Lost In Austen

Tonight Lost In Austen was replayed on Ovation Network.It made me wonder "Do we get lost in Austen or does Austen get lost on us?

We have paired Austen with vampires and zombies. Written sequels to Pride and PRejudce that are saccharine sweet, sultry, or just plain ridiculous (Darcy and Bingley getting it on? Lizzie in love with Charlotte?) We created a romance between Jane and Tom LeFroy because we wanted the woman who wrote great romances to have a great romance herself. But have we lost sight of the real Austen?

I once heard an English professor claim Gatsby from Fitzgerald's classic was gay because he wore a pink suit. I've always hated it when people push 21st century ideas and ideals onto people and books that were of another time. I think we might be doing this to my Regency counterpart and I'll admit that I might be part of the problem.

JA worship runs high, fast and strong, which is part of the problem. People like me not only blog about JA we buy books that relate to her and since have made JA a cash cow. So publishers will print any sort of muckity muck because it will inevitably sell.

Part of this means that we don't read JA anymore. Not the original. Instead we read her with ultraviolent zombie action or read about her characters who have actually lost a bit of themselves. Joan Aiken writes that Lizzie once knew Charlotte in the book Lady Catherine's Necklace. She suggests that they were mere acquaintances and not the close friends that JA had made them in her original book. Another author said Darcy would never friend anyone who was in trade or even slightly removed. Well JA hints that Bingley's wealth comes from trade.

So I think Austen has been lost on us. I think we watch the movies instead of read the books and while I thoroughly enjoy some of the movies it's a shame because Austen was a great writer. She created characters one loves and while there was drama in her novels it is not like the drama people create now. Drama is not rape and murder. It's your sister ruining your family name by eloping. It's the loss of a father and as such the loss of a promised life (entails etc). It is losing the love of your life because he's secretly engaged. In today's standard not drama at all. That's what I love best about JA. They're stories about people....real people and not this jacked up idea of drama and fiction we have today.

So while I wish the world truly was lost in Austen, I fear Austen has been lost on us.

Jane Austen as Eminem

I just read this great article about JA fan fiction in Salon:
http://www.salon.com/books/jane_austen/index.html?story=/books/laura_miller/2010/01/20/jane_austen

And this is my response:
I have read the Jane Austen fan fiction or at least 150 of them. Recently I spent a week trying to discover all the fan fiction that was out there and came up with a list of about 254 books although I'm sure it's not a complete list. Some of the sequels, revisionisms or updates I like. (I'll admit to liking the updates the best especially Melissa Nathan's). I do wonder about the revisionisms. In almost all of them Darcy and Elizabeth still end up together. So why bother to rewrite it in the first place? I have a blog where I pretend to be Austen and write about how she would feel about the fan fiction and sometimes it's a little more about me. (Vain I will admit, but it was an assignment for grad school while getting an MLIS). The updates don't bother me as much because people take Austen's plot and update it, but they at least have to add some new items. I'll admit that I am doing an update of Northanger Abbey, but it's just for kicks. I am a JA fan and one thing I have to admit is I'm tired of the hooplah and people reading the fan fiction and not reading the original JA. Now JA has just become a cash cow and that makes me sad.

Perhaps by writing this blog I am adding to the hooplah. I don't pretend that I am as witting or talented as JA, but I do like her and her books mean a lot to me. So this is my tribute sad or wonderful as it may be.

Burning Secrets

So I now know why my Regency counterpart asked her sister to burn her letters and I can understand why Cassandra did it. I will admit that I have been going through what one may call personal turmoil, but it has made me realize that there are memories and people that one would like to forget and not want anyone else to know about....especially in the area of someone we once loved. Although I can't help but wonder did Jane have some idea that she would become famous? Or did she not want other people in her family circle to know her secrets. I cannot burn or have my sister burn my letters. I can however throw away pictures, gifts, cards and mementos. Although it might actually be more fulfilling to burn them. I could be like Hedda Gabler.....burn little baby, burn. Okay perhaps that's a little drastic and a little scary. But I understand my Regency counterpart better.

