Jane vs the World

Sometimes I fancy my life is not so different from Jane Austen's.

She had her flirtations (Tom Lefroy, though there are likely others) and so have I (Matt and Matt).
She settled on a younger man, then changed her mind (Harris Bigg-Wither) and so did I (Darren).
She made her own clothes, and so do I.
The Mysterious Suitor-by-the-Sea, well, nothing can quite match that story.

Cassandra only mentions in her later years that Jane met (and maybe loved?) a charming man in Devonshire who "made it plain he should seek them out again." But he died before he could. Cassandra also burnt half of Jane's letters when her sister died. Any mention of him from Jane's hand is most certainly gone.

You know, I fancy this similarity also because life is just life. She published anonymously and amounted to not very much in the public eye, because they only knew her as "A Lady." She dedicated herself to her family and to the poor, and I find that admirable. She and her sister spent a great deal of time teaching Chawton Village's children how to read and write.

And yet she was sharper and crueler than anyone I know. Puns involving "Rears and Vices." Or perhaps this little piece of work from Persuasion:

The real circumstances of this pathetic piece of family history were, that the Musgroves had had the ill fortune of a very troublesome, hopeless son; and the good fortune to lose him before he reached his twentieth year; that he had been sent to sea because he was stupid and unmanageable on shore; that he had been very little cared for at any time by his family, though quite as much as he deserved; seldom heard of, and scarcely at all regretted, when the intelligence of his death abroad had worked its way to Uppercross, two years before.
He had, in fact, though his sisters were now doing all they could for him, by calling him "poor Richard," been nothing better than a thick-headed, unfeeling, unprofitable Dick Musgrove, who had never done anything to entitle himself to more than the abbreviation of his name, living or dead.

That's about as close as you can get to calling someone an outright Dickhead in Regency England.

Or how about this:

Mrs Hall of Sherborne was brought to bed yesterday of a dead child, some weeks before she expected, ow[e]ing to a fright. I suppose she happened unawares to look at her husband.

Ouch. Cruel indeed.

Even though I feel as though I identify with this woman of two centuries ago, I have a feeling she wouldn't like me. I think she is too shrewd, too sharp, too particular, that I would not be welcomed into her graces easily. Perhaps if I did something kind for her brother.

Hmm. I must remember this once I perfect my time machine. Or steal the TARDIS.

My mind has wandered to another random pondering. Do we fancy ourselves writers for writing on a blog? Everyone has a blog these days. I have more than one. I am not alone in this. Do we really think that we write well enough to spread our thoughts among the masses?

Perhaps that's why I don't openly share this blog on facebook. Hah.

That's all for tonight, before my sickly head explodes. There is no cumulative point expressively laid out in fine poetical American English nor in a proper narrative fashion. Just me, and my strange train of thought.

Good night, fair world.

novel ambitions

So now that I've decided what my life would ideally look like as ordered by MBTI, perhaps I should figure out what the narrative would be for my life as a Jane Austen novel? Too nerdy? Yeah, probably too nerdy. Also, this sort of time consuming activity is best done when I'm not up to my ears in costume design homework.

I have officially tried Easy Mac: the Alfredo edition and I have to say, it's not the worst thing in the world one could eat for a nearly midnight snack. It tastes exactly like regular Easy Mac, but if made with white cheese instead of cheddar. It doesn't really taste much like Alfredo at all.

Jane Austen knew her shit

"The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it."

I'm afraid I will have to agree with our dear friend, Miss Eliza Bennet. I have had a habit as of late to watch documentaries online through Netflix. Food Inc. and Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story are two recent ones. Both of which make the point that corporate CEOs have basically taken over the government. In the realm of fiction, I watched Idiocracy with Darren. I don't even know what to say about that one, it's quite scary how prophetic it could be.

Sometimes it makes me wish that America's economy would just collapse already, like it's been threatening to do. Yeah things would be bad, but then maybe we'd really be free -- without a bureaucracy dangling the keys to the mythical American Dream.

What's that? Not a good idea you say?
Oh, okay then.

I'll just go dig myself into a deeper educational debt hole and wait it out.

Jane Jane Jane

Whether or not you read Jane Austen, this blog post provides an excellent analysis of what has happened to not only the modern novel, but most especially the plight of the modern novel once it reaches "public domain" status. He also makes a point about how Austen's novels (like Pride and Prejudice) have been turned into brands and are enjoyed for the brand status, rather than as an enjoyable story that is written exceedingly well.

