A stocking full o' books

Here's the books I got for Christmas. That's the German translation of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, which I know so well that it's easy to read in German even without a dictionary handy. That copy of Emma is also in German. Quite a German themed stack, given Christopher Isherwood's Berlin Stories, which I'm about to start reading. A new Connie Willis to look forward to, and Miss Marple just for fun.

I'm super excited to finally own Sam Starbuck's two novels, and one of them is signed! I've already reread Charitable Getting since Christmas, so I'll have a review of it soon.

Happy Birthday Miss Austen!

Jane Austen turns 235 today, and she's looking pretty good for her age. There's a blog tour going on for the occasion, and it's got lots of giveaways, so that's the place to be today.

Review: Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy: The Last Man in the World

Sometimes the books you least expect to read are the most satisfying. I worked off my desire to read Jane Austen spin-offs this summer, and in any case Pride and Prejudice was not my main interest. I had a lot of reading to do for class, and I was in the middle of a Dorothy Sayers novel. But I was at home for the weekend, and my mother went to the library, and she brought it home, and it sounded like a nice change from the history of science or linguistics, and so here we are.

Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy: The Last Man in the World, by Abigail Reynolds, is one of a series of Pride and Prejudice variations. Known usefully to the fanfiction world as AU, or alternate universe, these books choose a turning point in the story, a "What if?" scenario, and imagine how the book would run if one or two small things had happened differently. I have always loved contemplating What Ifs, and the most interesting ones are the smallest changes, which spread throughout the story and change everything.

This book's turning point is Mr. Darcy's first proposal to Elizabeth. What if she had been forced by questions of reputation and propriety to marry him? I was very pleasantly surprised by how well this premise was executed. It was well-written, chose excellent moments to throw in hints of the original book, and explored how the change in circumstance would affect the characters in interesting ways. Though the alternate path of the story changed Elizabeth and Darcy very much, I never felt like they had ceased to be Elizabeth and Darcy. The book also added some new pieces of information about the characters, which was seamlessly worked in to what we already know.

This was an interesting "What if?", a satisfying Jane Austen spin-off and an interesting story of a marriage, and it successfully managed not to be absurd, overly angsty, or self-indulgent. I read it all in a day. I think this can safely be proclaimed a winner.

Review: Evelina

I've been hearing about Frances Burney in passing ever since I started reading Jane Austen criticism a year and a half ago. Though we think of Jane Austen as a 19th century writer, she spent her first 25 years in the 18th, and early versions of some of her novels were written before the turn of the century. Further, all the early formative reading she did was of 18th century authors like Frances Burney and Samuel Richardson. The association between Jane Austen and Frances Burney for me goes one step further--in George Knightley, Esquire, there is a cat named after a character from Evelina. So when I read someone's excellent review of Evelina, I rushed off to order it from the library.

It has, I believe, exceeded all my hopes. Evelina was written in the 1770s, and in the beginning I had to keep reminding myself of this, because all my Jane Austen associations were so overpowering. As I got further into the book, however, these associations receded--not because they ceased to be true, but because the book was so good I never thought of anything but the present story. 

The easy explanation of the plot is this: Evelina is the heroine, a naive but good and intelligent young girl, raised wholly in the country, who goes to London for the first time and embarrasses herself a lot. Because Evelina is so ignorant of town customs, she's the perfect person to point out their absurdities, and in this way the book is social commentary. There's also a question of her parentage, because her father is a cad who left her mother and claimed they weren't married, and the story surrounding this, when it is finally solved, sounds very much like something out of a play, full of misunderstandings. And of course, there is a love story.

I have never read anything written prior to Jane Austen, aside from poetry and Shakespeare, so I was not entirely sure what to expect from this. The novel is written in letters. I was surprised by how often the language sounded like Shakespeare, despite being written almost 200 years later. Certain phrases and modes of wit we associate with Shakespeare turned up here, none of which I've ever noticed in Jane Austen, 40 years later. Perhaps this is partly to do with Burney's writing style, or her choice of characters, or simply 40 years of language change. 

I found Evelina captivating, though I couldn't quite tell you why. It has a certain quality, in common with Elizabeth Gaskell novels despite myriad differences between the two writers, which makes it thoroughly satisfying. I loved it.