Emma, Surely Not

Recently while roaming the blogashpere I stumbled upon a site which asked what would I be like and what question would you ask me if you met me. I was saddened to learn that many of my fans hoped I was just like Emma. Now I love Emma, truly I do, I created her after all, but I do not think I would want to be like Emma. I do not think I would enjoy meddling in everyone's lives so much that some important things had completely passed me by...such as being in love with a man who has been my neighbor for my entire life. Only to realize that I loved him when I thought he loved someone else. Also I am not sure I would be so conscious of class considering that I am not rich. I am a parson's daughter which means Robert Martin would make a wonderful husband for my friend. It is true that it was hard to not be aware of class during the Regency time, but I would not be in the upper echelons like Emma who had a rich father. I am quite sure though that I could be as thoughtless as Emma is at times. That I could and do say things that hurt my friends whether I do it consciously or unconsciously. I will admit that I have let a man or woman who I would like to be in good favour with mold bits of me and make me act in ways that I normally wouldn't. Although I would like to meet the person who has not done that, but perhaps not everyone is as weak as I am occasionally. I could completely see myself not liking Jane Fairfax and referring to her as "elegant" when I am pressed. I will willingly admit that I know many a Jane Fairfax or many a elegant Jane Fairfaxes if you press me. I would and have hidden behind a parasol from people although I believe today we call them umbrellas. I have meddled in people's lives much to their chagrin I am sure. But to not know that I am in love with what some would consider my best friend? That fault, which I feel is Emma's biggest is not one I possess. Yes, Emma is fun. She is spirited and good hearted and many a people would not mind to be like her, but I am not.

So who am I then? Well I would have to say I am most like Anne. I think I hold things together and perhaps I don't really, but I feel like I do. And I feel like I am the middle child who has yet to accomplish much in her life. That does not mean that I never will; it means that for now I am not where I wish to be even though I have done some very worthwhile things. And because of that I often think of Wentworth and his "Tell me not that I am too late." Words I live by. Tell me not that I am too late. Tell me not that this is it. Tell me not that I have lived. Tell me not that there is not more to be had. Tell me not that I have left my mark. Tell me not....tell me not....tell me not. For I will not believe you. I will hunt and I will fight and I will claw my way to what I want because I rarely take the easy path.

Tell me not.....Tell me not....Tell me not.....Tell me not.....

In Love With A Story

Can you actually be in love with a story? Can you love the story of how you and someone met so much that you forget all the horrible stuff because you want the story to be your story? Is it possible to love a story so much, like Pride & Prejudice, that if you met a Darcy in the same way Lizzy met her Darcy and things progressed like the novel would you want that to be your story even if in the end your Darcy wasn't really as great as Lizzy's Darcy? Does any of this make sense or have I truly lost my touch with reality? Do I want a Wentworth so badly that I would take any Wentworth no matter how badly he treats me?

Two Hundred Thirty-Four

I was born. Two hundred thirty-four years ago I entered this world and although I have physically left it I have never really left it. I didn't become popular until my nephew penned a memoir of me and I wasn't a scholarly pursuit until the 1940s and now I am an international superstar. Even though many a college men have not heard of me. So instead of blogging today I am simply going to say: Happy birthday to me.

What Becomes of the Broken Hearted?

Recently I saw a book entitled "Willoughby's Return", which is obviously about Willoughby returning to Marianne's life three years after she marries Colonel Brandon. While I think there are a few mistakes in the plot line (I'm not positive because I have not read the book just the back cover) I think it has some interesting points. What happened to Willoughby? He loses Marianne...does that make him broken hearted? The Emma Thompson version of the movie would have us think that.

What about the others in Austen books that have loved and lost? Does Elizabeth Elliot ever recover from losing Mr. Elliot to her sister Anne and then to Mrs. Clay? Does Henry Crawford recover from losing Fanny? What about his sister, Mary, does she recover from losing Edmund?

There are a great many books that continue the happily ever after that I created, but rarely do we see the other side. There are books that show how Lydia Bennet and Charlotte Lucas fair after their choices, but rarely is the one left behind spoken about.

One could argue that Mary, Henry, Willoughby, and Elizabeth are perhaps not good characters. Perhaps they don't deserve a happy ending, but then we must ask ourselves what about the one who does? I have always loved Colonel Fitzwilliam and while she was at Rosings I thought that he and Elizabeth could make a good match. He is jovial and kind although he might have spoken out of turn. I like him. It is Fitzwilliam that I am interested in. I have read some sequels where he and Georgiana make a match of it, which I like. I have read a sequel where he marries Ann de Bourgh, which I wasn't crazy about. What ending would you give Fitzwilliam? What ending would you give any of the broken hearted in my novels? Who deserves to find love and who doesn't?