearean and other random literary and philosophical allusions thrown in for no reason, and absolute havoc is wreaked on one of the most perfectly crafted, if not the most perfectly crafted, plot in literary history. Also, the characters travel in their wagons from Netherfield to Longbourn to Rosings to Pemberly and back again so quickly as to render it absurd, and the plot moves just as briskly. It's a hot mess.

But it still works, it really does. It works because the actors are heartfelt and give sweet performances, particularly the hunky (and I mean hunky) Eliot Cowan as a somewhat more earthy Darcy, Jemima Rooper as Amanda Price, and the exquisite Tom Riley as a most rascally and loveable Wickham. And it's a meditation on our fictional friends, the characters we think we know and understand, who, if given flesh and blood, might be much more slippery than we think.

Any way, it's worth a diverting, distracting, chuckle-worthy view for those who don't mind their pristine classics being trampled on in the name of fun and entertainment and a little philosophizing, too.

(Warning: spoiler-iffic video)

Kiera Knightley Snark-Tweetfest immortalized

I went a little wild on twitter earlier upon catching Kiera on Oxygen tv. Then some folks joined in! Here is (an abridged version of) what happened. People's response tweets are in bold.

---

The Kiera Knightley "Pride & Prejudice is on". Her stupid teeth/ lack of boobs ruin every hot Matthew MacFayden scene. unfeminist, but true.


what I meant by that is that her poor acting skills and girlish demeanor ill befit the character of Lizzy Bennet

eaton @fellowette Don't JUDGE me, Lizzy! Don't you dare JUDGE me!

@eaton Oh, Charlotte, let me make amends by anachronistically grinning and giggling, thereby showing you my white shiny movie star teeth! in reply to eaton

stephaniesays @fellowette I never thought she had the "bright eyes," imo.

stephaniesays I know. It's too bad because I actually like Kiera and think she's gorgeous. She's just all kinds of wrong for the role. in reply to stephaniesays

kafkatronic @fellowette And then there's the bad wig, with her real (short) hair always poking out from under it in the back.

janeaustenworld @fellowette Agreed. She was an inept Lizzie.

susanchamplin@fellowette Can't stand Keira Knightley (incl stupid teeth/lack of boobs), so please: HAVE AT IT!

oh now here's the scene where mr./mrs. bennet snuggle in bed and joke CAUSE THEY REALLY HAVE A HAPPY MARRIAGE just as jane austen intended
and now Lady Catherine is showing up in the middle of the night! cause that makes lots of sense.

(no hate to Judi Dench intended, I worship you, dame Judi)

and now the movie turns into Jane Eyre. Having left the bigamist rochester, lizzy bennet wanders the misty moors in her nightclothes

only to espy a Gentleman shrouded by fog striding towards her! IS IT HE???????

And he tells her "Lizzy. I killed Rebecca. I HATED her!" and all is well


is it me or does Matthew MacFayden walk the equivalent of thousands of miles just by constantly, anxiously pacing throughout this film?

kafkatronic .@fellowette I have met ppl who actually think Jane Austen wrote the "I love...love...love you" bit. Those ppl now sleep with the fishes...

Oh god. here comes "mrs darcy, mrs darcy mrs darcy" and the hairy calves/swimming pool ending.


teresareads Amen. RT @janeaustenworld @fellowette Absolutely HORRID American ending to P&P 2005. Mrs. Darcy. Mrs. Darcy. Mrs. Darcy. UGGH.

Last snark re: movie. Pemberley's supposed to be like Lizzy: natural, simple, unadorned. This pemberley is like MTV cribs: regency edition.

@teresareads @janeaustensworld @writemeg @kafkatronic @susanchamplin @eaton and @stephaniesays as well! thks 4 joining P&P live-snark. I <3 style="font-style: italic;">

---

THE END (thus saith the goddess divine on tuesdays, something else some other days, and of course Mrs. Darcy Mrs Darcy Mrs Darcy when she is in-can-descently happy!)

"Mr Darcy, Vampyre", Excerpt from Mags

Over at Austenblog.

Let the mingling of the fandoms commence!

