Fanny Dashwood....Secret Saint

I LOVE Jasper Fforde and he has one of my favorite fan fiction scenes of my work ever. Jurisfiction, or the policing agency that takes care of fictional plots and characters, is based at Norland, the Dashwood home in Sense and Sensibility. The house is huge and not much of the story takes place there. So there is this lovely home with very few inhabitants that lays empty for most of the book. Ergo perfect place for Jurisfiction agents to run in and out of for meetings and such.

In Lost in a Good Book, Thursday Next travels to Norland for her first Jurisfiction meeting and Fanny Dashwood welcomes her to her home. Fanny, who knows Thursday is REAL and not fictional asks how the outside world views Fanny. Fanny claims that she really wanted to keep the Dashwood girls at Norland, but couldn't because the story would never have progressed and thus Colonel Brandon and Marianne would not have gotten together and Edward and Elinor's love would not have been tested and proved so strong.

I LOVE this idea. Not that I think Fanny Dashwood is actually a nice person and would want to keep the Dashwood girls. I love the idea that Fanny would care what the outside world thought of her and that she would try to show she had to kick them out for the good of the story. It's totally how Fanny Dashwood would act if she were real. She'd try to justify her actions. So Fanny blames me, Jane Austen, for making her the bad person. Because it is I who made her kick out the Dashwoods. I resigned Elinor and Marianne and Margaret and Mrs. Dashwood to a small cottage. I also made the story progress. I suppose a fan of Marianne's could argue that had Fanny not kicked them out then Marianne would never have been broken hearted and almost died because she would have never met Willoughby. She could have found a nice man near Norland.

And does Fanny justify hating Lucy Steale because she really wanted Edward and Elinor to get together even though Fanny warns Mrs. Dashwood against a match in the first place? How does Fforde's Fanny justify that? Or if you were Fanny how would you justify warning Mrs. Dashwood that Elinor should stay away from Edward?

For those of you who have not read Fforde, I highly recommend it. If you know your literature you will find great fun in side characters like Heathcliff attending anger management classes and Mrs. Havisham having extreme road rage (of course what woman who always has to wear a huge wedding dress wouldn't have road rage?).

If you could pick one of the villains in my novels and have him justify his or her actions to the public at large (i.e. those of us that are non-fictional) what would he or she say? What would be his or her excuse? Is there ever a time when a villain should be a villain?

Is Fanny secretly a saint because she kept the story going? Or is she too worried about her kind facade that she'll justify anything?

Torn Between Two Sets of Sisters

Last year Masterpiece Theatre remade four Jane Austen novels. They did not redo Pride & Prejudice or Emma. I watched the remakes and found them enjoyable. I actually thought I liked the new Sense & Sensibility better than the Emma Thompson Sense & Sensibility for which she won an Oscar. Then a few days ago Emma's S & S was on and I thought "No, I like this one better."

It's a tough decision. I really liked Hattie Morahan as Elinor and I liked Charity Wakefield as Marianne. I also really liked Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet in the same roles. I found both Edwards to be good and like both Colonel Brandons. So I think that each one has its place. I'm not sure which one I would watch if I just wanted to watch Sense & Sensibility. I can see myself picking the Emma version because it is only around two hours while the Hattie version is four hours. That would obviously play a part in my decision. However I watch the four hour 1971 version of Persuasion because it is my favorite and I watch the 5 hour and 1 minute 1995 version of Pride & Prejudice because it is my favorite.

So I guess I am at an impasse. Occasionally I will watch the Emma version and occasionally I will watch the Hattie version. I have not seen the 1981 version of Sense & Sensibility even though I have it on DVD. I wonder if that will throw another wrench in my plans where I like it just as well as the other two.

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.

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.