# Jane Austen



## Laura

When I was in 9th grade, I forced myself through _Sense & Sensibility_ on my own for extra credit. My attention span was lacking and my sense of humor was not well developed then, to say the least, so my appreciation for the book hovered around 0. When I was a senior in high school, for some reason I thought I'd give Jane Austen another try, so I rented the BBC version of _Pride & Prejudice_, thinking that I would read the book if I liked the movie.

Side story there: I watched the movie alone, not knowing anything really about the book or movie beforehand. DVDs were still fairly new then, to me at least. There were two discs in the case, and I assumed that the second was a special features disc, as it was with the only other DVD I had played for myself, _The Lord of the Rings_. So I put in Disc 1 and watched the whole thing. The "ending" greatly perplexed me as I didn't think Jane Austen was the sort of author who wrote unhappy and surprising endings. The last scene on the disc happened to be where (minor spoilers) the main male character comes to profess his love for the main female character and both end up highly insulted by the encounter. So I closed up the movie, rather unsatisfied, and returned it to the store. Not until I was talking with friends a couple weeks later did I realize what happened. Disc 2 was of course the second half of the movie. Greatest blonde moment of my life.

Anyway, I've been on a Jane Austen audiobook kick for the last several months, listening to _Persuasion_, _Northanger Abbey_, and now _Emma_. I had read _Persuasion_ before and enjoyed the second reading very much; it is probably my favorite novel. Now I wonder, contrary to my first impressions, what's _not_ to like about Jane Austen? She had a brilliant wit and a fantastic understanding of human nature, especially of the faults particular to men and women that cause them and others the most misery. Her novels are hilarious and even edifying in a sense. They provoke thought and, in their own discreet way, warn against vice and folly and promote virtue and discretion. And of course they manage to satisfy the romantic streak common to most girls in a very classy way.

On that note, I have a hint for young men in search of a wife: If you should find yourself seriously interested in a young woman who likes Jane Austen novels (which I would say is a favorable sign of her sensibility), buy her the Jane Austen movie of her choice for no particular occasion (avoiding the latest_ Pride & Prejudice_ adaptation if at all possible, though you you'll have to defer to her preferences if that is what she wants). Even if it is 300 minutes long, watch the entire movie with her. You can take breaks to lift weights or go do yard work like the manly man that you are if you feel the need. But if you have a brain and a functional sense of humor, you *will* like at least some parts of the movie, and you will win serious, serious approval points with her. Why, I accepted my husband's proposal just a couple of days after he did just this, and who will ever know how much this turn of events had to do with his small sacrifice?


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## au5t1n

Thanks for the advice. I do enjoy Jane Austen's wit.


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## Jon Peters

I had a similar experience with Charlotte Bronte. I refused to read the Austin/Bronte books in high school and only recently (20 years later) have come back to try them out. I decided to read Jane Eyre with my wife, who was reading it for her book club. What a fantastic book! I loved it. Since that book I have put Jane Austin high on my reading list. 

No less an authoriy than Vladimir Nabokov was a big Austin fan so she must be great!


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## Augusta

Laura, how long have you been married? Did I ever congratulate you?


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## Laura

Jon Peters said:


> I had a similar experience with Charlotte Bronte. I refused to read the Austin/Bronte books in high school and only recently (20 years later) have come back to try them out. I decided to read Jane Eyre with my wife, who was reading it for her book club. What a fantastic book! I loved it. Since that book I have put Jane Austin high on my reading list.
> 
> No less an authoriy than Vladimir Nabokov was a big Austin fan so she must be great!



I need to read Jane Eyre again. That was a good book.



Augusta said:


> Laura, how long have you been married? Did I ever congratulate you?


 Just a year and a half. I wasn't on the PB around that time, I don't think, so I didn't make any sort of announcement.


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## JennyG

Austen over Bronte(s) any day if you ask me.
The Brontes were great writers, but spiritually all at sea (except maybe Anne)


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## py3ak

Emily is a better writer than Anne, and Charlotte is the worst of the lot.


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## JennyG

py3ak said:


> Emily is a better writer than Anne, and Charlotte is the worst of the lot.


If it's "literary merit" you mean, I think I would rank them 
1) Emily 
2) Charlotte 
3) Anne

That wasn't what I meant in placing Anne ahead of her sisters though. She's the only one of the three I would look to for real edification (and to Jane Austen before any of them).
Dare I say it, though - I'm not sure Nabokov's endorsement is much of a recommendation.....!


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## he beholds

py3ak said:


> Emily is a better writer than Anne, and Charlotte is the worst of the lot.



I have never read Anne Bronte, but _Jane Eyre _is one of mine and my husband's very favorite novels....and neither of us really liked _Wuthering Heights_, so I am going to have to disagree.

About Jane Austen: Laura, you have given every single guy on here immeasurable advice. (And though not explicitly for them, the married ones could also take heed!)


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## py3ak

Jenny, I would rank Anne above Charlotte in terms of artistry because of her poetry. But I would definitely agree with you in thinking that Sir Walter Scott's appreciation of Austen is more of a recommendation than Nabokov's. C.S. Lewis well said that there are two critical defects with Austen's novels: they are too short, and there are too few.

_Jane Eyre_ is no doubt Charlotte's best book, but she doesn't have Emily's faculty for language, and her mind seems very ungenial.


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## he beholds

py3ak said:


> Jenny, I would rank Anne above Charlotte in terms of artistry because of her poetry. But I would definitely agree with you in thinking that Sir Walter Scott's appreciation of Austen is more of a recommendation than Nabokov's. C.S. Lewis well said that there are two critical defects with Austen's novels: they are too short, and there are too few.
> 
> _Jane Eyre_ is no doubt Charlotte's best book, but she doesn't have Emily's faculty for language, and her mind seems very ungenial.



I maybe should re-read _Wuthering Heights_ as an adult. I doubt it could trump _Jane Eyre_, though. I am not saying _Jane Eyre_ is _her_ best book, but one of _THE_ best books.


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## Hamalas

I love Jane Austen almost more than my sisters. We as men should be comfortable in all walks of life. Whether in the domestic confines of the home reading a good book with our sisters/wife or out in the field working/hunting. Manliness is more than just lifting weights, it's about virtue and godliness. Austen will help to develop this. (Although it never hurts to take an hour or two at the range afterward.)


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## py3ak

he beholds said:


> py3ak said:
> 
> 
> 
> Jenny, I would rank Anne above Charlotte in terms of artistry because of her poetry. But I would definitely agree with you in thinking that Sir Walter Scott's appreciation of Austen is more of a recommendation than Nabokov's. C.S. Lewis well said that there are two critical defects with Austen's novels: they are too short, and there are too few.
> 
> _Jane Eyre_ is no doubt Charlotte's best book, but she doesn't have Emily's faculty for language, and her mind seems very ungenial.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I maybe should re-read _Wuthering Heights_ as an adult. I doubt it could trump _Jane Eyre_, though. I am not saying _Jane Eyre_ is _her_ best book, but one of _THE_ best books.
Click to expand...


Yes, I thought you might be saying that, but doing so goes a great deal too far.


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## Laura

py3ak said:


> Jenny, I would rank Anne above Charlotte in terms of artistry because of her poetry. But I would definitely agree with you in thinking that Sir Walter Scott's appreciation of Austen is more of a recommendation than Nabokov's. C.S. Lewis well said that there are two critical defects with Austen's novels: they are too short, and there are too few.



True, true. Cf. Mark Twain's more famous quip that "Just the omission of Jane Austen's books alone would make a fairly good library out of a library that hadn't a book in it." I daresay he was just jealous.


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## py3ak

Perhaps it is for the best, Laura. If there were enough of Austen to really immerse yourself in it might be too hard to turn from the Empress of English to almost anyone else.


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## Montanablue

he beholds said:


> py3ak said:
> 
> 
> 
> Emily is a better writer than Anne, and Charlotte is the worst of the lot.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I have never read Anne Bronte, but _Jane Eyre _is one of mine and my husband's very favorite novels....and neither of us really liked _Wuthering Heights_, so I am going to have to disagree.
> 
> About Jane Austen: Laura, you have given every single guy on here immeasurable advice. (And though not explicitly for them, the married ones could also take heed!)
Click to expand...


I am the opposite - I actually hate Jane Eyre with a passion, but I love Wuthering Heights... You might give Wuthering Heights another go as an adult. I did try to read it when I was a little younger and I didn't like or understand it half as much. I've never been able to make myself like Jane Eyre though - and I've tried multiple times.


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## au5t1n

The Bronte sisters lived depressing lives and wrote comparably depressing books! That said, I got some value out of _Jane Eyre_ for what it's worth.


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## Scynne

My favourite Jane Austin book is "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies," co-authored by Seth Grahame-Smith.


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## JennyG

Montanablue said:


> I am the opposite - I actually hate Jane Eyre with a passion, but I love Wuthering Heights... You might give Wuthering Heights another go as an adult. I did try to read it when I was a little younger and I didn't like or understand it half as much. I've never been able to make myself like Jane Eyre though - and I've tried multiple times.


Kathleen, your opinions tend to be unexpected and interesting!
Can you say why you hate Jane Eyre? Especially if you love Wuthering Heights.
They're really quite alike in lots of ways after all - same hero, in essence!!
W H was always my favourite of the two (though I'm not sure if I understand it exactly) but I found them both compelling, unputdownable stories. It's one of the things I like less about them now. I distrust the whole Romantic "passion is everything" mindset - Marianne Dashwood would have adored both those books, wouldn't she?!