(image credit: amandagrange.com)

Another Pride and Prejudice Parody

via my tweep @bethlovesbolly

@fellowette P&P with 20th century dances at the ball - SO fun. Hard to look at Darcy the same now. http://trunc.it/nqh5 starting at 2:10

The video starts around 2:10 and goes for less than a minute, but the attention to detail is very funny. The brits take their Pride and Prejudice references seriously.

A New "Who's The Best Darcy" Poll To Add to Your Barouche

Go vote for Colin Firth in the Darcy smackdown over at the awesome Jane Austen Today.

The New Yorker Hates P+P + Z--quel surpise

Macy Halford of storied high- intellectual rag The New Yorker thinketh not too kindly of our friend Seth Grahame-Smith's hybridization of genteel manners and the vicious undead.

---

The plot continues in this manner—Lizzie, Darcy, zombies, blah, blah, blah—until the end, and there isn’t much more to say about it, except to reiterate is awfulness. The experience of reading it is like taking a walk in a park on a beautiful day and knowing that a thunderstorm or something else deeply unpleasant (say, a zombie) might spring up at any moment and ruin everything. In this instance, the something unpleasant is Grahame-Smith’s writing. But perhaps I’m being too harsh: I met a fan of the book last weekend who praised it as “an intelligent fart joke.”

---

Yes, you ARE being too harsh m'dear, but it's cool. The joke contained within Pride and Prejudice and Zombies' pages isn't for everyone.

The rest of Halford's piece ruminates on why there's such an attraction for Austen among the genre fiction crowd, judging at length that said attraction is caused by the already-hinted at subtext of scandal and seduction within Austen's novels--see Churchill and Fairfax's amour/Willoughby and Wickham's extracurricular activities. This may be true, or it may also be that Jane Austen is basically second to fucking Shakespeare in terms of recongizability in pop culture, and just as there have been sci-fi and horror Shakespeare takeoffs (Forbidden Planet anyone?), there will be Austen ones as well. Because that's what happens to popular stories. People want to own them. But critics are still hesitant to admit how much raw power Jane wields posthumously, cause she was a spinster and stuff. Sigh.

However however, the subtext question that Halford brings up is interesting.I'm reading Pamela, and I caught the end of Sense and Sensibility '95 on TV last night, and the combination made me recall what a wise prof once told me about Jane Austen. Pamela, like most early novels save a few, is all about the attempted seduction/rape of a virtuous young woman. Austen has that seduction plot in nearly all of her novels--but it's not the main plot. She moved the 18th century novel, to the margins, and put her class and marriage maneuvers/the growth of her heroines in the spotlight, and thus she is the perfect bridge between 1700s and 1800s fiction.*

*And also the best novelist evah. Booyah.

Literary Characters on Twitter--Pride and Prejudice

Here are the ones I've found (okay, I'm largely responsible for one of the following... can you guess who?). Which characters have I missed? Which others are sorely needed in the twittersphere?

NetherfieldPark narrates the tale.

http://twitter.com/NetherfieldPark

Lizzy_Bennet has a liveliness of spirit which is most enchanting.

http://twitter.com/Lizzy_Bennet

mister_darcy has a manner that some mistake for proud.

http://twitter.com/mister_darcy

Mr_Collins pontificates about his patroness.

http://twitter.com/mr_collins

PemberleyEstate has a beautiful prospect looking down on a lake.

http://twitter.com/PemberleyEstate

Eliza_Bennet of all this, she could have been mistress

http://twitter.com/Eliza_Bennet

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance - Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem! by Seth Grahame-Smith


My review
rating: 4 of 5 stars
So I caved and ended up speeding through the manners and mayhem in 24 hours. It was an easy read because I know the source material almost by heart.


It was a lot funnier than I expected--the best moments all came from perfectly-timed incongruity or from zombie madness expressed through Regency Euphemism. It's a hilarious idea and very diverting. A classic like Pride and Prejudice could sustain infinite zombie attacks, particularly ones that are so respectful to the original.