But with the possible exception of the New Testament, no other seminal text has been so greedily trawled for evidence of the reader’s own transcendent superiority. Pride and Prejudice is the kind of book certain people make a point of visibly carrying with them in public, exhibiting it like a designer label. Or a weapon.

Seriously, I couldn't have said it better myself. Go read the post. The first half is the analysis, the second half is a summary/commentary on P&P itself.

Bingley bravely urges him on, pointing out that Elizabeth Bennet is both very pretty and at present without a partner. Darcy looks over to where Lizzy is seated, and either not knowing or not caring that she can easily overhear him, declares:

“She is tolerable; but not handsome enough to tempt me; and I am in no humour at present to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men.”

So here’s my message of good will to all those aggrieved single women, smoldering with affronted self-esteem, who go angrily about their lives carrying tote bags that read AN ELIZABETH IN A DARCY-LESS WORLD: Ladies, I can help you! I know for a fact that there are very, very many men who would be only too happy to step reluctantly into your life, offend all your friends en masse, and then insult you in particular. You just say the word, I’ll have a whole rugby team of Darcys at your doorstep.

But then, I’m willing to bet these women meet such men all the time. And I’m guessing that they, like Lizzy, don’t recognize a potential Great Romantic Hero in any of them; or maybe they do, and that’s the point. They don’t want a potential romantic hero; they want one who’s already fully fitted out and ready to drive off the showroom floor. God forbid they should have to do any of the body work themselves. Or that, like Lizzy, they’d have to recognize some of their own failings into the bargain. What, are you fuggin’ kidding me…?

BWAHAHAHAA!! THANK YOU!! Seriously, those types of girls are just as bad, if not worse, then the girls who are obsessed with Twilight and think that is quality literature.

sigh

When my heart is torn and my mind has melted and my spirit has dwindled, there is only one thing to do. Pray. Here is one that Jane Austen wrote:

Father of Heaven! whose goodness has brought us in safety to the close of this day, dispose our hearts in fervent prayer. Another day is now gone, and added to those, for which we were before accountable. Teach us Almighty Father, to consider this solemn truth, as we should do, that we may feel the importance of every day, and every hour as it passes, and earnestly strive to make a better use of what thy goodness may yet bestow on us, than we have done of the time past.

Give us grace to endeavour after a truly Christian spirit to seek to attain that temper of forbearance and patience of which our blessed Saviour has set us the highest example; and which, while it prepares us for the spiritual happiness of the life to come, will secure to us the best enjoyment of what this world can give. Incline us, oh God! to think humbly of ourselves, to be severe only in the examination of our own conduct, to consider our fellow-creatures with kindness, and to judge of all they say and do with that charity which we would desire from them ourselves.

We thank thee with all our hearts for every gracious dispensation, for all the blessings that have attended our lives, for every hour of safety, health and peace, of domestic comfort and innocent enjoyment. We feel that we have been blessed far beyond any thing that we have deserved; and though we cannot but pray for a continuance of all these mercies, we acknowledge our unworthiness of them and implore thee to pardon the presumption of our desires.

Keep us oh! Heavenly Father from evil this night. Bring us in safety to the beginning of another day and grant that we may rise again with every serious and religious feeling which now directs us.

May thy mercy be extended over all mankind, bringing the ignorant to the knowledge of thy truth, awakening the impenitent, touching the hardened. Look with compassion upon the afflicted of every condition, assuage the pangs of disease, comfort the broken in spirit.

More particularly do we pray for the safety and welfare of our own family and friends wheresoever dispersed, beseeching thee to avert from them all material and lasting evil of body or mind; and may we by the assistance of thy Holy Spirit so conduct ourselves on earth as to secure an eternity of happiness with each other in thy heavenly kingdom. Grant this most merciful Father, for the sake of our blessed Saviour.

Let's hear it for the boys!

Here is a lovely article from the New York Times about the gender politics of Jane Austen fans:

...it’s useful to ponder the way our ideas of the masculinity or femininity of works of fiction can change over time. For example, I was surprised to learn a few weeks ago, while researching a story on Jane Austen monster mashups, that until fairly recently the Bardess of Basingstoke was regarded as pretty much for the boys.

“There is a pattern throughout the Victorian period and into the modern era that sees the great English statesmen and literati and gentlemen scholars manifesting their devotion to Austen by reading her novels over and over,” Deidre Lynch, a professor at the University of Toronto who has written extensively on Austen devotees, told me in an e-mail message.