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## Montanablue

JennyG said:


> Montanablue said:
> 
> 
> 
> I am the opposite - I actually hate Jane Eyre with a passion, but I love Wuthering Heights... You might give Wuthering Heights another go as an adult. I did try to read it when I was a little younger and I didn't like or understand it half as much. I've never been able to make myself like Jane Eyre though - and I've tried multiple times.
> 
> 
> 
> Kathleen, your opinions tend to be unexpected and interesting!
> Can you say why you hate Jane Eyre? Especially if you love Wuthering Heights.
> They're really quite alike in lots of ways after all - same hero, in essence!!
> W H was always my favourite of the two (though I'm not sure if I understand it exactly) but I found them both compelling, unputdownable stories. It's one of the things I like less about them now. I distrust the whole Romantic "passion is everything" mindset - Marianne Dashwood would have adored both those books, wouldn't she?!
Click to expand...


I dislike Mr. Rochester very much and I feel that the novel romanticizes him to a certain extent. I think that if the book had ended with Jane leaving him, and living with her cousins and teaching school, I would have been quite satisfied. As it was, I was horribly disappointed when she went back to him in the end. 

In Wuthering Heights, I also felt little sympathy for both Heathcliff and Catherine, but I didn't think that they were romanticized - their flaws were easy to see and the ends they met seemed (to me) to be rather fitting. 

My view is probably colored by my experience in a Romantic Poetry and Prose class in college. We studied Jane Eyre and many of the women in the class swooned over Mr. Rochester. When I wondered aloud how well we could think of a man who had locked his wife in an attic - even if she was mad - they were furious! Of course, I am reading it through a 21st century lens, but I still found the their unqualified adoration of him to be a bit much - and I probably have a stronger reaction to the book because of it!


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## Hamalas

I love how this Jane Austen thread has become a thread about the collective works of the Bronte sisters.


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## JennyG

Hamalas said:


> I love how this Jane Austen thread has become a thread about the collective works of the Bronte sisters.


absolutely not - didn't you notice how in my last post I tied it firmly to Marianne Dashwood??
Besides, you can't really fully enter into Austen without putting her alongside the Great Antiausten, aka Clan Bronte.
I think all parties knew it themselves - ok many people like both I know, but still in a deeper and truer sense you're either Sense or Sensibility. To paraphrase W s Gilbert

Every bookish girl or man,
Even when (s)he's just a mite,
Is either a little Bronte fan
Or else a little Austen-ite 

Kathleen, I don't know if you would agree, but from your critique of Jane Eyre, I think I'd put you down as essentially an Austenite!


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## Montanablue

JennyG said:


> Hamalas said:
> 
> 
> 
> I love how this Jane Austen thread has become a thread about the collective works of the Bronte sisters.
> 
> 
> 
> absolutely not - didn't you notice how in my last post I tied it firmly to Marianne Dashwood??
> Besides, you can't really fully enter into Austen without putting her alongside the Great Antiausten, aka Clan Bronte.
> I think all parties knew it themselves - ok many people like both I know, but still in a deeper and truer sense you're either Sense or Sensibility. To paraphrase W s Gilbert
> 
> Every bookish girl or man,
> Even when (s)he's just a mite,
> Is either a little Bronte fan
> Or else a little Austen-ite
> 
> Kathleen, I don't know if you would agree, but from your critique of Jane Eyre, I think I'd put you down as essentially an Austenite!
Click to expand...



I embrace the label of Austenite wholeheartedly!


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## he beholds

Montanablue said:


> JennyG said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Montanablue said:
> 
> 
> 
> I am the opposite - I actually hate Jane Eyre with a passion, but I love Wuthering Heights... You might give Wuthering Heights another go as an adult. I did try to read it when I was a little younger and I didn't like or understand it half as much. I've never been able to make myself like Jane Eyre though - and I've tried multiple times.
> 
> 
> 
> Kathleen, your opinions tend to be unexpected and interesting!
> Can you say why you hate Jane Eyre? Especially if you love Wuthering Heights.
> They're really quite alike in lots of ways after all - same hero, in essence!!
> W H was always my favourite of the two (though I'm not sure if I understand it exactly) but I found them both compelling, unputdownable stories. It's one of the things I like less about them now. I distrust the whole Romantic "passion is everything" mindset - Marianne Dashwood would have adored both those books, wouldn't she?!
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> I dislike Mr. Rochester very much and I feel that the novel romanticizes him to a certain extent. I think that if the book had ended with Jane leaving him, and living with her cousins and teaching school, I would have been quite satisfied. As it was, I was horribly disappointed when she went back to him in the end.
> 
> In Wuthering Heights, I also felt little sympathy for both Heathcliff and Catherine, but I didn't think that they were romanticized - their flaws were easy to see and the ends they met seemed (to me) to be rather fitting.
> 
> My view is probably colored by my experience in a Romantic Poetry and Prose class in college. We studied Jane Eyre and many of the women in the class swooned over Mr. Rochester. When I wondered aloud how well we could think of a man who had locked his wife in an attic - even if she was mad - they were furious! Of course, I am reading it through a 21st century lens, but I still found the their unqualified adoration of him to be a bit much - and I probably have a stronger reaction to the book because of it!
Click to expand...


I love Mr. Rochester. I wonder why some of us do and some don't, and if that's what makes the book for me. 
I have never fell in love with any of Jane Austen's men.
I don't think, however, that his faults are romanticized. I think his flaws are exposed from the get-go, and it is her virtue, and that alone, which is able to love him, WITH flaws.





JennyG said:


> Every bookish girl or man,
> Even when (s)he's just a mite,
> Is either a little Bronte fan
> Or else a little Austen-ite



I think I'm a _little Bronte fan_, though it's just _Jane Eyre_.


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## JennyG

> Kathleen, I don't know if you would agree, but from your critique of Jane Eyre, I think I'd put you down as essentially an Austenite!






> I embrace the label of Austenite wholeheartedly!


yay, me too!
I think it's a bit like how they say you're either a cat person or a dog person, or (in Scotland) you're either an Edinburgh person or a Glasgow person....
the Austen/Bronte divide stamps the personality all the way through.
I too have felt the allure of the Bronte heroes, but fall in love with them? I don't think so. 
Now, the Austen heroes....ah, that's a different thing, the only problem would be in choosing between them. I love them all, even the deeply unfashionable Edmund Bertram.
we can draw a veil over Jessi's deplorable lack of taste (only teasing!)


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## he beholds

JennyG said:


> Kathleen, I don't know if you would agree, but from your critique of Jane Eyre, I think I'd put you down as essentially an Austenite!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I embrace the label of Austenite wholeheartedly!
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> yay, me too!
> I think it's a bit like how they say you're either a cat person or a dog person, or (in Scotland) you're either an Edinburgh person or a Glasgow person....
> the Austen/Bronte divide stamps the personality all the way through.
> I too have felt the allure of the Bronte heroes, but fall in love with them? I don't think so.
> Now, the Austen heroes....ah, that's a different thing, the only problem would be in choosing between them. I love them all, even the deeply unfashionable Edmund Bertram.
> we can draw a veil over Jessi's deplorable lack of taste (only teasing!)
Click to expand...


Lemme guess...you are a cat person?

And I like Austen characters, just not as much. It is too predictable that the guy who is at first a jerk will turn out to be Prince Charming.


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## JennyG

he beholds said:


> Lemme guess...you are a cat person?


you think that goes with Austen? hmm, but look what a moody so-and-so Mr Rochester is. He's the cat-like character. Dogs are sunny and sensible and Austen! 



> And I like Austen characters, just not as much. It is too predictable that the guy who is at first a jerk will turn out to be Prince Charming.


no no no that's only Mr Darcy, and he was the one and only, original and best of that stereotype. All the others are charming consistently.


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## Laura

he beholds said:


> JennyG said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Kathleen, I don't know if you would agree, but from your critique of Jane Eyre, I think I'd put you down as essentially an Austenite!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I embrace the label of Austenite wholeheartedly!
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> yay, me too!
> I think it's a bit like how they say you're either a cat person or a dog person, or (in Scotland) you're either an Edinburgh person or a Glasgow person....
> the Austen/Bronte divide stamps the personality all the way through.
> I too have felt the allure of the Bronte heroes, but fall in love with them? I don't think so.
> Now, the Austen heroes....ah, that's a different thing, the only problem would be in choosing between them. I love them all, even the deeply unfashionable Edmund Bertram.
> we can draw a veil over Jessi's deplorable lack of taste (only teasing!)
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Lemme guess...you are a cat person?
> 
> And I like Austen characters, just not as much. It is too predictable that the guy who is at first a jerk will turn out to be Prince Charming.
Click to expand...


Not so, Jessi! Only in _P&P _is that true, unless it is so in _Mansfield Park_, which I haven't got to yet. I won't spoil the endings for people who have yet to read the others, but ... a certain sea-faring hero of one novel is certainly not presented poorly. And in _Emma_ it is the heroine who is quite annoying and jerk-ish, in my view. I have hopes that a certain male non-jerk in the story will yet reform her. 

I liked the little ditty about Bronte and Austen, Jenny.


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## Jon Peters

JennyG said:


> Dare I say it, though - I'm not sure Nabokov's endorsement is much of a recommendation.....!



Don't say it!


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## he beholds

Laura said:


> he beholds said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> JennyG said:
> 
> 
> 
> yay, me too!
> I think it's a bit like how they say you're either a cat person or a dog person, or (in Scotland) you're either an Edinburgh person or a Glasgow person....
> the Austen/Bronte divide stamps the personality all the way through.
> I too have felt the allure of the Bronte heroes, but fall in love with them? I don't think so.
> Now, the Austen heroes....ah, that's a different thing, the only problem would be in choosing between them. I love them all, even the deeply unfashionable Edmund Bertram.
> we can draw a veil over Jessi's deplorable lack of taste (only teasing!)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Lemme guess...you are a cat person?
> 
> And I like Austen characters, just not as much. It is too predictable that the guy who is at first a jerk will turn out to be Prince Charming.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Not so, Jessi! Only in _P&P _is that true, unless it is so in _Mansfield Park_, which I haven't got to yet. I won't spoil the endings for people who have yet to read the others, but ... a certain sea-faring hero of one novel is certainly not presented poorly. And in _Emma_ it is the heroine who is quite annoying and jerk-ish, in my view. I have hopes that a certain male non-jerk in the story will yet reform her.
> 
> I liked the little ditty about Bronte and Austen, Jenny.
Click to expand...