MINOR SPOILERS for those who don't know the setup:

England is overrun by a plague of the "silent stricken" undead and Lizzy, Darcy et al. have all undergone the perilous journey to the Orient to study the deadly arts with masters of the form so that they can kill as many zombies as possible. Because of her training Lizzy is forever desiring to kill or behead people who insult her honor, and Lady Catherine has a team of ninjas at her disposal. Each carriage ride from Longbourn to Meryton to Darbyshire to Kent is fraught with peril from mindless zombie armies, but few are a match for Lizzy's skill with a blade.

All very well done--but forgive me for being kind of disappointed that the Zombie plot didn't in any way crescendo along with the romance and intrigue. I mean I actually hoped that just as Darcy and Lizzy are getting friendly at the inn at Lambton and then Lydia elopes, there would be a climactic, vigorous zombie attack and an army needed to combat it. But no, this book really is Pride and Prejudice with zombies sprinkled throughout, though the nasty characters do get rather grizzlier commeuppances the general thrust of the plot remains the same.

A fun novelty read for those, like me, who can't get enough Jane. But it really just makes you love the original even more--because Jane's jokes stand up so well next to jokes about disemboweling and tasty brains.




View all my reviews.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies Is In the House

That's rite, y'all--my bf brought home a free copy of this new bestseller(!!). Amazingly, his blog post for EW on the topic got quoted on the book's back jacket. I'm so proud.

Anyway, I can't wait to dig into this corpse-killing, witticism-spewing masterpiece but I just started Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone for the fifth time and this time I'm actually at page 50, aided by the knowledge that Greg Wise plays the lead in the BBC version, so I'd like to keep the momentum going a bit.

Have any of you started P&P&Z yet?

A Barouche-load of Austen Polls for Your Voting Pleasure

Via Mags, it appears that the Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal-Sentinel has done what all good newspapers should do in order to boost their dying profession: turn to Jane.

Their Pride and Prejudice-o-meter features ten rather redundant and silly Jane Austen film-related polls. Fortunately, the "good" Firth-Ehle P+P adaptation (aka P+P '95) is mercilessly and thoroughly killing all the other films in almost every single category, which proves that there's some moral currency left in this bankrupt world. Go vote and contribute to the trumping that poor Kiera is receiving.

Literary Links: Austen and Brontes edition

Austen-blog brings us news of two awesome P+P related projects we've talked about here before:

• The Pride and Prejudice Musical which will open on Broadway in 2010 (zomg!)
• The Pride and Prejudice Marvel Comic. A Q+A with the author.

Meanwhile, Bronte-blog brings us news of a French teen Wuthering Heights obsession brought on by Twilight-mania. It's seriously amazing and one of the linked articles includes this graf;

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At chain store Fnac, the novel is described as the "favourite book of Bella and Edward, the two heroes of Twilight!" Teenage fansites are buzzing with chat about the book. "Fan de bella" thought it was "GENIAL" and "couldn't stop crying it was so beautiful", while "Flora" from Strasbourg said she'd "adored" it for its "unparalleled violence", its "mad poetry" and "profound passion". "Bella is the dignified descendent of the romantic Victorian heroine, which is seen in her sometimes disproportionate, slightly mad reactions, which are reminiscent of a certain Catherine," said a third commentator.

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GENIAL indeed.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, as blogged by my sig oth

It's good to be surrounded by male Janeites.. I was lucky enough to have a brother and dad who were Friends of Jane when I was growing up, but then I found a romantic partner who loved him some of that that Regency Lit too...well he'd never read it before we met, but he soon embraced Jane with a passion heretofore unheard of (except for the way he embraced Bruce Springsteen). So here he is, blogging with the ardor of a true believer about Pride and Prejudice and Zombies at his fancy magazine--there's a flame war in the comments between pro-zombie Janeites and anti-zombie Janeites!

Happy Birthday Pride and Prejudice

According to these sources called the internets and the Wikipedia, today is Pride and Prejudice's birthday. January 28th 1813--it's almost 200 years old dude!