Review: Amanda

I am beginning to despair of finding an Emma spin-off that's really good. Old Friends and New Fancies was wonderful, but Emma was a very minor character, and I didn't like what they'd done with her. Mr. Knightley's Diary was unmemorable, Perfect Happiness was rather ridiculous. Amanda is... far from perfect.

Amanda, by Debra White Smith, is a modernized Emma, set in Australia. They've changed all the names, sometimes quite unnecessarily and in silly ways--Emma Woodhouse has become Amanda Wood Priebe, Harriet Smith has become Haley Schmitz. I suppose I understand the desire to distance it from the original, but in some places it's just not necessary. Amanda is the CEO of her family's international travel agency, Haley is her secretary. Mr. Knightley, who has become Nate Knighton, is the heir of Knighton's department stores. Ms. Bates, here Betty Cates, is everyone's cleaning lady. Mr. Elton, become Mason Eldridge, is a music minister at a local church.

In some ways I thought this was quite a good modernization. Mind you, I only ever thought this when I wasn't thinking very hard. One thing that bothered me was that the whole thing was very religious. All the characters were church-going Christians, and the book made this very noticeable. I wouldn't have minded this so much if it struck me as plausible, but it never did. I find it unlikely that these people, many of whom are not at all connected except by proximity, should all happen to be so Christian. I find it out of character, even, for Emma. Or at least, the Emma we know. She's presented as being someone with not a lot of concentration--she never finishes her reading lists, never sticks to practising her music--and I know from my own personality that it takes a certain amount of concentration to be religious. Everyone in Jane Austen goes to church, of course, but that was a function of the era, and it says something very different if everyone goes to church in the present day. I suppose this is just like that movie version of a modern Pride and Prejudice that was made by the Mormons.

The other thing I disliked about this book was that it told the story from multiple viewpoints. Sometimes we see through Emma's eyes, but sometimes we see through Knightley's or Harriet's. What distinguishes Emma as a novel is the way Emma tells the story and interacts with the narrator. Everything Emma believes is true is fully plausible, and the unspoiled reader knows only as much as Emma does. When you give the reader the story through someone else's point of view--you let the reader know very early on without a doubt that Knightley is not in love with Jane Fairfax or Harriet, for example--you completely change the story. Emma gets the title for a reason--not only because she's the heroine, but because she's the storyteller. I'll admit, the author was probably not trying to echo Emma quite that closely. I doubt she put as much thought into modernizing the novel as she put into modernizing the plot. It's interesting, though, to examine how those two things interact in this process.

Reading this has reminded me once again of my opinions on professional publishing vs. the internet. I have read modern Emma stories online that I liked far better than I liked this one (try this), and I'm sure there are also better sequels and alternate POVs. Jane Austen-related fiction is kind of a great way to prove my point, as well. It's not like most fanfiction, where what's published in print is original, and what's online is not. Amanda is no more original than any Jane Austen fiction on fanfiction.net, and it is not necessarily better.

This is the last of these I'll read for a while, since the others aren't available from either of my libraries and I'll have to buy them if I really want them. I have to say I don't mind, as these books so far have been entertaining but not great, and I want to read other things. They have brought up some interesting thoughts, though, and I'm sure I'll come back to them.

A quick book meme

Rules: Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you've read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes.

1. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien - most of middle school was devoted to these, and I still have a whole shelf of Tolkien and related books.

2. The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets by Eva Rice - One of my very favourite books, which will probably always be able to remind me of high school.

3. 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff - I've talked about this recently enough that I needn't say why it's on this list, but it is a lovely book.

4. Tam Lin by Pamela Dean - my favourite book of all.

5. The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman - The whole trilogy, really, but I probably remember this one the best. They're thoroughly wonderful.

5. Sandry's Book by Tamora Pierce - All of Tamora Pierce's novels, especially the earlier ones, stick with me, but I always loved this one especially well.

6. Emma by Jane Austen - need I say more? I've spent enough time on this one lately.

7. Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling - I'll always be glad I had the good timing to grow up with these books, and they really are wonderful stories.

8. The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley - I need to reread this, but it did have a big effect on me when I read it, and I remember it extremely fondly.

9. Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell - I don't even know why I love this one so much, but Elizabeth Gaskell has an indefinable quality that makes me love her.

10. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott - I read this a little too late to have a childhood fondness for it, but I love it nonetheless.

11. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte - this used to have fights with Tam Lin over being my favourite book, and I still love it.

12. On the Banks of Plum Creek by Laura Ingalls Wilder - I had to include a favourite children's book, and this is the one I was always fondest of.

13. Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransom - I loved these when I was a child, and they are some of the few books that I love in exactly the same way as an adult.

14. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh - this just has some really rather magical qualities to it.

15. The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt - it's enormous and vivid and lovely, is all.

My Emma Project

So, I must admit I've sort of come back to Jane Austen. I've decided I'm going to read every Emma sequel, retelling, or modernization ever published. There aren't so many of these as there are spin-offs of Pride and Prejudice, so it doesn't seem too unreasonable a venture. I confess some of my motive in this is to prolong my enjoyment of the romance, but I also want to see how many ways it is possible to spin Emma. It's a story I love thinking critically about, so it's interesting to see how other people have thought about it, what they've highlighted, and so on.

So far my reading list for this project includes these books:

• Mr. Knightley's Diary by Amanda Grange - A retelling of the book from Mr. Knightley's point of view.
• Old Friends and New Fancies by Sybil Brinton - A sequel to all six Jane Austen novels, including Emma, the very first Jane Austen fanfiction, written in 1913.
• Perfect Happiness by Rachel Billington - A sequel.
• Amanda by Debra White Smith - A modernized retelling.
• George Knightley, Esquire: Charity Envieth Not by Barbara Cornthwaite - The first of what I assume is a trilogy, Emma retold from Mr. Knightley's point of view. These are associated with the Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman books, which were wonderful, though not by the same author.
• The Importance of Being Emma by Juliet Archer - Another modern retelling.

I've got rather a nice even collection, having two alternate POV retellings, two modern retellings, and two sequels. I imagine there must be more such books out there which I've not heard of, so if you know any please do tell me.

Pride and Prejudice

I have now finished two books while still slowly working on The Post-Office Girl. Not that I don't want to read it, but it's a book best savoured. Plus, I keep getting distracted by Jane Austen. First Emma, and now Pride and Prejudice.

I've told the story of my experiences with Pride and Prejudice before. I don't think I've reread it all the way through since, so it's been about four years. Having read all the rest of Jane Austen's major novels in between, I'm due for a reread. Though I always enjoy Jane Austen for many purely emotional reasons, I'm in the habit of taking a somewhat scholarly approach to her books. I like to compare them, and expose some of the assumptions everybody has about Jane Austen that aren't very true.

I'm beginning to wonder if I appreciated the writing more when I first read Mansfield Park and Emma not because I had revised my expectations about Jane Austen, but because the writing in these books is better. There's a split among the six books which I've never heard anyone talk about. Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Northanger Abbey were all (under different titles), first plotted and written in the 1790s. Mansfield Park, Emma, and Persuasion were written in the 1810s. It's not unreasonable to assume that Jane Austen and her writing matured between these two periods. Without knowing it, I read the earlier books first, and the later books later (well, I read Persuasion before Northanger Abbey, but excepting that). I matured, the books matured, and by the time I read them I could better appreciate what was there--but there was also more there.

I started rereading Pride and Prejudice in order to compare it with Emma, and confirm my belief in Emma as my favourite. I have come to two conclusions--one, that I like Emma best, and two, that it's better written. I think Emma feels more human than Elizabeth. Maybe because we see more of her inner thoughts. Both characters are fallible, but I think Emma's fallibility is more subtly written. Both characters believe what they want to believe and act accordingly, but somehow that part of the story rings truer in Emma.

I've watched both the 2005 film adaptation and the 1995 miniseries many times. Reading the first half of Pride and Prejudice felt like watching the movie, because so much of the dialogue was the same. I felt like there wasn't a lot of narration (or dialogue too lengthy for film) that of necessity got lost in the translation to film. Rereading Emma, on the other hand, never felt like this. That's not to say one or the other is a better story because of this, but I think the better the writing, but more you lose on the way to film.

I wonder what people's theories are about why Pride and Prejudice is the most famous and well-loved Jane Austen novel. I was struck by how unromantic I found Darcy and Elizabeth's story. The way things are often stated--she loves him out of gratitude, they'd be compatible for such and such reason, etc.--are reasonable, but not very romantic. Plus, Darcy's a really good man, but how many people would actually like him?