Well, the heroine _or_ hero is one way in the beginning and changed by the end. Does that work?
I think it's true in S&S, too.

-----Added 10/19/2009 at 08:44:27 EST-----



JennyG said:


> he beholds said:
> 
> 
> 
> Lemme guess...you are a cat person?
> 
> 
> 
> you think that goes with Austen? hmm, but look what a moody so-and-so Mr Rochester is. He's the cat-like character. Dogs are sunny and sensible and Austen!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> And I like Austen characters, just not as much. It is too predictable that the guy who is at first a jerk will turn out to be Prince Charming.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> no no no that's only Mr Darcy, and he was the one and only, original and best of that stereotype. All the others are charming consistently.
Click to expand...


Well, I don't like cats (and neither does my husband), so I assumed that would have to mean _Jane Eyre_ people are dog people. Plus, it was a fifty-fifty shot and you are a woman and women often like cats, so I took my chances : )


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## py3ak

I like Jane Austen and Emily Bronte and dislike both dogs and cats.


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## JennyG

> Well, I don't like cats (and neither does my husband), so I assumed that would have to mean Jane Eyre people are dog people. Plus, it was a fifty-fifty shot and you are a woman and women often like cats, so I took my chances : )


good thinking! actually I like both, that's why I was being cagey
That analogy was just off the cuff, and I would hate to have to produce a reasoned thesis tying the dog/cat thing to the Austen/Bronte!
I still think there's a serious point behind the dissimilarity of the writers though.
Young girls typically feed their imaginations on the emotional extremes of the Brontes - I know I did. Romantic excesses don't come without a price though, as Jane Austen knew. Catherine Morland and Marianne Dashwood are both studies in the dangers of that mindset.
It may or may not be relevant, but I've also seen an "early novella" of Charlotte's called "The Spell", published in 2005, that was fit to make a Christian queasy. 
Feel free to take no notice  - that's just my  
I loved Kathleen's big gripe with Mr Rochester, - that he kept his wife shut up in the attic!! to be fair, he may have had some justification there at least, given that every time she escaped, she set fire to things.


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## ewenlin

I have never read any Jane Austen's books. I've never even heard of these authors.

But hearing you all talk about it on this thread, I think I just might head down to the store and pick up one to read.

Any recommendations?


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## Montanablue

> I loved Kathleen's big gripe with Mr Rochester, - that he kept his wife shut up in the attic!! to be fair, he may have had some justification there at least, given that every time she escaped, she set fire to things.



Fair point  Although, if I was shut in an attic, I might be prone to arson too... 

There have been a couple of novelization's of "Bertha's story," the most common of which is "The Wide Sargasso Sea," I believe. I've always found the idea of knowing what the story behind Bertha was, although I've never read any of the novelizations. Has anyone else given them a go?


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## py3ak

ewenlin said:


> I have never read any Jane Austen's books. I've never even heard of these authors.
> 
> But hearing you all talk about it on this thread, I think I just might head down to the store and pick up one to read.
> 
> Any recommendations?



For starters you might go with _Northanger Abbey_.


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## JennyG

Montanablue said:


> I loved Kathleen's big gripe with Mr Rochester, - that he kept his wife shut up in the attic!! to be fair, he may have had some justification there at least, given that every time she escaped, she set fire to things.
> 
> Fair point
> 
> 
> 
> Although, if I was shut in an attic, I might be prone to arson too...
> 
> 
> 
> equally fair point!!!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> There have been a couple of novelization's of "Bertha's story," the most common of which is "The Wide Sargasso Sea," I believe. I've always found the idea of knowing what the story behind Bertha was, although I've never read any of the novelizations. Has anyone else given them a go?
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> I've read Wide Sargasso Sea, once, years ago. I seem to recall finding it depressing and not that engaging, but that might just be me...I don't even remember it well enough to give you a proper account of it, so don't go by that.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I have never read any Jane Austen's books. I've never even heard of these authors.
> 
> But hearing you all talk about it on this thread, I think I just might head down to the store and pick up one to read.
> 
> Any recommendations?
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> I don't think you could go wrong with any one of Jane Austen's. Northanger Abbey is loads of fun. It's slightly a one-off, in that some aspects might seem a little mysterious unless you realise it was written with the intention of "sending up" the sensational novels of the time. Be prepared to step into a different world!
> 
> Click to expand...
Click to expand...


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## he beholds

Montanablue said:


> I loved Kathleen's big gripe with Mr Rochester, - that he kept his wife shut up in the attic!! to be fair, he may have had some justification there at least, given that every time she escaped, she set fire to things.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Fair point  Although, if I was shut in an attic, I might be prone to arson too...
> 
> There have been a couple of novelization's of "Bertha's story," the most common of which is "The Wide Sargasso Sea," I believe. I've always found the idea of knowing what the story behind Bertha was, although I've never read any of the novelizations. Has anyone else given them a go?
Click to expand...


I read _Wide Sargasso Sea_. I wasn't a big fan, though it was neat to have a story to put with Bertha, but I didn't really accept it as true.


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## Zenas

I have bad news: Mr. Darcy is a fictional character. 

Sorry.


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## Idelette

I'm a huge Jane Austen fan as well!  I love each of her books! Another one of my favorites is Elizabeth Gaskell! If you enjoy Austen, I would highly recommend _North and South_ by Gaskell...truly a lovely story!


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## ewenlin

py3ak said:


> ewenlin said:
> 
> 
> 
> I have never read any Jane Austen's books. I've never even heard of these authors.
> 
> But hearing you all talk about it on this thread, I think I just might head down to the store and pick up one to read.
> 
> Any recommendations?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> For starters you might go with _Northanger Abbey_.
Click to expand...


Off to the bookstore for me!


----------



## JennyG

In His Grip said:


> I'm a huge Jane Austen fan as well!  I love each of her books!


I think I might just have guessed that from your avatar! That is one of my very favourite films. It never fails to make me laugh my head off in the middle, but end up crying from the heart.


> Another one of my favorites is Elizabeth Gaskell! If you enjoy Austen, I would highly recommend _North and South_ by Gaskell...truly a lovely story!


I also have to put in a plug for my other favourite 19th C author Charlotte M Yonge. I bet no-one here has even heard of her....? but her novels are great, her current oblivion totally undeserved!


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## py3ak

Jenny, isn't Charlotte M. Yonge something of a byword among later writers for the deficiencies of Victorianism? Apart from some advice to young writers I haven't read anything of hers, but I know her name has come up in book reviews/essays from around WWI, and I didn't think the references were favorable.

On the Austen/Bronte divide, Heidi had some interesting thoughts which might explain why some find that they like one OR the other, while others find that they like both:



> I think this kind of divide is only possible if one is reading as if the story were about oneself: which kind of novel do I want to be the heroine of? But I don't think that is the best way either to read or to write literature. (Perhaps that's sour grapes because the only heroines I've fully identified with are the ones I would not wish to be; but this has freed me to love Austen and various works by the Brontes from childhood.)


----------



## JennyG

> Jenny, isn't Charlotte M. Yonge something of a byword among later writers for the deficiencies of Victorianism? Apart from some advice to young writers I haven't read anything of hers, but I know her name has come up in book reviews/essays from around WWI, and I didn't think the references were favorable.


What deficiencies do you mean? She certainly has theological ones, and if a young person was going to read her I would want to spell out exactly where she departs from Biblical teaching. She was a High Church Anglican, but on the other hand it was back in the day....it didn't prevent her from being adamantly opposed to romanism, and a firm adherent of the Thirty-Nine Articles. Overall, I've found that drawback easily outweighed by the good to be got from her books.
If you mean critical deficiencies, that's a different question. I won't bother addressing that one unless I know it's what you mean.


----------



## py3ak

I meant as far as literary merit - writing style, strength of plot, that sort of thing.


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## JennyG

py3ak said:


> I meant as far as literary merit - writing style, strength of plot, that sort of thing.


In that case, I'm here to tell you, they're actually very good! 
_Experto crede_. I've read every one of Charlotte Yonge's non-historical novels that I could get my hands on, the best ones multiple times too.
No, they have weaknesses, of course. I wouldn't _quite_ put her in competition with Jane Austen; but her descent in critical estimation during the 20th C is very easily accounted for, and has not much to do with objective criteria.
How likely after all was an author to stay in fashion, in the 20th century, if her Christian faith was her main motivation, and she made no secret of the fact??
Yonge's *great* strength is characterisation. I don't think there's a novelist to touch her in that department, not Dickens or the Brontes, and even Jane didn't surpass her. She has enormous casts of characters - typically a family on a scale approaching kvanlaan's, whom you meet first as children but then watch grow up, true to individual personality, with all their complex alliances and family traits and rubs and interactions, utterly believably. There's lots of humour, too, but the deeper business of each novel is always to trace, -behind the outward events and appearances, the good choices and the bad choices,- the characters' spiritual histories, and journeys. That's not to say they are heavy-handedly didactic; they aren't. And the people are all so real, I would find it impossible not to be edified!
Do i sound like an enthusiast....??
I do think Christians (especially those who already have a taste for 19th C fiction) are missing a great deal if they don't know her work.
but wait _ I know an endorsement that may count for more than mine.
Americans are big on _Little Women_, yes?
do you remember a bit where Jo is curled up in the attic with a bag of apples and a pet rat, crying over a book?
It was _The heir of Redclyffe_, by Charlotte M Yonge


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## py3ak

Not this American! I'll keep my eyes open for her, though.


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## JennyG

py3ak said:


> Not this American! I'll keep my eyes open for her, though.


you wouldn't be sorry. C S Lewis was a fan too, and he was a good judge of literature.
On the other hand, in your case-
maybe you should begin with _Little Women_...