So yes, today must be celebrated, as it marks the birth of the most perfect novel ever written (whether it's the absolute best or not is a constant struggle for me--but that's another story). Not only is it flawlessly constructed and endlessly re-readable, but P+P has spawned a truly amazing group of spinoffs, contemporary adaptations, and perhaps the most unauthorized sequels of any novel ever written. I mean the number of women who fantasize about Lizzy and Darcy, err, frolicking beneath the bedclothes, and then get said fantasies published and widely read, is truly, simply, extraordinary. Jane bless them all.

So in sum and in conclusion, lets party with Mizz Austen (this is a JASNA image, awesome right?) continue wishing we were Lizzy Bennet, live to see many young men of 4,000 a year come into the neighborhood, and make sport for our neighbors and laugh at them in our turn.

Bridget Jones Interviews Colin Firth

According to my dashboard, that last bit of trifling nonsense, whatever it was, was my 500th post. To celebrate, and because I've got Bridget on the brain, here is this super meta scene from the "deleted scenes" of the second film, Edge of Reason (even funnier in the book). I think it sums up a lot of facets of this blog.

A fun-filled week of contemporary P+P updates

It's funny how ubiquitous P+P is in pop culture... this week I caught two of my fave recent flicks, both of which are adapations of that novel.

First was the Bollywood-Hollywood-rom-com-musical hybrid spectacular "Bride and Prejudice"... I've never talked about this film at length here, but I have to say for a moment just how much I love it. It updates the P&P storyline with some interesting cultural and economic twists, and Aishwarya Rai is just a total winner as Latika/Lizzy, and I love the goofy, spirited, whirling musical numbers, the gorgeous filmmaking, and all the secondary characters. Here's the opening musical number:



(Sorry for the teeny-tininess)

[On a sidenote, I'm fascinated by female-directed, female-centric films like this and Mama Mia that have such an unself-conscious joie de vivre. They're so different from almost all other films (and misunderstood by critics). It's funny that both were such giant hits in the UK and less so here, though neither flopped]

Perennially-beloved contemporary P+P (and Tom Jones) adaptation "Bridget Jones's Diary" (which I've written about before) happened to be on tV for the umpteenth time this weekend. Though the film is not as good as the book, it's still the last great Rom-Com to grace our screens. With the exception of "Music and Lyrics," there hasn't been a decent addition to the genre in years. It has a non-stick-thin, non chirpy heroine, which makes me particularly happy (and all though much of the humor is at her expense, she has her share of fantastic zingers). And I love all the P+P in-references, particularly when Bridget tells Darcy "you need to seriously reconsider the length of your sideburns."

Here's a funny scene from the first one:

Pride and Prejudice Marvel Comic

First there was a Jane Eyre graphic novel/comic. Now there's P&P. I've seen people tweeting this and blogging it all day, so here it is. If I were feeling snootier/more feministy, I'd grumble and moan about one of the greatest treasures of the literary canon being reduced to a crappy she-mag. But in my current mellow state, I'm inclined to think it's less threatening to Austen's legacy than, say, Becoming Jane was.

Lizzy's Smackdowns: The Final Results

Mr. Darcy's initial rejection wins, hands down. It is a reproof we shall never forget. I have to say that although that first proposal scene is probably the most iconic and important, I think Lizzy's verbal game is even better in the Lady Catherine confrontation. And so did some voters, but not enough!Here are the results, in order of popularity:

______

To DARCY: 'the mode of your declaration...spared me the concern which I might have felt in refusing you, had you behaved in a more gentleman-like manner.''
79 (43%)

______

TO LADY CATHERINE: ``If you believed it impossible to be true, I wonder you took the trouble of coming so far.
44 (24%)

______

TO LYDIA: `I thank you for my share of the favour, but I do not particularly like your way of getting husbands.''
29 (16%)

______

TO LADY CATHERINE: ``That will make your ladyship's situation at present more pitiable; but it will have no effect on me.''
24 (13%)

______

TO COLLINS: 'You are too hasty, Sir. You forget that I have made no answer. Let me do it without farther loss of time... I am very sensible of the honour of your proposals, but it is impossible for me to do otherwise than decline them.
4 (2%)

______

TOTAL VOTES: 180

THE TOP FIVE PERIOD LITERARY ADAPTATION HOTTIES

First, let's remind ourselves of some of the criteria:

1. Smouldering
2. Sneering
3. Delighted chuckling
4. Breech-wearing [and lifting up tails whilst sitting down]
   
5. Steed-riding
6. Manor-owning
7. Witticism-uttering
8. Maintaining an air of mystery
9. British-accenting
10. Oath-swearing
11. You get the idea. Here they are.