None of this is to say I don't still love Pride and Prejudice. Maybe it comes back to my previous discussion of expectations--I was hoping and expecting to find Emma my favourite, and so I did. Either way, I do think Jane Austen's writing matured and improved after she wrote Pride and Prejudice, and that shows in Emma.

And now, I promise to quit talking about Jane Austen for a while!

Reading report

I've been reading a rather odd assortment of books lately. Before I got sidetracked by Emma I had started The Post-Office Girl, by Stefan Zweig, which I know I read a glowing review of somewhere. I have to agree with whatever it was that review said, but I'll say more once I've finished the book. I also just started rereading Pride and Prejudice, so as to compare it with Emma. Yesterday I was reading these back and forth, a few chapters of one then a few chapters of the other. They have nothing in common, really, but it was a rather pleasant contrast. And both books, though very different, are very well-suited to a hot summer afternoon.

I'm also reading the Odyssey, in fits and starts, and last week I pulled out my copy of Virginia Woolf's letters, and I've read some of those as well. I've done very little but read and sew in the last few days, which I must say is very pleasant. Look out for a report on my sewing in the near future.

Still talking about Miss Austen

I last read Emma about a year and a half ago. Going back to read posts I wrote at the time, I recall being surprised by how much I liked the book. I'm also noticing that any posts I wrote while reading Jane Austen have a certain Austen-esque sound to them. I said in 2008 that Emma was in contest for my favourite Jane Austen, with Pride and Prejudice, Northanger Abbey, and Persuasion. I now begin to wonder if I can't safely call Emma my absolute favourite. I hesitate only because I need to reread P&P and Persuasion, now that I am a more mature Jane Austen reader.

I am a bit in awe of Miss Austen's writing of Emma. Emma herself is one of the most incredibly realistic humans I have ever encountered in a novel. She is biased, she is intelligent, but aware of it so much that she believes herself to be infallible in her understanding. She is very fallible. In other books and movies, characters' misunderstandings are always frustrating to me, because it always seems so easy for these misunderstandings to be resolved. My reaction is always, "Stop being so stupid, you could fix all your problems if you weren't being so stupid." This is never my reaction to Emma's mistakes. She misunderstands not for stupid, far-fetched reasons, where some tiny confusion gets blown out of proportion and stretched out into too much plot, but because she has intelligence and imagination and a good-willed vision of how her friends' lives ought to be, and she believes in her ability to correctly assess their desires and prospects. Emma is changeable and capable of mistakes, but she is also capable of fully correcting her mistakes.

This novel differs from other Jane Austen novels in that we see so much of Emma's internal thoughts. Mental soliloquies are frequent. The story is told essentially from Emma's perspective, and this is probably what makes it feel so realistic. She doesn't see the whole story, but the whole story is always there, and subtle clues about the real relationships between the characters slip through. Once you know the story, it is a joy to find these clues. They are numerous and clever.

Emma is an extremely romantic book. There are more happy marriages by the end than in any of the other books, and fewer unfortunate circumstances to dilute the good. All the most interesting romantic revelations happen sooner than in the other Austen books, so we get more pages of cheerful romantic understanding and conversation. This certainly adds to the believability of any "happily ever after" statement, as we see how these couples will interact in their marriages. The main romance of Emma is probably among the most believable, but without foreknowledge of the plot, probably also one of the most surprising. Most of the other books set up the heroine's romantic prospect early on, but Emma's romance is much more gradual, less marked by big milestones. I used to go and read all the major romantic events in Pride and Prejudice once in a while, but it's harder to do that in Emma, which I suspect makes for a more rounded and cohesive book.

I certainly have more of a particular attachment to Emma than most of the other books, having spent much more time in scholarly geekery over it. I think perhaps it is an example of Jane Austen at her most clever, especially as regards characters. It is probably the book that first gave me a fuller understanding of Miss Austen's wonderful writing abilities, independent of the romantic appeal of these books. So ultimately, it's hard not to jump in and say Emma is my favourite.

Emma, film adaptations, and mental images

So I'm here to talk about Jane Austen again. Sort of, anyway. I rewatched the latest Emma adaptation over the last several nights, because my mother wanted to see it, and by the end I was a bit obsessed and went back and watched the entire four hours in one sitting. And then I started rereading the book. Despite the three other books I am already reading.