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## py3ak

No, if I have to read _Little Women_ first I'm sure I'll never get there. If I may draw from Bob Vigneault, it would be better to gouge your eyes out with an anthrax-infested pencil than read certain things.


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## JennyG

py3ak said:


> No, if I have to read _Little Women_ first I'm sure I'll never get there. If I may draw from Bob Vigneault, it would be better to gouge your eyes out with an anthrax-infested pencil than read certain things.


Oh, come. That's a bit silly. Louisa Alcott may not be as good (in my view) as Charlotte Yonge, but she's a perfectly respectable writer.


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## py3ak

Lewis Carroll is about as much sap as I can stand - _Sylvie and Bruno_ can only be taken in small doses.


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## Montanablue

py3ak said:


> No, if I have to read _Little Women_ first I'm sure I'll never get there. If I may draw from Bob Vigneault, it would be better to gouge your eyes out with an anthrax-infested pencil than read certain things.



I love Louisa May Alcott - but I really dislike Little Women. In my opinion, Eight Cousins and Rose in Bloom are her best books - much less sentimental.


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## ewenlin

So I trotted off to my local bookstore and picked up Oxford World's Classics' edition of Northanger Abbey. After 3 chapters I found myself pleasantly smiling throughout. Perhaps it is the long overdue change in literature genre;- from entirely theological books to now a novel, or perhaps it is Ms. Austen's writing itself. One thing's for sure, I had to significantly slow down my reading pace to accommodate the writing. 

Looks like I'll have an enjoyable week ahead, and most certainly a wonderful time with Ms. Austen or more befittingly so, Miss Catherine Morland.


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## Montanablue

Glad you're enjoying it! You must keep us updated on your evolution as an Austenite.


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## ewenlin

Montanablue said:


> Glad you're enjoying it! You must keep us updated on your evolution as an Austenite.



What? Sorry I didn't really catch what you were saying because I was too busy READING JANE AUSTEN. 

Just kidding.


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## JennyG

Great that you're enjoying it! I bet everyone here envies you, reading her for the very first time, and the other novels still all ahead of you -_Northanger Abbey_ isn't even by any means the best one.
Mind and let us know how you get on if you find time to read the rest too!
There's nothing fans love more than seeing someone new tapping into their enthusiasm...


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## ZackF

I'm Johnny-come-late, or Janey-come-late, to this thread. I've been a fan of Austen for nearly fifteen years. I read P&P for the first time about a year before the 90s miniseries aired. All of her books are near perfect to read by themselves and with others for the simple fact you can talk about the characters and stories without gossiping. It is almost a near occasion of sin.  They seem so real.


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## Laura

KS_Presby said:


> I'm Johnny-come-late, or Janey-come-late, to this thread. I've been a fan of Austen for nearly fifteen years. I read P&P for the first time about a year before the 90s miniseries aired. All of her books are near perfect to read by themselves and with others for the simple fact you can talk about the characters and stories without gossiping. It is almost a near occasion of sin.  They seem so real.



I know. I can get really worked up about how stupid a character is being. In most cases only because I've learned the hard way why the behavior in question is so stupid. But the characters' faults are tremendously believable and consistent with their personality. Jane Austen must have done a lot of people-watching.


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## JennyG

Laura said:


> KS_Presby said:
> 
> 
> 
> I'm Johnny-come-late, or Janey-come-late, to this thread. I've been a fan of Austen for nearly fifteen years. I read P&P for the first time about a year before the 90s miniseries aired. All of her books are near perfect to read by themselves and with others for the simple fact you can talk about the characters and stories without gossiping. It is almost a near occasion of sin.  They seem so real.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I know. I can get really worked up about how stupid a character is being. In most cases only because I've learned the hard way why the behavior in question is so stupid. But the characters' faults are tremendously believable and consistent with their personality. Jane Austen must have done a lot of people-watching.
Click to expand...

There you go...that's EXACTLY the pleasure to be got from Charlotte Yonge's novels too! (I won't be able to rest until I've made at least one convert)
And just think...there are AT LEAST TEN OR TWELVE of the best ones. It's a whole world. 
If you read them slowly you probably need never run out -- start again at the end, like the Forth Bridge. Bite your nails along with the eldest (orphaned) Underwood siblings while the fascinating artist brother Edgar is teaching little Lance to smoke in the kitchen every night, and also doing his utmost to persuade him into a future as a dodgy jobbing musician. Felix and his sister know better than to try and intervene, they can only pray. no spoilers, but it all turns on whether Lance will hold fast to Ps 137 v 5!


----------



## a mere housewife

JennyG said:


> Now, the Austen heroes....ah, that's a different thing, the only problem would be in choosing between them. I love them all, even the deeply unfashionable Edmund Bertram.



 The problem with the deeply unpopular Edmund is that he spends the entire book talking to Fanny about another woman, in whose character he is unhappily and avoidably deceived. So he is a bad judge of character, and a generally boring conversationalist. I always think it's nicer for a woman to fall in love with someone who has the good sense to talk about -- if not her -- at least to talk sensibly about the weather. I have never regretted the non-reform of a villain so much as I regretted that of Henry Crawford; and this is my main impression on every re-reading of the novel. It's the only detail that I think ever went awry in Jane Austen's so perfectly competent writing -- in this one book she made the bad people more engaging than the good ones. That is an unpleasant taste for a moral novel (the 'most intensely moral of all her novels', some preface to some edition I read said) to leave. (I actually found it the most morally ambiguous of all her novels -- I kept wondering if Henry Crawford would have reformed if Fanny had met him half way, and the 'heads or tails' dilemma about whether he was internally bad or had just had bad influences would have landed face up: and finally decided that this sort of moral ramification probably didn't concern Jane Austen. I think she was concerned to write about a very bounded world of societal, rather than larger questions of truly spiritual, morality. Edmund's little weakness of character re: Miss Crawford and the play is more respectable than Henry Crawford's; thus we must rejoice that Fanny held steadfastly to, and gained, her first love and did not turn aside to save anyone from less acceptable sins. As Ruben said when I asked him what he thought about this, perhaps the real take home lesson of Jane Austen is that society is less gracious than God  

I think C. S. Lewis says something about the 'exquisite' families of Charlotte Yonge in his autobiography? On both your recommendations, I will check something out of the library.


----------



## JennyG

a mere housewife said:


> JennyG said:
> 
> 
> 
> Now, the Austen heroes....ah, that's a different thing, the only problem would be in choosing between them. I love them all, even the deeply unfashionable Edmund Bertram.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The problem with the deeply unpopular Edmund is that he spends the entire book talking to Fanny about another woman, in whose character he is unhappily and avoidably deceived.
Click to expand...

I think that's a _little_ unkind, - no way the whole book ...only after he falls for her and because of long-established habit of confiding in Fanny


> So he is a bad judge of character, and a generally boring conversationalist.


certainly the first is true. I'd go so far as to say the whole plot turns on his defective judgment. Without it, no story! In fact it's all about misjudgment now I come to think... Sir Thomas's especially. Fanny is the _only one_ who always judges rightly and does rightly, -and it's such a great touch when even she (being human) is trembling on the verge of joining in the acting, and only saved by her uncle's return in the nick of time!


> I always think it's nicer for a woman to fall in love with someone who has the good sense to talk about -- if not her -- at least to talk sensibly about the weather.


I suppose you have to assume that. It happens off-camera. We are given to understand that he and Fanny have had endless literary and other discussions and he has virtually been her education. Plus he clea`rly has _something_, or a girl like Mary wouldn't have gone for him. I'm most unwilling to give up on the character and decide Jane A just failed with him....becasuse I think then I'd be more or less giving up on the book as a whole


> I have never regretted the non-reform of a villain so much as I regretted that of Henry Crawford; and this is my main impression on every re-reading of the novel. It's the only detail that I think ever went awry in Jane Austen's so perfectly competent writing -- in this one book she made the bad people more engaging than the good ones.


Sure, he's really nice, and I've fought this out with my daughter more times than I can count!! She loves Henry. But really, J A was right about him. See her own analysis in the last chapter. He had no notion of giving up even the smallest pleasure for the sake of doing right. (Don't you love the comment re Sir Thomas "...he wished [Mr Crawford] to prove a model of constancy, and fancied the best means of effecting it would be by not trying him too long"?)


> That is an unpleasant taste for a moral novel (the 'most intensely moral of all her novels', some preface to some edition I read said) to leave.


I would certainly say that it's the most morally uncompromising,- and also the most implacably at variance with modern sensibilities


> (I actually found it the most morally ambiguous of all her novels -- I kept wondering if Henry Crawford would have reformed if Fanny had met him half way,


He might well have, but.but but - would it have been more than on the surface? 


> ...and the 'heads or tails' dilemma about whether he was internally bad or had just had bad influences would have landed face up: and finally decided that this sort of moral ramification probably didn't concern Jane Austen. I think she was concerned to write about a very bounded world of societal, rather than larger questions of truly spiritual, morality. Edmund's little weakness of character re: Miss Crawford and the play is more respectable than Henry Crawford's; thus we must rejoice that Fanny held steadfastly to, and gained, her first love and did not turn aside to save anyone from less acceptable sins. As Ruben said when I asked him what he thought about this, perhaps the real take home lesson of Jane Austen is that society is less gracious than God


I see it more as the testing out in the furnace of morality, with utter disregard for any othe considerations (especially likeableness) ONLY Fanny passes, and she only by the skin of her teeth, (and of course with the aid of being secretly in love - psychological truth to life) Though Edmund claws back in the end. So it's the only proper ending, to have them happy together!



> I think C. S. Lewis says something about the 'exquisite' families of Charlotte Yonge in his autobiography? On both your recommendations, I will check something out of the library.


Yes, he did. I can't quite say "I'm sure you'll like her" in fact now I'm getting cold feet in case you really, really don't!!! She's VERY English, and that's what you might stick on, perhaps.
Tell me what you find, and I'll tell you if it sounds like a good one to start with!
Only I'd so love to share them with believers. I belong to the CMY Fellowship, but despite their deep appreciation, no-one else there seems to read her for the same things as I do.