Benjamin Disraeli read “Pride and Prejudice” 17 times, and Matthew Arnold and John Henry Newman read “Mansfield Park” every year. The historian Thomas Babbington Macaulay read Austen obsessively and, as a colonial administrator in India, wrote letters home comparing various colleagues to characters in “Emma” and “Pride and Prejudice.” None of them are known to have covered the books in plain brown paper.

In fact, Lynch points out, the term “Janeite” — today used somewhat derisively to refer to Austen’s besotted female fans — came into usage in the 1890s thanks to men who wore it like a badge of honor. Kipling’s 1923 story “The Janeites” was about a platoon of British soldiers who use Austen talk to distract themselves from the horror of the trenches. And here’s E. M. Forster, coming out as a “Jane Austenite” in 1924:

I am a Jane Austenite, and therefore slightly imbecile about Jane Austen. My fatuous expression, and airs of personal immunity — how ill they sit on the face, say, of a Stevensonian! But Jane Austen is so different. She is my favorite author! I read and reread, the mouth open and the mind closed. Shut up in measureless content, I greet her by the name of most kind hostess, while criticism slumbers.

On the distaff side of the library, women readers were often much less enthusiastic. Charlotte Brönte, Lynch says, bridled when George Henry Lewes (George Eliot’s paramour) kept pushing the novels on her. “Why do you like Miss Austen so very much? I am puzzled on this point.”

The heroine of “Troy Chimneys,” Margaret Kennedy’s 1953 historical novel set in the Regency, offered one possible explanation. When the male hero keeps pressing “Mansfield Park” and “Emma” on a lady he knows, she pushes back, arguing that the books, however entertaining, ended up keeping her, well, in the house. Austen’s “greatest admirers,” she says, “will always be men, I believe. For, when they have had enough of the parlor, they may walk out, you know, and we cannot.”

But by the mid-20th century, Austen had become identified as a women’s author. Lynch points to a 1947 usage cited in the O.E.D. that suggests that the question of the Janeite’s gender was starting to make people nervous:

Men as masculine as Scott and Kipling have been Janeites and have been enthralled by her sly humor and fidelity to reality.

As opposed to the awesome clothes and swoony subplots? Next time I go whaling, I’m taking Jane.

get a clue

Clueless is on TV right now and I feel inspired to post on it.



Clueless is a 1990's modern take on Jane Austen's novel, Emma. Being an avid Jane Austen fan, you would think that upon hearing that Emma was being turned into a story about a snobby girl from Beverly Hills who has a revolving closet and says "like" more an encyclopedia of similes, that I would be completely horrified. Yet, I'm not. In fact, I think that this particular movie adaptation of an Austen novel is probably one of the better ones out there. Why?

What Clueless does that other Jane Austen movie do not always succeed at:

• It does not severely deviate away from the basic plot and characters
• It keeps with the spirit of the story
• It remembers to not take itself too seriously. Jane Austen is FUNNY
• The screenplay is actually well-written
  

I have no idea how accurate this movie is to the experience of a 16-year-old girl from Beverly Hills. To me, this movie seems like an exaggeration of the experience, mostly for humorous purposes. I think the comparison between Cher and Emma works very well though. Emma is a very rich 21-year-old woman who has nothing better to do but meddle in everyone else's business. Similarly, Cher meddles in her friends' and teachers' lives. She is used to getting her way simply because she's got money and cute face, which means people rarely deny her what she wants. Cher and Emma also have a simply character arc where they are humbled by someone pointing out their flaws. That recognition that they aren't perfect and they don't have an answer to everything is what makes their story irresistible, because there are times when you seriously can't stand them at the beginning.

Love Me Dead

Right, so, Elizabeth sent me her critique of my play back. And she had some good things to say and there are some serious holes that I need to deal with.

One of these is the love story. She said that they jump from not in love to in love too quickly and adding in a scene or two would be helpful.

The only problem is that I've been in love a few times. No one has ever loved me back. I don't even know where to start on finding that kind of scene. What happens between knowing you love someone and then knowing the other person loves you too? How do I write something that I've never known before? Jane Austen did it several times, but she left it up to the audience's imagination to decide what was said or not said. And it works because it's a novel, but this is a play.

Yeah, I'm lost.

he can't! he mustn't! he SHAN'T!

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