People often talk about film adaptations ruining books for them. There's no questioning the fact that sometimes films have a very large effect on how we read and visualize a book, and especially how we see characters. But it's not often that the film was good enough that this is a good thing. I love Romola Garai's Emma. I think it was extraordinarily well-cast. I wrote about it briefly when I first saw it, but I think I like it even better on subsequent viewings. Now, on rereading the book, it occurs to me that Jane Austen is the sort of writer where a very good film can have a very helpful effect on the reading. Jane Austen doesn't spend a lot of time on description. Dialogue is her strong point, which lends well to films and lets the designers have a lot of free rein over how things look. Of course, this generally means there's more chance of them getting it wrong in somebody's view. Sometimes, though, they get it right. And having a film where nearly every character and setting agrees with my mental picture, I can use this visual to help me read the book.

Most of the time, I don't have a continuous mental image of what I'm reading--except, oddly, with directions. I usually know where I think things are on relative to each other, on which side of the street someone is walking, and so on. I've no idea why this is, and it always throws me off when the text contradicts my image. Apart from this, I don't visualize settings or characters in any great detail, especially not if the book doesn't offer much description. When I see film adaptations, I know what looks wrong, but when something looks right it's not generally because it agrees with an image I already have. Once I have seen an image of the scene, however, be it an illustration or a movie, I always have that in the background while reading. I think having an image adds something to the experience. So a film as good as this Emma is a great thing, not only in and of itself, but for the book.

Does anyone else have similar experiences with visualizing books or with the interaction between book and film? I'm curious--I feel like I usually hear people say they do visualize books, but I don't, so I wonder if I'm alone in this.

What you go looking for

My relationship with Jane Austen is an ever evolving thing. I'm not someone who grew up being told about the wonders of Jane Austen. I was 14 when I first tried to read Pride and Prejudice, and I expected not to like it, so I didn't, and quit after 120 pages. Not very long after that I saw the 2005 film adaptation, and loved it. The second time I tried to read Pride and Prejudice I expected to love it, so I did. The next Jane Austen I read was Sense and Sensibility, which I finished but was unenthusiastic about. Pride and Prejudice is a relatively conventional, modern romantic comedy in terms of plot. Sense and Sensibility is not that kind of story--but I expected it to be, and was therefore unsatisfied with it. As I read more and more of Jane Austen's work, and read about other people's reactions to it, I formed a theory.

Step into the world of Jane Austen expecting to love her novels, but don't expect to love them in the same way you expect to enjoy a good romantic comedy film. She's a very clever writer, stylistically, but you sometimes have to pay close attention to appreciate this, and the more you read Jane Austen the better adapted you are to notice. She also writes about relationships very well, but you have to pay as much--if not more--attention to the friendships and sibling relationships as to the romantic leads. Notice that the cover of this edition of Pride and Prejudice has two sisters on it. I wrote my 12-page senior paper in high school about my belief that Jane Austen was more interested in sibling and sibling-like relationships than romantic ones, and that the romantic relationships she wants us to root for are the ones that are based more on a quiet, familial love than on anything very passionate. In Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth's relationships with her sisters are always important, and seeing Darcy's love for his sister does a lot to endear him to her. Knowing this now, I am much better able to love Jane Austen. I read Mansfield Park last, and in some ways it's the least like a modern romantic comedy. Had I read it sooner, I doubt I would have liked it, but I loved it because I knew what to look for in it. Jane Austen is often marketed as romantic comedy, but the best parts of her novels are not always the romantic parts, and if you go looking for the romance and fail to find it in a satisfactory form, you'll be disappointed.

This isn't meant to be so specifically about Jane Austen, but my experience with her writing is a good way to illustrate my point. We often think of our reactions to books as being solely about the book. You read a book and because it wasn't very good or in some way not to your taste, you dislike it. Really, the ultimate verdict about whether you enjoyed a book is the product of a relationship between you and the book. It's affected not only by who you are, but by your actual interaction with the book as you read it, your assumptions about the book's content and style, why you chose to read the book, how long it takes you to read the book, who recommended it to you, and so on. This is probably why, stereotypically at least, no one enjoys books they have to read for school--when you're obliged to read it, you automatically go into it with the feeling that you would rather be doing something else. This is probably also why it's often easier to enjoy a popular novel than a classic. No one told you you ought to read it, you have no guilt associated with not reading it, and you don't feel a need to slog through it just to say you did.