----------



## Pergamum

I am listening intently to this thread (listening with my eyes I guess) and my former disdain for all things Austenesque is slowly thawing. 

If there is a good audiobook version I am willing to listen all the way through for a good dose of either sense or sensibility. 





It won't raise my estrogen levels, will it?


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## JennyG

Pergamum said:


> I am listening intently to this thread (listening with my eyes I guess) and my former disdain for all things Austenesque is slowly thawing.
> 
> If there is a good audiobook version I am willing to listen all the way through for a good dose of either sense or sensibility.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> It won't raise my estrogen levels, will it?


There you go again. Didn't I see another thread where a lot of guys were getting angsty about losing man-points if they read Austen...?
Don't worry!!
The only points you are in danger of losing are uncultured philistine points

(and just so that we're perfectly clear..... that's a good thing)


----------



## Augusta

Pergamum said:


> I am listening intently to this thread (listening with my eyes I guess) and my former disdain for all things Austenesque is slowly thawing.
> 
> If there is a good audiobook version I am willing to listen all the way through for a good dose of either sense or sensibility.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> It won't raise my estrogen levels, will it?



Pergy here is a free audio book of Sense and Sensibility. The narrator has an English accent and she does an excellent job narrating. You can probably find all of Austen works there for free. Librivox.org. 

And, no, I don't think it will affect your estrogen levels but it might affect your sense and sensibility. 

LibriVox Sense and Sensibility (version 03) by Jane Austen


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## a mere housewife

Jenny, my library has nine books of hers -- but none available for request through the website (very mysterious); so I will have to go in and ask a librarian about it. I'm eager to read her . 

The problem with what happens 'offscreen' is that having no experience of it, we can't register more than mental assent in our responsiveness. I think, unless Austen meant to subtly write the sort of 'true to life' book where the bad people are engaging and bold, and the good people mistaken but too timidly upright to do aught but wind up together, she did not hit the mark with Edmund -- it does seem uncharitable to ascribe failure to her as a novelist in any sense: but it seems more uncharitable to me to think she succeeded here. Austen's main strength as a moralist lies in making the inevitable splendid & I just don't think she pulled it off here. 

I think that the real divides in JA's world are along the lines of decency and propriety. Happily, she wrote of a society that reflected generations of Christian values -- selflessness, patience, rectitude and other spiritual virtues are valued: but they are valued in a way that is limited by the external considerations. For instance, it is fine for a gentleman to marry a gentleman's daughter, however impoverished: but to countenance the idea of matrimony between truly unequal social ranks -- as becomes axiomatic in even the correct attitudes in _Emma_ -- would be to upset the ordered universe, and here terminates the horizon of decent unselfishness.

I think this is why the situation with Henry Crawford becomes so confusing; and why ultimately his weaknesses -- even his impatience -- being 'worse form' than the weaknesses of Edmund counts for more than whether or not he is truly bad inside or reformable. His rehabilitation would not be to the purpose in Austen's instructive world of manners_._ I think she chose to write about a confined world where the morality is -- though deep enough to be significant and worthy of emulation in many respects -- not deep enough to be _consistent_, unless you accept it onlimited terms. 

 I hope your daughter escapes whole-hearted from the danger of loving Henry Crawfords too much. I don't actually find that I _love_ him: I just think he is made more wonderful than Edmund and regret that Fanny did not emerge from her trials to be rewarded with wonderfulness. (Actually, the only hero of Austen's I have 'fallen in love with' is Henry Tilney.) 

If I do procure anything of Yonge's and have any thoughts that withstand proofreading I will try to send them to you .


----------



## Pergamum

JennyG said:


> Pergamum said:
> 
> 
> 
> I am listening intently to this thread (listening with my eyes I guess) and my former disdain for all things Austenesque is slowly thawing.
> 
> If there is a good audiobook version I am willing to listen all the way through for a good dose of either sense or sensibility.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> It won't raise my estrogen levels, will it?
> 
> 
> 
> There you go again. Didn't I see another thread where a lot of guys were getting angsty about losing man-points if they read Austen...?
> Don't worry!!
> The only points you are in danger of losing are uncultured philistine points
> 
> (and just so that we're perfectly clear..... that's a good thing)
Click to expand...


Okay, my uncultured philistine count is preparing to drop!


----------



## steven-nemes

I recently watched Ang Lee's version of _Sense and Sensibility_. I guess I liked the technical aspect of the film but gosh the story is so--ugh.


----------



## JennyG

a mere housewife said:


> Jenny, my library has nine books of hers -- but none available for request through the website (very mysterious); so I will have to go in and ask a librarian about it. I'm eager to read her .


I really appreciate that....though I'm gradually becoming more and more sure you'll probably hate her!!! Oh well if you did, at least I would finally know it's a pleasure I just have to indulge solitarily, even though as was said about JA, her characters are just MADE to be gossiped about



> The problem with what happens 'offscreen' is that having no experience of it, we can't register more than mental assent in our responsiveness.


True, but some of it is there if you look for it- I mean the easy and non-boring engagement between Edmund and Fanny. Think of all those hooks she throws out about Cowper (ye fallen avenues...) and stargazing and so on, - obviously well-trodden topics between them, but what we see at that point is him failing to follow them up because at present he can't see past Miss Crawford


> I think, unless Austen meant to subtly write the sort of 'true to life' book where the bad people are engaging and bold, and the good people mistaken but too timidly upright to do aught but wind up together, she did not hit the mark with Edmund --


One of the things she shows is how under surface timidity, Fanny has the moral courage of a lion! (if lions have moral courage)- sufficient to put the whole family back on course after their varied failures in judgment and integrity 


> it does seem uncharitable to ascribe failure to her as a novelist in any sense: but it seems more uncharitable to me to think she succeeded here. Austen's main strength as a moralist lies in making the inevitable splendid & I just don't think she pulled it off here.


perhaps we aren't called to show charity to novelists where their art is concerned! you may well be right..



> I think that the real divides in JA's world are along the lines of decency and propriety. Happily, she wrote of a society that reflected generations of Christian values -- selflessness, patience, rectitude and other spiritual virtues are valued: but they are valued in a way that is limited by the external considerations. For instance, it is fine for a gentleman to marry a gentleman's daughter, however impoverished: but to countenance the idea of matrimony between truly unequal social ranks -- as becomes axiomatic in even the correct attitudes in _Emma_ -- would be to upset the ordered universe, and here terminates the horizon of decent unselfishness.


absolutely, of course that's a very important point. I suppose you just have to decide when reading a novelist of a previous age, whether to suspend disbelief and mentally enter into the moral landscape of the time ....or to read it through the spectacles of modern thinking, in which case you will be judging not the characters within their (fictional) situation, but the whole societal set-up of the time, and maybe the moral intelligence of the author.
I prefer the suspended disbelief method any day -- judge JA'S society when you're judging societies - but judge her characters by the standards of that society, since they don't have the ability to step out side of it to separate the essential from the time-related.. 
I have a low anachronism-threshold and I could never read a victorian novel thinking "duh - why didn't she just marry the gardener's boy?" (in a modern "historical" novel she'd be quite likely to do exactly that, thereby destroying the illusion instantly) If you take on the expectations and assumptions of the time, you're likely to get more out of it in my view, at least as an imaginative experience. 
But if you stand back, and judge the characters from the vantage point of the present day, I think it will tend to make hay of the work's internal coherence. Edmund and Fanny had no such opportunity. (Plus as CS Lewis pointed out, it's really no safer to steer by the assured moral assumptions of our own day, -the ones, as he said, which we are so certain of that we don't even know we hold them, but about which future generations will say "but how COULD they have thought that?!")
I'm labouring this because I very much fear it may be necessary to read Charlotte Yonge on her own terms and without subjecting all her petty proprieties to the microscope as you go...to get the brilliant best out of her!



> I think this is why the situation with Henry Crawford becomes so confusing; and why ultimately his weaknesses -- even his impatience -- being 'worse form' than the weaknesses of Edmund counts for more than whether or not he is truly bad inside or reformable. His rehabilitation would not be to the purpose in Austen's instructive world of manners_._ I think she chose to write about a confined world where the morality is -- though deep enough to be significant and worthy of emulation in many respects -- not deep enough to be _consistent_, unless you accept it onlimited terms.


I think you're right, but I also think it's worth accepting it on those terms! 
for eg, if JA says it was wrong to act, then it was wrong...



> I hope your daughter escapes whole-hearted from the danger of loving Henry Crawfords too much. I don't actually find that I _love_ him: I just think he is made more wonderful than Edmund and regret that Fanny did not emerge from her trials to be rewarded with wonderfulness. (Actually, the only hero of Austen's I have 'fallen in love with' is Henry Tilney.)


I think she'll survive I'm fascinated you like the other Henry best! Don't you find him a bit inconsistently drawn? All that deadpan wit over the fabrics at Mrs Allen's expense at the beginning - where does it go? (I like him too)



> If I do procure anything of Yonge's and have any thoughts that withstand proofreading I will try to send them to you .


Thanks, and I really hope you like her


----------



## JennyG

By the way, Jessi (*if* you're still looking at this thread...)
I know you're a big-time _Jane Eyre_ fan, and I wondered if you ever read _Rebecca_ by Daphne du Maurier?
In case you don't know it - it's a rip-off of the book, but quite an accomplished rip-off. 
If you have read it, I'd be interested to know what you think of it!


