Is It All Just a Cinderella Story?

As I'm watching Wives and Daughters I see a little Cinderella involved and as I was thinking about that I saw a little Cinderella in Pride & Prejudice as well. Sense and Sensibility could also be a Cinderella story. So could Jane Eyre and Northanger Abbey and Mansfield Park and Persuasion. Emma is not a Cinderella story. However I started to wonder about our famous romances and our favorite fairy tale. A Cinderella story exists in almost every culture. Similar to the flood story that exists in every culture. Do we love the idea of the underdog, the witty girl, the nice girl, the shy girl, the steady girl getting the great guy so much that we read and write it over and over again? A few days ago I spoke of Thomas Hardy. Now here was a man who did not believe in Cinderella. Wuthering Heights and Bronte definitely not a Cinderella. Anna Karenina and Tolstoy not Cinderella. But how many of our great love stories are Cinderella? Sent me a comment and let me know what your favorite love story is and if it is a Cinderella or if it's not.

Edmund Bertram: What a Twit

So I know I wrote Mansfield Park and I know that Austen scholars say that if you are a true Janenite you love Mansfield Park the best, but seriously I can't stand it. Fanny is such a wonderful person the fact that Edmund doesn't love her right away makes me angry. And as you can see, no one voted for him in the poll. I'm not even sure why Fanny decides to take Edmund in the end anyway. I have just received Amanda Grange's Edmund Bertram's Diary and am intrigued to see if I will have warm and fuzzy feelings about Edmund. I like to see what Grange thinks my heros are thinking and I'd like to see if maybe Edmund was just awed by the newness of Mary Crawford and then realizes that he always loved Fanny. I like to think that's how it should be.

Let's quickly discuss the movie adaptations of Mansfield Park. There's the Frances O'Connor version where Fanny is more like a young me than she is her. Plus there's the lesbian sex scene. Suddenly I see NetFlix getting a huge run on this movie. Then there's the one PBS did with Billie Piper. No offense to Billie, I love her in Dr. Who, but she is not Fanny. She's more Victorian prostitute. Again I see NetFlix having a huge run on this movie. It just seems that people need to spice this movie up. They can't leave the plot. Which makes me think, why did I write it in the first place?

I'll let you know if I have warmer feelings toward Edmund, but I feel like I'll still think he's quite the cold fish. Although it is one of my racier books with all the bed hopping. Suddenly I see amazon.com having a huge run on this book.

An Introduction

Two years ago I dressed up as Jane Austen, the famous Regency author, for a library program. It sort of took off and now I go to high school as Austen and talk about her books and her life. To get me into character for my next round of schools I'm going to pretend to be Jane Austen as she reads the sequels, updates, and revisions to her six famous novels (Pride & Prejudice, Persuasion, Emma, Northanger Abbey, Sense & Sensibility, and Mansfield Park).

There are 100s of these books out there and I've read many of them. People always want to know which they should read and which they should stay away from. Hopefully someone will find this enjoyable.