My expectations of other books have influenced my liking for them as well. I started reading Virginia Woolf's novel Jacob's Room knowing nothing about it. It's a very plotless novel. Though it follows Jacob's life, it does so mostly through pretty impressions, in a rather oblique way. I didn't know to expect this, so I kept looking for a plot, and found the book frustrating. Once I googled it and read a bit about it, I knew what I should be looking for, and I started to enjoy the book. I often have problems reading books that I regard as being very American, or that sound that way from the blurb on the cover. For some reason I expect not to like these books--To Kill a Mockingbird is a good example--though they're good books and once I start reading I know I would probably get into it. With such books, if I don't read the blurb or know much about the story, I have a much easier time liking it.

All this leads me to wonder about my relationship to books. Surely if you know what you're looking for, you have a better time seeing what's really there. I've heard people who don't like Jane Austen say they feel like they're missing something, like there's something there they aren't seeing. So if you read a book knowing what you're looking to find in it, are you seeing the book more clearly? Or do you see a book most clearly if you know nothing about it but what is within its pages? What if two people love Jane Austen, but see and love very different things in her books? Are classic books, which everyone reads with certain expectations, classic because they are more complicated and therefore must be read more carefully, with expectations in mind? Is it easier to pick up any old novel you've never heard of before, read it, and like it? Perhaps our assumptions about certain books decreases our chance of liking them, or even reading them in the first place. Maybe this is why so-called great literature is taught in schools. Sometimes we need to be taught how to read a certain book, and the chances of this are higher if that book is one we have preconceived notions about, as is frequently the case with classics.

And it's just occurred to me--reading book blogs probably lowers the number of books you read without any expectations.

The loot

This seems to have been the Christmas of books. I got eight books as presents, and bought four others in the days before Christmas. I'd better get reading.I bought three of these at Goodwill, and one in a lovely little bookshop in Pike Place Market. The only other Barbara Pym I've read was Some Tame Gazelle. Civil to Strangers is her last novel and various shorter works. Mary Wesley is the author of The Camomile Lawn, which I read in February. I've never read any Umberto Eco, but I had a feeling he'd have interesting things to say about literature; this book is a collection of his essays. And I've never read Penelope Lively, but thought I ought to.Most of these books came from my father, who dearly loves to buy me books (and he's good at it, too). I read Bill Bryson's book The Mother Tongue last summer, so I know whatever he says about Shakespeare will be pretty fascinating. Bardisms sounds entertaining, mostly as reference or novelty; it seems to be separated into sections like "Shakespeare on Fathers," "Shakespeare on Parties," and so on. I know there's a story about why my father decided I needed to read Parnassus on Wheels, by Christopher Morley, but I can't remember it. My mum got me that copy of Pride and Prejudice (which makes my total copies up to three if you count the collected works) purely because it's so beautiful; it's leather-bound. And The Children's Book, which I'm sure you remember me reading, because it's one of those books that I just want to own. Now I get to go back and replace all the post-its I had to take out of the library copy. The book below it, which you probably can't read the title of, is Authentic Victorian Dressmaking Techniques. I do need to do some more sewing, maybe that will help get me into the mood. Victorian Visitors sounds quite fascinating. It's non-fiction, and I have a feeling it's going to be the kind of non-fiction I find utterly absorbing. The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, on the bottom, is apparently about the Salem witch trials, alternating stories between modern day and the 17th century.

So my to-read stack has just about doubled in size, but what the hell. I'm looking forward to it all.

P.S.

Happy Birthday to Jane Austen! Today, she is 234 years old.

Two Plays in Retrospect

Oh, I do love good theatre.