----------



## a mere housewife

Jenny, yes; I agree that we should try to read and judge an author's universe on their own terms; this was my point as well: in order to do so it's necessary to understand what their terms are. Surely clarity is also necessary for transposing what is valuable into 'real life'. If I mistake Jane Austen's lessons in manners for something they do not pretend to -- for encompassing my whole moral nature -- I could learn the wrong things from her (redemption from real depravity and forgiveness for indecency do not characterise her universe any more than truly selfless humbling of the exalted to rescue the lowly: salvation is mostly a correction of outward or inward circumstances -- such as poverty, or socially forgivable errors in thought or feeling -- and is the reward of the fundamentally innocent and good). We approach what the author is saying on his/her own terms, but we measure the value and extent of what is said against God's. Jane Austen's work is very valuable not only for artistic merit, but because courtesy, patience, self restraint, etc., are worth learning. She teaches us to meet pain not just stoically but graciously, and to rise to the forms and ceremonies of being considerate even when our hearts are breaking; and we know that in Christ, virtue does inevitably triumph, and is splendidly rewarded.

I have to disagree about Fanny's boldness as a lion. Certainly considering her weakness she manages at times a significant amount of courage but she would have involved herself in the play had her uncle not returned; and she would have married Henry Crawford if he had persisted, and Edmund not been free. On the terms of Austen's universe, she is saved from moral taint in the knick of time by the same susceptibility to external forces that exposes her to them -- as is Edmund. Which is why the novel leaves itself open to being interpreted as a statement about the drab inevitability of moral steadfastness in the timidly upright. When the book opens she is more of a jelly with a conscience than a 'form': in this regard it makes sense that Edmund has 'formed' her -- they are both more or less ineffectual (accounting for some part of her 'selflessness'). She emerges into a true shape far more in her interactions with Henry Crawford. All of this is very ably true to life of Jane Austen, but not very wonderful in her characters.

Henry Tilney's delight with feminine irrelevance and ridiculousness remains throughout the book, as the flip side of his more serious concern over its tendency: it is of all of a piece with his attraction to and protectiveness of silly little Catherine. He is incredibly well drawn.


Just a note that I will probably leave the discussion alone for the weekend (and probably longer); but it's been very enjoyable; thank you sincerely .


----------



## JennyG

I think I read and replied too fast the last time, I do see what you're saying (and mostly agree)
Yes it's been fun, thank you! but I too have a busy time ahead so I'm equally happy to stop there.

Kudos to dear old Fanny and Edmund. I have a soft spot a mile wide for both of them. 
It could be partly because I was set the book for A Level,*and most of my class-mates disdained them. Reverse psychology, like Kathleen with Mr Rochester. Plus I was a shy child and had a fellow-feeling for poor Fanny - how could I help loving the big boy who stuck up for her??
...I just have to add that as JA points out, sure Fanny _would have married_ Henry - but not in a passive line-of-least-resistance way, more because once Edmund was married, her strong principles would have started fighting on the other side!


----------



## he beholds

JennyG said:


> By the way, Jessi (*if* you're still looking at this thread...)
> I know you're a big-time _Jane Eyre_ fan, and I wondered if you ever read _Rebecca_ by Daphne du Maurier?
> In case you don't know it - it's a rip-off of the book, but quite an accomplished rip-off.
> If you have read it, I'd be interested to know what you think of it!



Well, I just got the DVD of this (Masterpiece Theatre, I believe) from Netflix, but haven't watched it yet (nor have I read it). My husband and I wanted movies of books that we are on the fence about reading, and at your suggestion, I would have read it, but I have no self-control when the movie is waiting to be played : ) The idea is, though, that if we like it (or I or he), we'll read it afterward. Less than ideal...




a mere housewife said:


> JennyG said:
> 
> 
> 
> Now, the Austen heroes....ah, that's a different thing, the only problem would be in choosing between them. I love them all, even the deeply unfashionable Edmund Bertram.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The problem with the deeply unpopular Edmund is that he spends the entire book talking to Fanny about another woman, in whose character he is unhappily and avoidably deceived. So he is a bad judge of character, and a generally boring conversationalist. I always think it's nicer for a woman to fall in love with someone who has the good sense to talk about -- if not her -- at least to talk sensibly about the weather. I have never regretted the non-reform of a villain so much as I regretted that of Henry Crawford; and this is my main impression on every re-reading of the novel. It's the only detail that I think ever went awry in Jane Austen's so perfectly competent writing -- in this one book she made the bad people more engaging than the good ones. That is an unpleasant taste for a moral novel (the 'most intensely moral of all her novels', some preface to some edition I read said) to leave. (I actually found it the most morally ambiguous of all her novels -- I kept wondering if Henry Crawford would have reformed if Fanny had met him half way, and the 'heads or tails' dilemma about whether he was internally bad or had just had bad influences would have landed face up: and finally decided that this sort of moral ramification probably didn't concern Jane Austen. I think she was concerned to write about a very bounded world of societal, rather than larger questions of truly spiritual, morality. Edmund's little weakness of character re: Miss Crawford and the play is more respectable than Henry Crawford's; thus we must rejoice that Fanny held steadfastly to, and gained, her first love and did not turn aside to save anyone from less acceptable sins. As Ruben said when I asked him what he thought about this, perhaps the real take home lesson of Jane Austen is that society is less gracious than God
> 
> I think C. S. Lewis says something about the 'exquisite' families of Charlotte Yonge in his autobiography? On both your recommendations, I will check something out of the library.
Click to expand...


Very interesting conversation about _Mansfield Park_. It makes me really want to read the book, b/c we just watched this movie (NOT BBC, and totally trashy in some parts!) and I was already curious as to what was a modern addition and what came from the book.


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## a mere housewife

Jessi, I saw some previews for that version. It looked entirely like the sort of thing that would make Jane Austen turn over in her grave (as with the Keira Knightly version of P&P 

I found this over the weekend in Zacharias Ursinus' _Commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism_ and couldn't help thinking of this discussion and smiling broadly as it seems to sum up what Laura was saying about the value of Jane Austen:



> 'The fifth [purpose or reason] is the _preservation of society _in the human race, which, again, is subordinate to the manifestation of God ; for if men did not exist, God could not have those to whom he might reveal himself. . . .
> 'The sixth, is a mutual participation in the duties, kindness, and benefits which we owe to each other ; which, again, contributes to the preservation of society ; for it is necessary to the continuance of the human race, that peace and mutual intercourse exist among men.'


(Jenny re: attachment to the imaginary people who comfort us as children, I understand. And re: likeness to Fanny, yes, though in her failings -- I am very like her; and I know this is why I find it more difficult to make excuses for her. I was wondering if the gap between Fanny & Edmund's lack of badness and their lack of really splendid goodness is due to the areas of divergence between good manners and truly spiritual morality, esp. with regard to being pliable -- I recall John Bunyan's assessment of this 'virtue' -- which was perhaps bound to catch Austen out somewhere. I think she does better with pliability and obstinance in _Persuasion_.)


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## JennyG

I stopped looking at this thread for a while and missed some posts.
Jessi, I'll be very interested to know what you think of _Rebecca_ if you do give it a go. I'm not exactly recommending it...I think it's well-written and quite involving, but in a way it's like _Jane Eyre_ with all the classiest elements removed! (leaving the heaving melodrama) The old Laurence Olivier film is quite a classic in its own right of course. 
Re the Mansfield Park movie... I haven't actually watched it (my children said, don't! don't! you'll hate it!!! and I suspected they wre right) but I've got a fair idea of some of the outrages it wreaks on Austen. It's rated 15 for a start which tells me everything I need to know, really!
But on the other hand I don't know if a decent film of it even exists. We own a decades-old BBC serialised version, pretty laboured, and with a badly miscast Fanny. We watch it every now and then because the story still comes through, plus we can enjoy the awfulness of the production...
_Mansefield Park_ and _Northanger Abbey_ seem to be the great un-filmables though. There are near-perfect versions of all the others. Except maybe for the last scene of the lovely BBC _Persuasion_.
As for _Wuthering heights_ and _Jane Eyre_...directors' graveyards both!!

-----Added 11/14/2009 at 05:17:30 EST-----

...Heidi, your analysis of the issues with Mansfield park is very interesting, and I suspect you're the one really going to the root, and mine a much more superficial reading!
I must think more about it.
(I stand convicted too by your observations on being harder on Fanny _because _ you were like her...)
When I gave up English as an academic subject all those years ago I adored being able to read without the obligation to analyse. Now I'm thinking it may be time to switch the function back on, only relating it much more to the real issues of ethics and belief (which wasn't at all what an Eng. Lit. department would have been interested in of course) Not that I do read without applying a Biblical filter, but I could obviously do so more systematically and rigorously


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## greenbaggins

This has been a very interesting thread. I'm encouraged to see a few men get interested in Austen from it. Some of the studliest men I know are avid fans of Jane Austen. There have been few writers in history who have been such excellent judges of character as Austen. She is not my absolutely favorite writer (that honor goes to Dickens). But any library that does not have her works is woefully inadequate (contra Twain). I hunt deer and pheasant, and read Jane Austen, and don't feel the slightest bit schizophrenic about that. Of course, one needn't if one remembers that Austen's men also hunt!


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## Augusta

JennyG said:


> Except maybe for the last scene of the lovely BBC _Persuasion_.
> As for _Wuthering heights_ and _Jane Eyre_...directors' graveyards both!!



I totally agree about the BBC Persuasion! I love that movie except for that silly circus part. I can't stand that part except for their finding each other.

I like the 1983 BBC Jane Eyre with Timothy Dalton. They use some of the book dialogue word for word. I don't particulary like Zelah Clarke as Jane Eyre though because I really liked Charlotte Gainsborrough who was Jane in the American version. She really struck me as the perfect Jane.


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## Andrew Short

*Austin and others*

I found the BBC miniseries of Pride and Prejudice boring should I try an audiobook? I enjoyed the bbc miniseries of Jane Eyre. Same for the 1990's color David Copperfield. What of all these old English novels, which are the most biblical base? Are the Barchester Chronicles good in audiobook?


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## Idelette

Augusta said:


> JennyG said:
> 
> 
> 
> Except maybe for the last scene of the lovely BBC _Persuasion_.
> As for _Wuthering heights_ and _Jane Eyre_...directors' graveyards both!!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I totally agree about the BBC Persuasion! I love that movie except for that silly circus part. I can't stand that part except for their finding each other.
Click to expand...