#1 Colin Firth

"In vain have I struggled."

Colin wins, hands-down for the resurgence of Darcymania--his Darcy was more snide, haughty, and cold than any other in history, and his diving into the lake, fencing, and bathtub scenes famously reversed the male gaze and made him a sex object. Then, his transformation to humility and stammering awkwardness after Jennifer Ehle's Lizzy rejects him puts H-h-hugh Grant to shame. Colin's also done a nice job glowering and panting after Scarlett Johansenn as the painter Vermeer in Girl With the Pearl Earring, seducing young Irish ladies as a caddish landowner in Circle of Friends, trading clever barbs with Rupert Everett in the Importance of Being Earnest, and parodying himself in the Bridget Jones movies.

#2 Greg Wise
"Will you allow me to ascertain if there are any breaks?"

Supplanting Kenneth Branagh as Emma Thompson's leading man in real life gets him points, but even though he's potentially less famous than some of the others on this list, he's this high because he owns the role of the cad so utterly and completely. From the ultimate betrayer, Willoughby, in Sense and Sensibility (leading Kate Winslet to alter a recital of a Shakespeare Sonnet thus: " Oh no! It is an ever fixed mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken. Willoughby. Willoughby. Willoughby.") His finest work might be on Materpiece Theater: in Madame Bovary, he shows his bare ass off as Rodolphe, consummating his love with Emma Bovary in a forest (with horses nearby. They were out riding, you see.). And he also "takes" Nan St. George, corsets and all, in the midst of a cornfield in TV's turgid adaptation of Wharton's "The Buccaneers". No wonder Emma Thompson loves him so!

#3 Sir Laurence Olivier.
Because besides all that Shakespearean stuff, the Vivien Leigh business, and Lord Nelson, Sir L. got to play both romantic heroes Darcy and Heathcliff, (not to mention the uber-secretive Maxim de Winter) and he perfected the snarling glower, the pacing restlessness, and the lustful eyes long before the current hunks were even born. It's enough to get a girl singing Kate Bush at the top of her lungs.

"Cathy!"

#4 Ciaran Hinds

Alright, so the was in worst movie ever ever ever (Miami Vice). But his performance as Captain Wentworth in Persuasion was so so so finely wrought, un-Hollywood, and sexy in a subdued way that we finally root for him over the more traditionally dishy Mr. Eliot (more on that lothario in the previous installment). Plus, he makes a wild and passionate Edward Rochester in Jane Eyre, he's a kick-ass julius Caesar on "Rome", and he dared to play the Mayor of Casterbridge, one of Hardy's most depressing characters (other than obscure old Jude), which speaks to his integrity and craft and all that other important actor-y stuff.

"You pierce my soul."

#5-Jeremy Northam

Maybe it's because he redeemed Emma (while Gwyneth was ugh) ...but more likely because of his spot-on turn in An Ideal Husband as a confident, noble politician with a shameful secret in his past (held by the delicious Julianne Moore)... and even more because of his ruthless, conniving and yes, very sexy (bearded!) role as Prince Amerigo in the Merchant-Ivory adaptation of James' The Golden Bowl. He's got Uma and Kate Beckinsale pining away. And because of his fandom.


Okay, so what are your quibbles? I'm happy to debate 'em.

And don't forget I'm adding five new hotties from movies I've seen in the last two years... So of those, WHO WILL BE NUMBER ONE? Will it be a concealed Jew who thinks he's the bastard spawn of nobility? A snarling mill-owner softened by a lady's touch? Or what about an "emo" Rochester, an Edward Ferrars who chops wood in the rain, or perhaps a country doctor who pines after a young winsome patient? Tune in to the next installment.