I wasn't terribly impressed by Emma. It was staged very well (kinda sorta in the round), impressive tech-wise, and had an extremely satisfactory ending (in a romantic way), but it was just much too silly. It became well apparent how that happened when I read the director's note in the program, in which he said Emma is basically a soap opera. Harriet Smith was horrible (screechy, giggly, and made up far more unattractive than the actress actually is or than Harriet should be), which I felt was the director's fault and not the actress's. Mr. Weston was goofy, Mr. Elton was far too Mr. Collins-ish. Jane Fairfax just wasn't quite right, Miss Bates wasn't talkative enough, Mr. Woodhouse wasn't feeble enough (he danced at the ball), though he was pretty good at being worried about things. Emma didn't come across as being as intelligent as she ought to be (and I thought she was too short, but that's not her fault), and I didn't really see her falling in love, but she didn't bother me except when I looked deeper. Mr. Knightley I liked. All the women had lovely costumes; most of the men's coats were just bad but the rest of their costumes were all right. So it wasn't a satisfactory Emma at all, but it was very satisfactory theatre and terribly romantic. I left the theatre wanting to go home and reread Emma, but I don't have time to start another book so I watched the last episode of the latest Emma miniseries instead.

I didn't really mean to say so much about Emma, but then I was possessed by a need to be thorough, so there you are. It was Durang⁷ I came to talk about. Seven one-act plays by Christopher Durang, all absolutely hilarious, all full of references to other plays, theatre history, and general history. Six actors, all of them really fabulous actors. It was great. I spent the majority of the play laughing uproariously, partly because of all the references to plays I've read for school this quarter (Happy Days, The Balcony, Medea), mostly because it was just so good and so funny.

This was the last weekend for both these plays, so I'm just teasing you here talking about them. Keep an eye out for Christopher Durang, though. He's another one that makes you want to read everything he references, which for me is always exciting.

Two plays

I'm having a weekend of theatre, it seems. Which I suppose I did last week too, but I was just seeing the same play three times and running the lights twice, so it was a weekend of theatre in a very different way. I'm not sure I really saw the play at all, since Friday night I could only see about half the stage from where I was squished on a stool, half under a really low ceiling with a vent blowing down my neck, and Saturday I was too busy trying not to screw anything up too badly, turn on lights when they weren't supposed to be on and turn them off when they were.

This weekend, however, I get to actually see the plays. Today I'm going to see Emma, put on by Book-It Repertory Theatre, adapted from Jane Austen by Rachel Atkins. I'm going with my best friend who is just back from college in Oregon, because Emma is our Thing, and we get to have crumpets and tea for lunch first, so it's all very exciting.

Tomorrow I'm seeing Durang⁷ at Stone Soup Theatre, seven one-act plays by Christopher Durang, which is directed by Maureen Hawkins, who I am extremely fond of as she directed all the plays I did in high school. According to the website the plays lampoon Euripides, Shakespeare, Noel Coward, Beckett, Williams and O’Neill, of which I have read all but one (Noel Coward), so in the way that recognizing references always makes me a bit gleeful, this ought to be lots of fun.

So that's what I've got in the works for my weekend, apart from writing a very short essay on Happy Days by Samuel Beckett and hopefully reading more of The Children's Book.

Miss Woodhouse

I've finally got around to watching all of the new BBC production of Emma. I have to say I loved it. I hear some people were less than thrilled, though I don't know their reasons, but I thought it was lovely. It's the only one of the three Emma films I've seen where I liked the actors for both Emma and Mr. Knightley (I absolutely can't stand Gwyneth Paltrow for no particular reason, and the Knightley in the Kate Beckinsale version was boring). I thought they did a good job both in translating the mood of the book and in making it romantic enough to appeal to modern viewers (which of course they can't help doing, so at least they did it reasonably well).

Emma was not a book I expected to like before I started it. This, of course, was back in the day where I still thought my chances of liking a Jane Austen novel weren't assured. With that reaction, it's funny that it's become one of my favourites. I love Pride and Prejudice for being my first Jane Austen, Persuasion for the story, Mansfield Park for Fanny Price and because it was the first one where I really and truly appreciated Jane Austen's writing, and Emma because it's so very very good. I think it's possibly the most rounded out of the six novels.

Emma is also a very sentimental story for me because somehow it's become a book that is part of the definition of my relationship with my best friend. In a lot of ways we use it to help articulate what we mean in conversations, as a reference point for rather a lot of different topics (which I suppose further points out the roundedness of the book).

With all this in mind, it is absolutely lovely to finally see a film version of Emma that I really feel does it justice.