Was the BBC version the 2008 version with Sally Hawkins, Alice Krige, Rupert Penry-Jones, and Anthony Head??

I really love the story of Persuasion...in fact, I think it was Jane Austen's best work, In my humble opinion! But, I was a bit dissappointed in the 2008 movie adaption of the story. It was very hard to follow and I didn't really think the relationship between the two main characters was developed very well. I'm wondering if anyone else felt that way about the 2008 version??


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## JennyG

In His Grip said:


> Augusta said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> JennyG said:
> 
> 
> 
> Except maybe for the last scene of the lovely BBC _Persuasion_.
> As for _Wuthering heights_ and _Jane Eyre_...directors' graveyards both!!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I totally agree about the BBC Persuasion! I love that movie except for that silly circus part. I can't stand that part except for their finding each other.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Was the BBC version the 2008 version with Sally Hawkins, Alice Krige, Rupert Penry-Jones, and Anthony Head??
> 
> I really love the story of Persuasion...in fact, I think it was Jane Austen's best work, In my humble opinion!
Click to expand...

I think so too, on the whole 


> But, I was a bit dissappointed in the 2008 movie adaption of the story. It was very hard to follow and I didn't really think the relationship between the two main characters was developed very well. I'm wondering if anyone else felt that way about the 2008 version??


I don't think I ever saw that one. The BBC _Persuasion_ I was thinking of might have been made as long ago as the nineties, and it's so good it prevented my feeling the need of ever watching another! It has Amanda Root as Anne, and she's just about perfect in the role. The gradual recovery of her "bloom" is beautifully done, and by the end is also finding expression in such surpassingly gorgeous outfits! (gentlemen please ignore that frivolous observation)
And at the end a circus goes by, to symbolise the riot of joy in their hearts. Actually I've got used to the circus, though it annoyed me very much at first, and I think now I could swallow that, but the scene immediately following is the one that finishes me. It's very weird indeed. i take comfort in the fact that even JA herself had trouble wrapping up that novel, and in fact left an alternate ending extant (but minus the circus)


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## Idelette

JennyG said:


> I don't think I ever saw that one. The BBC _Persuasion_ I was thinking of might have been made as long ago as the nineties, and it's so good it prevented my feeling the need of ever watching another! It has Amanda Root as Anne, and she's just about perfect in the role. The gradual recovery of her "bloom" is beautifully done, and by the end is also finding expression in such surpassingly gorgeous outfits! (gentlemen please ignore that frivolous observation)
> And at the end a circus goes by, to symbolise the riot of joy in their hearts. Actually I've got used to the circus, though it annoyed me very much at first, and I think now I could swallow that, but the scene immediately following is the one that finishes me. It's very weird indeed. i take comfort in the fact that even JA herself had trouble wrapping up that novel, and in fact left an alternate ending extant (but minus the circus)



That's interesting, I'll have to look for the BBC version then! I just love that story and would love to see a good screen adaptation of it!


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## JennyG

In His Grip said:


> JennyG said:
> 
> 
> 
> I don't think I ever saw that one. The BBC _Persuasion_ I was thinking of might have been made as long ago as the nineties, and it's so good it prevented my feeling the need of ever watching another! It has Amanda Root as Anne, and she's just about perfect in the role. The gradual recovery of her "bloom" is beautifully done, and by the end is also finding expression in such surpassingly gorgeous outfits! (gentlemen please ignore that frivolous observation)
> And at the end a circus goes by, to symbolise the riot of joy in their hearts. Actually I've got used to the circus, though it annoyed me very much at first, and I think now I could swallow that, but the scene immediately following is the one that finishes me. It's very weird indeed. i take comfort in the fact that even JA herself had trouble wrapping up that novel, and in fact left an alternate ending extant (but minus the circus)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> That's interesting, I'll have to look for the BBC version then! I just love that story and would love to see a good screen adaptation of it!
Click to expand...

I think you might like that one -not that it's without faults...
Ciaran Hynd is Capt. Wentworth (I may have spelt him wrong) There's a beautiful background score with lots of Romantic piano music which gives it the same kind of heart-tugging elegiac feel as S & S.
I sometimes wonder how it came about that all those good Austen versions were made, at that point in history, and with the film/TV industry in general being what it is. The best of them (I'm thinking the BBC P&P, Emma Thompson's S&S, Gwyneth Paltrow's _Emma_ and this _Persuasion_) are mostly faithful to the books and most important of all, faithfully reproduce her moral landscape. I don't feel it could have been predicted. The Northanger Abbey and Mansfield Park horrors were more what could have been expected!
Andrew:


> I found the BBC miniseries of Pride and Prejudice boring should I try an audiobook? I enjoyed the bbc miniseries of Jane Eyre. Same for the 1990's color David Copperfield. What of all these old English novels, which are the most biblical base? Are the Barchester Chronicles good in audiobook?


You could always try an audio book, I honestly don't know whether it would be more enjoyable or not though.
I always found Trollope harder going and less rewarding (his moral outlook more worldly too) than Austen, but it's probably a personal thing!
The BBC screened some of his too, ages ago, and they were hugely popular in this country - with a superb cast that really brought out the humour in them. Reading them might be more dry, at least I found it so.
For a Christian wanting God-honouring (and also entertaining) reading, I think Austen will always be one of the tops!


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## Augusta

Yes, it's the Amanda Root one that I was talking about. (tx Jenny  ) I find myself watching that one over and over. I especially love the part where she visits here sister and her inlaws and ends up being confided in by everyone all talking about each other to her. I am that person in my family so that part always makes me laugh. My family members complain to me about each other all the time and I am the go between. I think it's a middle child phenom.


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## he beholds

I just watched the BBC Amanda Root version of _Persuasion_ last week. I liked it a lot, but never read the book, so I am not the best judge. I hate to admit it, though, but in some scenes she was just so average, or even boyish (yet old)-looking, that I had a hard time fully embracing her. I know this is just my sinful Hollywood-twisted mind and I did not let that keep me from rooting for her. I am sure that the point of the book was that she was unattractive--and how old was she supposed to be? 

The latest Masterpiece Theatre's _Jane Eyre_ was very, very good. They did a good job in casting Jane, who was also not a beauty, but the actress was young and pensive and sweet. And I'm sure it helped that I knew for sure, since I had read the book, that Jane was no beauty. 

Rebecca--that one made me nervous!! I wanted to wikipedia it so many times to find out how it would end and whether Rebecca was hidden alive in the west wing (like Bertha in _Jane Eyre_, since I was told they were similar). Especially since the movie was three hours long and took me two days to watch it during the kiddos' naps. 
I did really, really like it in the end. It was just a very tense movie. I think I would also read the book someday. 
Any other BBC movie recommendations? I love Masterpiece Theatre.


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## JennyG

he beholds said:


> I just watched the BBC Amanda Root version of _Persuasion_ last week. I liked it a lot, but never read the book, so I am not the best judge. I hate to admit it, though, but in some scenes she was just so average, or even boyish (yet old)-looking, that I had a hard time fully embracing her.


the very first time I saw it, that's exactly what I said too -"no way, she's far too average and old-looking to be Anne Eliot!" (of course you do have to realise that the character actually IS ancient. She's 27 - which is obviously _well_ over the hill...) but then I realised that's the beauty and subtlety of it. Anne is prematurely aged at the beginning of the novel by all her grief over her lost love, - but gradually she wins back her bloom, and you do actually see it happen before your very eyes in this film! At least I think so. She has very expressive eyes always, but by the end she really looks very pretty (especially in those lovely becoming dove- blue and dove-pink outfits she has at Bath)


> ... I did not let that keep me from rooting for her.


haha - pun intended?



> Rebecca--that one made me nervous!! I wanted to wikipedia it so many times to find out how it would end and whether Rebecca was hidden alive in the west wing (like Bertha in _Jane Eyre_, since I was told they were similar). Especially since the movie was three hours long and took me two days to watch it during the kiddos' naps.
> I did really, really like it in the end. It was just a very tense movie. I think I would also read the book someday.


yay, glad you enjoyed it! It sure is a tense movie and very close to the book. Except they toned it down a bit I think. Did he kill her or didn't he? I know in the book he did, but I had a feeling the movie fixed it somehow so he didn't, quite


> Any other BBC movie recommendations? I love Masterpiece Theatre.


_The Forsyte Saga_ is pretty fun, especially the old BBC 60's serial version if you can get it. 
It's very long too, it would really last you...


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## Laura

he beholds said:


> I just watched the BBC Amanda Root version of _Persuasion_ last week. I liked it a lot, but never read the book, so I am not the best judge. I hate to admit it, though, but in some scenes she was just so average, or even boyish (yet old)-looking, that I had a hard time fully embracing her. I know this is just my sinful Hollywood-twisted mind and I did not let that keep me from rooting for her. I am sure that the point of the book was that she was unattractive--and how old was she supposed to be?



One of the biggest reasons this is my favorite of Austen's novels is because it starts out so tragic, and gradually your hopes are raised as you see the hero and heroine meeting over and over again, and just maybe it will work out... and as Jenny said, her faded looks in the beginning are emphasized in the book, and let's be honest, that's an important consideration when you're in your twenties and hoping not to be left an old maid. You certainly don't want to look like one while you're still eligible. So it's another happy part of the resolution.