Back to Miss Austen

There's something special about having read an author's entire body of major works. Taking that class on Jane Austen last semester, I read all six major novels, Lady Susan, and Claire Tomalin's biography. Admittedly, I have not read Sanditon, The Watsons, any of the very early works, or most of her letters. Still, I feel I've acquired a pretty good understanding of Jane Austen, and can confidently compare her various books. I don't feel quite so well-read in any other author. I've read all the novels of Tamora Pierce and Pamela Dean, too, but I certainly haven't read a biography of either of them, which I think is rather crucial in understanding what's behind the writing.

I wrote a twelve-page paper about how I believe the sibling and sibling-like relationships in her novels were more important to her, despite the romances being the ostensible focus. In Sense and Sensibility, if not in the other novels, I think the need to wrap the book up with marriage actually detracts from the sibling relationships and thus from the book.

I read Pride and Prejudice first, and loved it, so then I went to read Sense and Sensibility. It's always been my least favourite novel, was always just a little bit unsatisfying. I think I'm not the only person who has found this (though of course there's some who like it best, which I still find a bit unthinkable), but I've finally figured out why. Most people do start with Pride and Prejudice--it's the most famous. Then they read Sense and Sensibility, because somehow this feels like the next logical step. They go into S&S expecting to find what they found in P&P, and it isn't there. The two books are really completely different. P&P is pretty much entirely structured as a romance. Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy are without doubt the main characters. But S&S isn't built that way. Its main characters are really Elinor and Marianne, and the story is built for them to play off each other; all their romances just highlight how they react and how they help each other. Everyone expects Sense and Sensibility to be a romance, but actually the romance is secondary to the sisters, and as such it is much less satisfying romance. If you read it to read about the sisters, you won't be so disappointed in your expectations and it will be a much more satisfying read.

I've come to learn that reading Jane Austen is all about your expectations.

My problem with the book, though, is that I'm not sure whether Jane Austen intended it to be about the sisters, or meant to write a romance that just didn't come out as she meant it. All the other books have much more well-put-together romances. And usually, that's what I choose Jane Austen for, even if I've learned to look more closely at the other relationships, too.

Jane Austen, Russia, and everything else

I've been rather absent lately, but school has definitely taken precedence. I've spent the last week lurking in the lighting booth (which is really just a booth, it was never finished properly) at school cleaning heavy, incredibly dusty stage lights, which is very very fun but also time consuming. I admit I have not done a lot of reading. I'm still plodding through Claire Tomalin's biography of Jane Austen, which is very good but not, I admit, that gripping. At least, in the way that nonfiction rarely grips me. So that's slow going, and I'm determined to finish it before I read anything else.

I gave up on The Beginning of Spring. I've discovered that books about Russia just don't work for me. Penelope Fitzgerald is great, I just can't get myself to enjoy the setting. I think it's possible that this is not exclusive to Russia, but rather any terribly cold climate. The cold just gives the book a mood that I can't really enjoy, though sometimes I appreciate it. There are still some Russian classics I'd like to read, but that may have to wait until I take a class, or something.

Even if the Miss Austen biography is slow going, I have been thinking about Jane Austen in general, and the research paper I'm working on about sibling vs. romantic love in her novels. It's a question that's rather invaded the rest of my life, too, actually. What do you think? In literature, or in life, what is the real difference between romantic love and love between siblings/very close friends?

A bit of an update.

I haven't posted in quite some time, I see, although that doesn't mean I've not been reading. Mostly, life is getting in the way of keeping up with all the internet things I follow. School and friends are the main culprits, though I must say I rather like both of them.

One thing that's been keeping me busy is the writing of my senior research paper. I have to write a paper for my Jane Austen class anyway, which has to be 5-7 pages, so it's not that much more work just to make it 12-15 pages instead and call it my senior research paper. It's on sibling relationships in Jane Austen's novels, but also on the various romantic relationships that spring from sibling-like relationships, and how I think the sibling-like aspects of these relationships were more important to Jane Austen than the romance. I'm really enjoying writing it.

In the course of my research for the paper, I've been reading Claire Tomalin's biography of Jane Austen, which I like a good deal. I love reading biographies, but don't do it very often, and this is a very good one. Clear and well put together, and also well able to keep my interest.

Other books on the table--my second Penelope Fitzgerald, The Beginning of Spring, and the newest Tamora Pierce book, Melting Stones. I've loved Tamora Pierce for years; it's young adult fiction which has not the best writing, but which always manages to involve fascinating characters, concepts, and plots. This is exactly what I needed in terms of a comforting fantasy novel that is also new.