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## he beholds

*SPOILERS, perhaps*



JennyG said:


> he beholds said:
> 
> 
> 
> I just watched the BBC Amanda Root version of _Persuasion_ last week. I liked it a lot, but never read the book, so I am not the best judge. I hate to admit it, though, but in some scenes she was just so average, or even boyish (yet old)-looking, that I had a hard time fully embracing her.
> 
> 
> 
> the very first time I saw it, that's exactly what I said too -"no way, she's far too average and old-looking to be Anne Eliot!" (of course you do have to realise that the character actually IS ancient. She's 27 - which is obviously _well_ over the hill...) but then I realised that's the beauty and subtlety of it. Anne is prematurely aged at the beginning of the novel by all her grief over her lost love, - but gradually she wins back her bloom, and you do actually see it happen before your very eyes in this film! At least I think so. She has very expressive eyes always, but by the end she really looks very pretty (especially in those lovely becoming dove- blue and dove-pink outfits she has at Bath)
> 
> 
> 
> ... I did not let that keep me from rooting for her.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> haha - pun intended?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Rebecca--that one made me nervous!! I wanted to wikipedia it so many times to find out how it would end and whether Rebecca was hidden alive in the west wing (like Bertha in _Jane Eyre_, since I was told they were similar). Especially since the movie was three hours long and took me two days to watch it during the kiddos' naps.
> I did really, really like it in the end. It was just a very tense movie. I think I would also read the book someday.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> yay, glad you enjoyed it! It sure is a tense movie and very close to the book. Except they toned it down a bit I think. Did he kill her or didn't he? I know in the book he did, but I had a feeling the movie fixed it somehow so he didn't, quite
> 
> 
> 
> Any other BBC movie recommendations? I love Masterpiece Theatre.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> _The Forsyte Saga_ is pretty fun, especially the old BBC 60's serial version if you can get it.
> It's very long too, it would really last you...
Click to expand...

Well, not to keep on being petty, but she definitely looked older than 27! I am 28 and feel like she looks older than me and my friends. But I do think that adds to the story, since then 27 was older than now, if that makes sense. I do think the movie did a poor job of showing her grief in the beginning. I was pretty sure that her lost love was--I forget his name--but it took me a few run-ins to see that for sure it was he. I don't know if maybe I missed the first minutes of the movie or they wanted to let you figure it out slowly. I wondered if in the book you know right away who it was that she loved and lost. 

Pun WAS intended...glad you got it!

Re: Rebecca. He did kill her, but she had cancer (unbeknownst to him) and only had a few months to live--was that true to the book? He didn't kill her knowing that she was going to die, but it maybe made him appear slightly less the murderer. 

I will check netflix for _Forsyte Saga_--thanks!


Laura said:


> One of the biggest reasons this is my favorite of Austen's novels is because it starts out so tragic, and gradually your hopes are raised as you see the hero and heroine meeting over and over again, and just maybe it will work out... and as Jenny said, her faded looks in the beginning are emphasized in the book, and let's be honest, that's an important consideration when you're in your twenties and hoping not to be left an old maid. You certainly don't want to look like one while you're still eligible. So it's another happy part of the resolution.


Very good point! And I knew (or assumed) why she was plain, but I still would have imagined her slightly different had I been reading.


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## Jennie

_Jane Eyre has been my favorite book since I first read it back in 1962. However, I didn't like Mr. Rochester and I had to become an adult before I realized why: he was a weak, immoral man who lacked the goodness and solid character of Jane. Why on earth did she love that guy? He wasn't worthy of her.

Jane Austen absolutely bores me to tears. However, I love Merchant-Ivory films which I think have an Austenish touch to them. 

If anyone is looking for an absolutely hilarious book guaranteed to make you laugh, try Penrod by Booth Tarkington. It's the story of an 11-year-old boy, but it can only be appreciated by an adult._


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## a mere housewife

Laura said:


> he beholds said:
> 
> 
> 
> I just watched the BBC Amanda Root version of _Persuasion_ last week. I liked it a lot, but never read the book, so I am not the best judge. I hate to admit it, though, but in some scenes she was just so average, or even boyish (yet old)-looking, that I had a hard time fully embracing her. I know this is just my sinful Hollywood-twisted mind and I did not let that keep me from rooting for her. I am sure that the point of the book was that she was unattractive--and how old was she supposed to be?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> One of the biggest reasons this is my favorite of Austen's novels is because it starts out so tragic, and gradually your hopes are raised as you see the hero and heroine meeting over and over again, and just maybe it will work out... and as Jenny said, her faded looks in the beginning are emphasized in the book, and let's be honest, that's an important consideration when you're in your twenties and hoping not to be left an old maid. You certainly don't want to look like one while you're still eligible. So it's another happy part of the resolution.
Click to expand...


Laura, hope is definitely a sort of low throbbing note around which the whole story builds and falls and builds again -- until it is marvelously swept up as the theme: I think this book reads more like a piece of music than anything else Austen wrote, especially in several scenes with several layers of atmosphere (Anne's thoughts, people's motions, conversations, rain, the intensity of emotion, etc). 

It is also my favorite Austen work because Anne Eliot is my favorite literary heroine: she is patient, and self forgetful, and hopeful, and unwavering even through fluctuations of hope and natural timidity, in her own purpose of clinging to what is good and rejecting the false, and is I think, utterly beautiful.


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## he beholds

a mere housewife said:


> Laura, hope is definitely a sort of low throbbing note around which the whole story builds and falls and builds again -- until it is marvelously swept up as the theme: I think this book reads more like a piece of music than anything else Austen wrote, especially in several scenes with several layers of atmosphere (Anne's thoughts, people's motions, conversations, rain, the intensity of emotion, etc).
> 
> It is also my favorite Austen work because Anne Eliot is my favorite literary heroine: she is patient, and self forgetful, and hopeful, and unwavering even through fluctuations of hope and natural timidity, in her own purpose of clinging to what is good and rejecting the false, and is I think, utterly beautiful.



That description makes me definitely want to read it. I think I may even have it somewhere!


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## JennyG

Jennie said:


> _Jane Eyre has been my favorite book since I first read it back in 1962. However, I didn't like Mr. Rochester and I had to become an adult before I realized why: he was a weak, immoral man who lacked the goodness and solid character of Jane. Why on earth did she love that guy? He wasn't worthy of her.
> _


_
I think the Brontes just couldn't resist a dark brooding hero with a Past - all except Anne, who had really taken on board the lesson of her brother's life and death. If she hadn't, I suppose Arthur Huntingdon in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall would be another Rochester/Heathcliff and Helen would have loved him to the bitter end! As it was, the third Bronte rose triumphantly above the family weakness, and her heroine saw through the louse.
I think there may be a BBC version of The Tenant too, but I have no idea what it's like. The book is a good read_


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## Knight

I didn't like _Emma_, _Sense and Sensibility_, or _Mansfield Park_, and I've not yet read _Persuasion _or _Northanger Abbey_. 

_Pride and Prejudice,_ however, is one of my favorite books, and A&E's movie rendition of P&P blows away the BBC and American ones. The first half of the book is particularly excellent. I'm a little prejudiced against liking the second half, probably because my introduction to P&P came in 12th grade Humanities: the combination of what seemed at the time to be an emasculation of Mr. Darcy with many weeping girls made the second half... barely tolerable


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## a mere housewife

Ryan, I'm a little amused that you thought Mr. Darcy's becoming more courteous was an 'emasculation' -- I've always demurred from thinking of arrogance, rudeness, etc., as typically 'male'  (Or was it the weeping girls who emasculated Mr. Darcy? If so, I apologise for our lachrymose sex.)

I'm guessing based on your previous preferences, that you will probably not take to _Persuasion_ but may like _Northanger Abbey_.


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## Augusta

JennyG said:


> Jennie said:
> 
> 
> 
> _Jane Eyre has been my favorite book since I first read it back in 1962. However, I didn't like Mr. Rochester and I had to become an adult before I realized why: he was a weak, immoral man who lacked the goodness and solid character of Jane. Why on earth did she love that guy? He wasn't worthy of her.
> _
> 
> 
> 
> _
> I think the Brontes just couldn't resist a dark brooding hero with a Past - all except Anne, who had really taken on board the lesson of her brother's life and death. If she hadn't, I suppose Arthur Huntingdon in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall would be another Rochester/Heathcliff and Helen would have loved him to the bitter end! As it was, the third Bronte rose triumphantly above the family weakness, and her heroine saw through the louse.
> I think there may be a BBC version of The Tenant too, but I have no idea what it's like. The book is a good read_
Click to expand...

_

I really liked The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. There was a movie I saw fairly recently, it was ok. They took some liberties, of course, and they ruined the ending. It was the Tara Fitzgerald one. I see that there is another BBC one but it was originally Dutch or something. They have it on Amazon but only for that region, it stars Cathy Murphy. I want to try that one, has anyone seen it?_


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## Knight

a mere housewife said:


> Ryan, I'm a little amused that you thought Mr. Darcy's becoming more courteous was an 'emasculation' -- I've always demurred from thinking of arrogance, rudeness, etc., as typically 'male'  (Or was it the weeping girls who emasculated Mr. Darcy? If so, I apologise for our lachrymose sex.)



Surely "both" can't be the wrong answer  

I wouldn't consider an honest confession of one's scruples to be rude. Perhaps a defect of his was that he imputed such a label to Elizabeth when she refused him. He was already out of his wits by then, though, so it makes sense; he should have just stuck with the banter. 

I tease. But I actually do think that's what's missing from the second half: Mr. Darcy's tameness inhibited the manifestation of Austen's wit that is so clear and enjoyable in the first half.



a mere housewife said:


> I'm guessing based on your previous preferences, that you will probably not take to _Persuasion_ but may like _Northanger Abbey_.



Thanks for the tip.


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## a mere housewife

Ryan, that made me laugh. And it is actually, exactly the assessment I had reading your first post. I thought, 'Aha, here is a man who can appreciate, not so much the fine grammatical structure, the nice manners, the lucid social satire throughout, the toiling of patience through many obstacles to ulterior joy; but the quality of the banter.' 

(I tease 

More seriously, I do think there are at least parts of _Northanger Abbey_ you will like. And I do have to sincerely compliment your taste in televised versions of _Pride and Prejudice_ (none of the others does justice to Austen's wit, which I agree is at its most effervescent display -- yes, probably in the first half of that book).


----------

